Open science initiatives: challenges for public health promotion

2018 ◽  
Vol 34 (3) ◽  
pp. 624-633
Author(s):  
Cheryl Holzmeyer

SummaryWhile academic open access, open data and open science initiatives have proliferated in recent years, facilitating new research resources for health promotion, open initiatives are not one-size-fits-all. Health research particularly illustrates how open initiatives may serve various interests and ends. Open initiatives not only foster new pathways of research access; they also discipline research in new ways, especially when associated with new regimes of research use and peer review, while participating in innovation ecosystems that often perpetuate existing systemic biases toward commercial biomedicine. Currently, many open initiatives are more oriented toward biomedical research paradigms than paradigms associated with public health promotion, such as social determinants of health research. Moreover, open initiatives too often dovetail with, rather than challenge, neoliberal policy paradigms. Such initiatives are unlikely to transform existing health research landscapes and redress health inequities. In this context, attunement to social determinants of health research and community-based local knowledge is vital to orient open initiatives toward public health promotion and health equity. Such an approach calls for discourses, norms and innovation ecosystems that contest neoliberal policy frameworks and foster upstream interventions to promote health, beyond biomedical paradigms. This analysis highlights challenges and possibilities for leveraging open initiatives on behalf of a wider range of health research stakeholders, while emphasizing public health promotion, health equity and social justice as benchmarks of transformation.

Author(s):  
Bo Burström

This commentary refers to the article by Fisher et al on lessons from Australian primary healthcare (PHC), which highlights the role of PHC to reduce non-communicable diseases (NCDs) and promote health equity. This commentary discusses important elements and features when aiming for health equity, including going beyond the healthcare system and focusing on the social determinants of health in public health policies, in PHC and in the healthcare system as a whole, to reduce NCDs. A wider biopsychosocial view on health is needed, recognizing the importance of social determinants of health, and inequalities in health. Public funding and universal access to care are important prerequisites, but regulation is needed to ensure equitable access in practice. An example of a PHC reform in Sweden indicates that introducing market solutions in a publicly funded PHC system may not benefit those with greater needs and may reduce the impact of PHC on population health.


2017 ◽  
Vol 45 (3) ◽  
pp. 392-401
Author(s):  
Maxim Gakh ◽  
Lainie Rutkow

The Health in All Policies (HiAP) approach aims to integrate health into decisions across sectors to address the social determinants of health and enhance health equity. Jurisdictions interested in implementing this approach may seek clarification about how to operationalize it. Public health legal preparedness provides useful lessons for HiAP. While there are important differences between these two areas, there are also critical similarities. These similarities are particularly important because HiAP and public health preparedness are complementary. Law has been essential in advancing public health preparedness by helping to: (1) prioritize planning; (2) allocate responsibility; (3) enhance collaboration and coordination; (4) establish responsive funding; and (5) emphasize the needs of vulnerable populations. Law can be used similarly to advance HiAP.


Author(s):  
Gail Heaberg

Research Matchmaker is a public health innovation that will lead to community centered research focused on social determinants of health. Research Matchmaker has been developed to bring communities, practitioners and researchers together to focus on community determined health needs. The rationale and development process is discussed.


2018 ◽  
Vol 2018 ◽  
pp. 1-7 ◽  
Author(s):  
Angela S. Alberga ◽  
Lindsay McLaren ◽  
Shelly Russell-Mayhew ◽  
Kristin M. von Ranson

Very little attention has been given to unintended consequences of government reporting on obesity. This paper argues that the 2016 Senate report, “Obesity in Canada: A Whole-Of-Society Approach,” exemplifies the systemic public health issue of weight stigma. The purpose of this viewpoint is to critique the approach taken in the Report, by illustrating that it (1) takes a weight-centric approach to health, (2) does not acknowledge important limitations of the definition and measurement of obesity, (3) reifies obesity as a categorical phenomenon that must be prevented, and (4) uses aggressive framing and disrespectful terminology. The Report perpetuates a focus on the individual, thereby failing to recognize the role that governments can play in reducing weight stigma and addressing social determinants of health. If steps are taken to avoid propagating weight stigma, future reports could more constructively address health promotion, equity, and social determinants of health in their policies.


Author(s):  
Jennie Popay

Empowerment features prominently in public health and health promotion policy and practice aimed at improving the social determinants of health that impact communities and groups that are experiencing disadvantage and discrimination. This raises two important questions. How should empowerment be understood from the perspective of health and health equity and how can public health practitioners support empowerment for greater health equity? Many contemporary definitions link empowerment to improvements in individual self-care and/or the adoption of “healthier” lifestyles. In contrast, from a health equity perspective community empowerment is understood as sociopolitical processes that engage with power dynamics and result in people bearing the brunt of social injustice exercising greater collective control over decisions and actions that impact their lives and health. There is growing evidence that increased collective control at the population level is associated with improved social determinants of health and population health outcomes. But alongside this, there is also evidence that many contemporary community interventions are not “empowering” for the people targeted and may actually be having negative impacts. To achieve more positive outcomes, existing frameworks need to be used to recenter power in the design, implementation, and evaluation of local community initiatives in the health field. In addition, health professionals and agencies must act to remove barriers to the empowerment of disadvantaged communities and groups. They can do this by taking experiential knowledge more seriously, by challenging processes that stigmatize disadvantaged groups, and by developing sustainable spaces for the authentic participation of lay communities of interest and place in decisions that have an impact on their lives.


Author(s):  
Quyen Phan ◽  
Naomi Johnson ◽  
JoAnna Hillman ◽  
Daniel Geller ◽  
Laura P. Kimble ◽  
...  

AbstractObjectiveFor nursing students, competency in population health management involves acquiring knowledge and forming attitudes about the impact of the social determinants of health (SDoH) on health equity. The purpose of this pilot study was to assess nursing students’ knowledge and attitudes about the SDoH and health equity following a focused simulation activity.MethodBaccalaureate nursing students (N=182) participated in a ninety-minute health equity simulation and a post-simulation debrief. Forty-four students (23%) completed a 19-item post-simulation survey.ResultsSixty-four percent of participants reported positive attitude change in working with marginalized populations caused by the SDoH, and 89% reported being knowledgeable about the role of the registered nurse in addressing health equity. Seventy-five percent reported enhanced knowledge of the SDoH through the health equity simulation.ConclusionUsing health equity simulation may be effective in enhancing students’ knowledge, as well as their attitudes in caring for the health of marginalized populations by addressing the SDoH.


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