Environmental Health in Latin American Countries

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Luiz Augusto Cassanha Galvao ◽  
Volney Câmara ◽  
Daniel Buss
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Environmental Health ◽  
Latin American ◽  
Biodiversity Loss ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Health Interventions ◽  
Global Changes ◽  
Public Health Interventions ◽  
Environmental Interventions ◽  
Health And Well Being

The relationship between environment and health is part of the history of medicine and has always been important to any study of human health and to public-health interventions. In Latin America many health improvements are related to environmental interventions, such as the provision of better water and sanitation services. Latin America’s development, industrialization, and sweeping urbanization have brought many improvements to the well-being of its populations; they have also inaugurated new societies, with new patterns of consumption. The region’s basic environmental-health interventions have needed to be updated and upgraded to include disciplines such as toxicology, environmental epidemiology, environmental engineering, and many others. Multidisciplinary and inter-sector approaches are paramount to understanding new profiles of health and well-being, and to promoting effective public-health interventions. The new social, economic, labor, and consumption aspects of modern Latin American society have become more and more relevant to understanding the complex interactions in the region’s social, biological, and physical environment, which are essential to explaining some of the emerging and re-emerging public-health problems. Environmental health, as concept and as intervention, is simple and easily understood, but no longer sufficient to achieve the levels of health and well-being expected and required by these new realities. Many global changes such as climate change, biodiversity loss, and mass migrations has been identified as main cause of ill health and are at the center of the sustainable development challenges in general, and many are critical and specific public health. To face this development, other frameworks have emerged, such as planetary health and environmental and social determinants of health. Public health remains central to some, such as the improved environmental-health agenda, while others assign public health a relative position in a variety of overarching frameworks.

scholarly journals From End Treatment to Source Prevention: Socio-Ecological Approaches to Promote Research on the Environment and Non-Communicable Chronic Diseases with Special Reference to China

2019 ◽  
Vol 16 (11) ◽  
pp. 1900
Author(s):  
Xi-Zhang Shan ◽  
Yong Li ◽  
Kun Lai
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Chronic Diseases ◽  
Behavioral Interventions ◽  
Public Health Problem ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Environmental Interventions ◽  
Integrative Research ◽  
Critical Public Health ◽  
Health And Well Being ◽  
Effective Source

Globally, the pandemic of non-communicable chronic diseases (NCDs) has become a critical public health problem. Although NCD prevention has been shifting from individual behavioral interventions to broad environmental interventions, it is still necessary to promote research on the environment and NCDs as a whole. Therefore, this conceptual paper aimed to develop a general and novel framework to advance this line of research. The framework uses socio-ecological approaches that emphasize source prevention rather than the end treatment. Specifically, this framework comprehensively covered integrative research approaches, prioritized areas, urgent efforts, innovative methodologies, and improved funding. The framework used China as a typical context, where its public health policies, similar to other nations, still focus on the end treatment of NCDs, placing emphasis on biomedical approaches and technologies. China’s relevant efforts may furnish new insights and approaches concerning NCD prevention, and these efforts may benefit the improvement of global health and well-being. Such social-ecological research efforts can help to accelerate a shift from existing individual interventions to environmental interventions, thereby ultimately achieving the effective source prevention of NCDs in China and around the globe.

scholarly journals Public health priority setting: A case for priority to the worse off in well-being during the COVID-19 pandemic

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sindre August Horn ◽  
Mathias Barra ◽  
Ole Frithjof Norheim ◽  
Carl Tollef Solberg
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Priority Setting ◽  
Health Benefit ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Health Interventions ◽  
Public Health Interventions ◽  
Information Campaigns ◽  
Public Health Priority ◽  
Health Priority ◽  
Vaccine Distribution

In Norway, priority for health interventions is assigned on the basis of three official criteria: health benefit, resources, and severity. Responses to the COVID-19 pandemic have mainly happened through intersectoral public health efforts such as lockdowns, quarantines, information campaigns, social distancing and, more recently, vaccine distribution. The aim of this article is to evaluate potential priority setting criteria for public health interventions. We argue in favour of the following three criteria for public health priority setting: benefit, resources and improving the well-being of the worse off. We argue that benefits and priority to the worse off may reasonably be understood in terms of individual well-being, rather than only health, for public health priority setting. We argue that lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic support our conclusions. Keywords: COVID-19, Prioritarianism, Priority Setting, Public Health, Severity

Public Health Interventions: Ethical Implications

2019 ◽  
pp. 76-88
Author(s):  
David R. Buchanan
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Educational Interventions ◽  
Health Interventions ◽  
Social Solidarity ◽  
Ethical Challenges ◽  
Individual Liberty ◽  
Public Health Interventions ◽  
Environmental Interventions ◽  
Ethical Implications ◽  
The Individual

Public health interventions present distinct ethical challenges relative to clinical medical interventions, primarily because of their focus on prevention (rather than treatment) and their intended impact on the health of a population as a whole (rather than the individual). Public health interventions can be broadly categorized as falling into two main types: educational and environmental. Educational interventions aim to change individual behaviors, whereas environmental interventions seek to change the social and environmental conditions that encourage, require, or reinforce behaviors that are either beneficial or harmful to health. Public health interventions raise normative concerns with respect to three key ethical principles: the potential for harm (including stigmatization, lost opportunity costs, and threats to autonomy), justice, and social solidarity, particularly with respect to the problem of free riders. The high value placed on individual liberty in the modern era makes the task of asking individuals to give up freedoms to protect and promote population health increasingly difficult.

scholarly journals Individual differences in emotional intelligence skills of people with visual impairment and loneliness amid the COVID-19 pandemic

2021 ◽  
pp. 026461962110138
Author(s):  
Hyung Nam Kim ◽  
Sam Jotham Sutharson
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Emotional Intelligence ◽  
Individual Differences ◽  
Los Angeles ◽  
Visual Impairment ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Health Interventions ◽  
Public Health Interventions ◽  
Convenience Sample ◽  
Mood Scale

In response to the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, public health interventions such as social distancing and stay-at-home orders have widely been implemented, which is anticipated to contribute to reducing the spread of COVID-19. On the contrary, there is a concern that the public health interventions may increase the level of loneliness. Loneliness and social isolation are public health risks, closely associated with serious medical conditions. As COVID-19 is new to us today, little is known about emotional well-being among people with visual impairment during the COVID-19 pandemic. To address the knowledge gap, this study conducted phone interviews with a convenience sample of 31 people with visual impairment. The interview incorporated the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) Loneliness Scale (version 3) and the trait meta-mood scale (TMMS) to measure loneliness and emotional intelligence skills, respectively. This study found that people with visual impairment were vulnerable to the feeling of loneliness during the COVID-19 pandemic and showed individual differences in emotional intelligence skills by different degrees of loneliness. Researchers and health professionals should consider offering adequate coping strategies to those with visual impairment amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

An Overview of Ethics and How Public Health Does Its Work

2019 ◽  
pp. 57-62
Author(s):  
Holly A. Taylor
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Public Health System ◽  
Well Being ◽  
The United States ◽  
Health Interventions ◽  
Health Law ◽  
Health It ◽  
Personal Liberty ◽  
Federal Organizations ◽  
Health And Well Being

Modern public health in the United States is conducted by a network of private, public, local, state, tribal, and federal organizations, agencies, individuals, and communities. The ethical mandate of public health has always been to protect and promote the health and well-being of the population. This chapter introduces the ways in which public health actors work to achieve those goals, and how their efforts can be squared with the quintessential American value of personal liberty, as well as with the increasing recognition of the importance of justice as a foundation for public health. It also provides chapter overviews for the related section of The Oxford Handbook of Public Health Ethics, which includes chapters on the ethics and public health system, public health interventions, and public health law and regulation.

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