scholarly journals Public Policies for making the right to life effective: The problem of suicide at ‘Third Bridge'

2020 ◽  
Vol 30 (Supplement_5) ◽  
Author(s):  
A C A Maia ◽  
D C Fabriz ◽  
T A Motta ◽  
V F Zanotelli

Abstract The World Health Organization (WHO) recognizes suicide as a public health priority. According to the same, between 2010 and 2016 the suicide rate in Brazil increased about 7%, in contrast to the world index, wich fell 9,8%. In the state of Espírito Santo - ES (estimated population of 4 million people), the number of suicide events reached 233 in 2018, the highest rate ever recorded by Datasus Mortality Monitoring Panel to the state. Suicides on public venues are noteworthy. According to data from the Rodovia do Sol Concessionaire (Rodosol), in 2018 about 41% of suicides in this state occured in metropolitan region of Vitória (estimated population of 2 million people). In Deputado Darcy Castello de Mendonça bridge, popularly known as Third Bridge, 71 attemps were counted, of wich 7 culminated in suicide. As a point of concern, this bridge, main link between the cities of Vitória and Vila Velha, has a contingency plan for emergency and crisis situations since 2016, in addition to cameras monitored by a prepared team that work together with a firefighter's team allocated near the bridge to intervene at any time of the day. The monitoring of the situation makes it possible to verify that, since 1999, the suicides that have occurred add up to lower rates in relation to the attempts. However, there was an increase of approximately 44% in the number of people who attempted suicide in the period from 2015 to 2018. Knowing that interventions to prevent suicide include reducing access to lethal means, it stands out that in 2019 a plan to build a protection net in Third Bridge was approved by the government. These strategies, combined to provided health care from the State Hospital of Clinical Attention and suicide preventive measures from public healthcare system SUS, are in accordance with Brazilian's public health policies. It is a recognition, by the state, that the life of the individual has a public significance, and should be protected even from the individual itself. Key messages Interventions to prevent suicide must include reducing access to lethal means, that is knowingly a highly effective preventive practice and is responsibility of public policies of a country/state. Knowing that life has a public and political dimension, the suicide barrier implementation is necessary for the State to fulfill its duty to protect the life of the citizen.

Author(s):  
Gehan Gunatilleke

Abstract The freedom of expression is vital to our ability to convey opinions, convictions, and beliefs, and to meaningfully participate in democracy. The state may, however, ‘limit’ the freedom of expression on certain grounds, such as national security, public order, public health, and public morals. Examples from around the world show that the freedom of individuals to express their opinions, convictions, and beliefs is often imperilled when states are not required to meet a substantial justificatory burden when limiting such freedom. This article critiques one of the common justificatory approaches employed in a number of jurisdictions to frame the state’s burden to justify limitations on the freedom of expression—the proportionality test. It presents a case for an alternative approach that builds on the merits and addresses some of the weaknesses of a typical proportionality test. This alternative may be called a ‘duty-based’ justificatory approach because it requires the state to demonstrate—through the presentation of publicly justifiable reasons—that the individual concerned owes others a duty of justice to refrain from the expressive conduct in question. The article explains how this approach is more normatively compelling than a typical proportionality test. It also illustrates how such an approach can better constrain the state’s ability to advance majoritarian interests or offload its positive obligations by limiting the freedom of expression of minorities and dissenting voices.


2020 ◽  
Vol 75 ◽  
pp. 189-204
Author(s):  
Robert Socha

The problems raised in this article focus on the issues related to the solutions adopted by the Polish legislator as to the protection of the state border in the context of an international threat. The author presents the legal conditions related to the probability of temporary reintroduction of border control for persons crossing the state border regarded as an internal border of the European Union in the event of a threat to public health. The background for these considerations are legal regulations concerning the change in the organization of the protection of the state border of the Republic of Poland, as introduced due to the World Health Organization’s announcement of the pandemic caused by the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus leading to the COVID-19 disease.


2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (01) ◽  
pp. 1-7
Author(s):  
Kitty R. Van Teijlingen ◽  
Bhimsen Devkota ◽  
Flora Douglas ◽  
Padam Simkhada ◽  
Edwin R. Van Teijlingen

Across the globe, there can be confusion about the difference between the concepts of health education, health promotion and, often also, public health. This confusion does not limit itself to the individual terms but also to how these terms relate to each other. Some use terms such as health education and health promotion interchangeably; others see them clearly as different concepts. In this theoretical overview paper, we have first of all outlined our understanding of these individual terms. We suggest how the five principles of health promotion as outlined by the World Health Organization (WHO, 1984) fit into Tannahill’s (2009) model of three overlapping areas: (a) health education; (b) prevention of ill health; and (c) health protection. Our schematic overview places health education within health promotion and health promotion itself in the center of the overarching disciplines of education and public health. We hope our representation helps reduce confusion among all those interested in our discipline, including students, educators, journalists, practitioners, policymakers, politicians, and researchers.


Author(s):  
Veljko TURANJANIN ◽  
Darko RADULOVIĆ

Coronavirus (COVID-19) is the newest dangerous contagious disease in the world, emerged at the end of 2019 and the beginning of 2020. World Health Organization at the daily level publishes numbers of infected patients as well as several dead people around the world and in every region particularly. However, public health and criminal law are inevitably linked. National criminal laws in Europe mainly prescribe criminal offences for transmitting a dangerous contagious disease. Numerous states have closed their borders, quarantining their nationals that entering in the state. Strangers cannot enter in European Union. However, many do not abide by the restrictions, and people who have become ill with coronavirus walking the streets and committing a criminal offence. The authors in the work, in the first place, explain the connection between public health and criminal law and then elaborate criminal jurisdictions in Europe.


2001 ◽  
Vol 16 (4) ◽  
pp. 184-191 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alessandro Loretti ◽  
Xavier Leus ◽  
Bart Van Holsteijn

AbstractFor millions of people world-wide, surviving the pressure of extreme events is the predominant objective in daily existence. The distinction between natural and human-induced disasters is becoming more and more blurred. Some countries have known only armed conflict for the last 25 years, and their number is increasing. Recently, humanitarian sources reported 24 ongoing emergencies, each of them involving at least 300,000 people “requiring international assistance to avoid malnutrition or death”. All together, including the countries still only at risk and those emerging from armed conflicts, 73 countries, i.e., almost 1.8 trillion people, were undergoing differing degrees of instability.Instability must be envisioned as a spectrum extending between “Utopia” and “Chaos”. As emergencies bring forward extreme challenges to human life, medical and public health ethics make it imperative for the World Health Organisation (WHO) to be involved. As such, WHO must enhance its presence and effectiveness in its capacity as a universally accepted advocate for public health. Furthermore, as crises become more enmeshed with the legitimacy of the State, and armed conflicts become more directed against countries' social capital, they impinge more on WHO's work, and WHO must reconcile its unique responsibility in the health sector, the humanitarian imperative and the mandate to assist its primary constituents.Health can be viewed as a bridge to peace. The Organization specifically has recognised that disasters can and do affect the achievement of health and health system objectives. Within WHO, the Department of Emergency and Humanitarian Action (EHA) is the instrument for intervention in such situations. The scope of EHA is defined in terms of humanitarian action, emergency preparedness, national capacity building, and advocacy for humanitarian ^principles. The WHO's role is changing from ensuring a two-way flow of information on new scientific developments in public health in the ideal all-stable, all-equitable, well-resourced state, to dealing with sheer survival when the state is shattered or is part of the problem. The WHO poses itself the explicit goals to reduce avoidable loss of life, burden of disease and disability in emergencies and post-crisis transitions, and to ensure that the Humanitarian Health Assistance is in-line with international standards and local priorities and does not compromise future health development. A planning tree is presented.The World Health Organization must improve its own performance. This requires three key pre-conditions: 1) presence, 2) surge capacity, and 3) institutional support, knowledge, and competencies. Thus, in order to be effective, WHO's presence and surge capacity in emergencies must integrate the institutional knowledge, the competencies, and the managerial set-up of the Organization.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paloma Fernandes de Oliveira ◽  
Matheus Gomes Diniz e Silva ◽  
Daniel Rocha Diniz Teles ◽  
Sabrina de Freitas Barros Soares ◽  
Antônio Fernando Soares Menezes Segundo

Introduction: In 2020, the World Health Organization declared the COVID-19 pandemic, which brought an overload on the health system. This also impacted the care of other diseases such as meningitis. Meningitis is classified into infectious and non-infectious meningitis, and its prognosis changes with the etiology. Objective: To assess notifications of meningitis in São Paulo compared to the country before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods: An analytical epidemiological study was carried out, from the DATASUS platform, of meningitis notifications, from 2016 to September 2020 in the state of São Paulo in comparison to the country. Results: In 2020 there was a drop in meningitis notifications in São Paulo regarding the average of cases between 2016-2019, where 1,837 cases were reported in 2020, while the average of 2016-2019 was 6,800 notifications, a decrease of approximately 27%. What was also observed in the country, where in 2020, 4,718 cases were reported compared to the 2016- 2019 average of 16,603 cases, a drop of 28.4%. There was a slight increase in the mortality from meningitis in the state from 6% to 7%. Conclusions: Knowing that there was a significant drop in notifications of cases of meningitis in the state of São Paulo and in the country, we can suspect a correlation with the coronavirus pandemic. Therefore, there are some possibilities for this phenomenon: the population with meningitis, for fear of becoming infected, did not seek health services or the overload of health services to monitor patients with COVID-19 led to underreporting of meningitis cases.


2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (4) ◽  
pp. 24-31
Author(s):  
Jessenia Paredes Bernal

En el ser humano el estado de ánimo puede ser normal, elevado o deprimido, el sujeto pierde la sensación de control sobre su ánimo y experimenta incomodidad general. Cuando estos se agravan se convierten en trastornos del Estado de Animo que se divide en bipolares y depresivos. La depresión es un sentimiento persistente de inutilidad, pérdida de interés por el mundo y falta de esperanza en el futuro, que modifica negativamente la funcionalidad del sujeto en ocasiones llevándolo a tomar decisiones equivocadas como el suicidio. En este estudio se pretendió analizar este trastorno desde los principios de la psicología clínica y de la salud para objetivar la desesperanza, las expectativas negativas con respecto al individuo mismo y a su vida futura en 42 estudiantes de bachillerato. Los resultados obtenidos permitieron observar que si existe una relación entre los trastornos de ánimo y los intentos de suicidio que se detectaron en la escala de evaluación. Como conclusión es necesario recalcar la importancia de la detección temprana de los cambios de estado de ánimo en los adolescentes puede evitar un suicidio la misma que es la segunda causa de muerte, según el informe de la Organización Mundial de la Salud. Abstract In the human being, the state of mind can be normal, elevated or depressed, the subject loses the feeling of control over their mood and experiences general discomfort. When these are aggravated they become disorders of the State of Animo that is divided into bipolar and depressive. Depression is a persistent feeling of uselessness, loss of interest in the world and lack of hope in the future, which negatively modifies the functionality of the subject at times leading him to make wrong decisions such as suicide. In this study, we tried to analyze this disorder from the principles of clinical psychology and health to objectify the hopelessness, the negative expectations regarding the individual himself and his future life in 100 high school students. The results obtained allowed to observe that if there is a relationship between mood disorders and suicide attempts that were detected in the evaluation scale. In conclusion it is necessary to emphasize the importance of early detection of mood swings in adolescents can avoid suicide which is the second cause of death, according to the report of the World Health Organization.


This chapter looks at the state of well-being measurement, as well as measurement’s role in advancing both a well-being agenda and actual well-being outcomes. A shift is underway around the world to define and measure the conditions and outcomes of equitable well-being. From the World Health Organization (WHO) to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), economic and public health leaders are helping to promote an evidence-based understanding of human well-being. Global commissions charged with refining measures of progress have also advocated for the inclusion of well-being indicators. Ultimately, measurement has the potential to motivate and persuade people and institutions to act; it galvanizes people to address well-being across political divides; it helps capture and reflect on differences in well-being between populations, over time, and across places; it can drive narratives and discourse about well-being; and it can be used to establish accountability. The chapter then assesses what makes measures meaningful, how to interpret and use data to drive change, and the next steps for measuring well-being.


2020 ◽  
Vol 31 (4) ◽  
pp. 59-61
Author(s):  
Imran Bari ◽  
Nino Paichadze ◽  
Adnan Hyder

Road traffic injuries (RTIs) continue to emerge as a serious public health issue across the world; according to the World Health Organization, every year, almost 1.35 million individuals lose their lives, and approximately 25 million injuries are caused by road traffic crashes (World Health Organization, 2018). These RTIs are the leading cause of death for children and young adults between 5-29 years of age (World Health Organization, 2018). Under the current situation of COVID-19 pandemic, there have been reports suggesting a profound decline in RTIs because of reduced traffic on the world’s roads (Job, 2020); however, amid this pandemic, some states in the United Sates have proposed controversial road traffic policies that can jeopardize road safety. The Governor of the State of Georgia, the United States, recently, through an executive order, waived the behind-the-wheel road test requirement for novice drivers who had held a driving permit for a year (The State of Georgia Government, 2020). Through this wavier, almost 20,000 teenagers were granted full driving privileges last month (Taylor, 2020). While the decision was made to address the backlog of driving tests created by the COVID-19 pandemic, and also to practice social distancing (Taylor, 2020), many public health experts are now concerned that this decision will have catastrophic consequences on road safety.


Author(s):  
Marcia MARINHO ◽  
Sonia GROISMAN

ABSTRACT The International Conference on Primary Health Care, held in Alma Ata, was one of the most significant public health events in the world, where for the first time the dependency between poverty and health status was discussed and measured. Even after 40 years of its implementation, it continues to influence directly public policies related to the principles of primary care. The aim of the present study was to carry out a review of literature based on PubMed / Medline, Virtual Health Library (BVS / Bireme / WHO-PAHO) and institutional documents of Brazilian Ministry of Health, in order to point out reflections of perceptions about Alma Ata Conference, in Brazilian public policies, tracing an evolutionary profile to the family health strategy and its future perspectives. Although the study found a strong influence of the Alma Ata Conference in Brazilian public health policies it still needs improvement to reach the global goals and objectives agreed by all countries in Alma Ata and reaffirmed in the World Health Organization’s 2030 Sustainability Agenda.


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