Ranking Diseases

2019 ◽  
pp. 84-108
Author(s):  
Rachel Kahn Best

From the 1960s to the present, advocates have introduced various criteria to highlight their diseases’ impacts, from mortality to health spending. These competing claims encouraged policymakers to seek formal ways to rank and compare diseases, creating pressure to standardize the National Institutes of Health (NIH) budget across disease categories. NIH officials worried that the pursuit of narrow, disease-specific goals would funnel resources away from basic science and untargeted research. But while the proportion of the NIH budget targeting these goals declined slightly, the overall amounts increased dramatically, suggesting that specialized campaigns do not draw resources away from broader goals. The push for disease data did change how the government distributes money, bringing the funding distribution more in line with mortality rates. The effects of advocacy go beyond securing funding or passing favorable laws; advocacy also changes how policymakers define issues and judge policies, with concrete effects on funding distributions.

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Amanda Ramos da Cunha ◽  
Alessandro Bigoni ◽  
José Leopoldo Ferreira Antunes ◽  
Fernando Neves Hugo

AbstractThis study aims to assess the magnitude and trend of mortality rates due to oral (OC) and oropharyngeal cancer (OPC) in the 133 Intermediate Geographic Regions (IGR) of Brazil between 1996 and 2018 and to analyze its association with sociodemographic variables and provision of health services. It also aims to compare the trend of mortality from neoplasms that have been reported as associated with HPV (OPC) with the trend of neoplasms that have been reported as not associated with HPV (OC). We obtained mortality data from the Mortality Information System in Brazil and analyzed the trends using the Prais-Winsten method. Then, we assessed the relationship between mortality trends and socioeconomic, health spending, and health services provision variables. The median of the annual percent change of the country’s mortality rates was 0.63% for OC and 0.83% for OPC. Trends in mortality in the IGRs correlated significantly with the Human Development Index and government expenditure on ambulatory health care and hospitalizations. Mortality from both types of cancer decreased in those IGR in which the government spent more on health and in the more socioeconomically developed ones. This study found no epidemiological indication that HPV plays the leading etiological factor in OPC in Brazil.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amanda Cunha ◽  
Alessandro Bigoni ◽  
José Antunes ◽  
Fernando Hugo

Abstract Objectives: To assess the magnitude and trend of mortality rates due to oral (OC) and oropharyngeal cancer (OPC) in the 133 Intermediate Geographic Regions (IGR) of Brazil between 1996 and 2018 and to analyze its association with sociodemographic variables and provision of health services. It also aims to compare the trend of mortality from neoplasms that have been reported as associated with HPV (OPC) with the trend of neoplasms that have been reported as not associated with HPV (OC). Methods: We obtained mortality data from the Mortality Information System in Brazil and analyzed the trends using the Prais-Winsten method. Then, we assessed the relationship between mortality trends and socioeconomic, health spending, and health services provision variables. Results: The median of the APC of the country’s mortality rates was 0.63% for OC and 0.83% for OPC. Trends in mortality in the IGRs correlated significantly with the Human Development Index and government expenditure on ambulatory health care and hospitalizations. Conclusions: Mortality from both types of cancer decreased in those IGR in which the government spent more on health and in the more socioeconomically developed ones. This study found no epidemiological evidence that HPV plays the leading etiological factor in OPC in Brazil.


2020 ◽  
Vol 17 (12) ◽  
pp. 1458-1464
Author(s):  
Sweta Kamboj ◽  
Rohit Kamboj ◽  
Shikha Kamboj ◽  
Kumar Guarve ◽  
Rohit Dutt

Background: In the 1960s, the human coronavirus was designated, which is responsible for the upper respiratory tract disease in children. Back in 2003, mainly 5 new coronaviruses were recognized. This study directly pursues to govern knowledge, attitude and practice of viral and droplet infection isolation safeguard among the researchers during the outbreak of the COVID-19. Introduction: Coronavirus is a proteinaceous and infectious pathogen. It is an etiological agent of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) and the Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS). Coronavirus, appeared in China from the seafood and poultry market last year, which has spread in various countries, and has caused several deaths. Methods: The literature data has been taken from different search platforms like PubMed, Science Direct, Embase, Web of Science, who.int portal and complied. Results: Corona virology study will be more advanced and outstanding in recent years. COVID-19 epidemic is a threatening reminder not solely for one country but all over the universe. Conclusion: In this review article, we encapsulated the pathogenesis, geographical spread of coronavirus worldwide, also discussed the perspective of diagnosis, effective treatment, and primary recommendations by the World Health Organization, and guidelines of the government to slow down the impact of the virus are also optimistic, efficacious and obliging for the public health. However, it will take a prolonged time in the future to overcome this epidemic.


Author(s):  
Josefina Vidal M ◽  
Macarena García O ◽  
Pedro Álvarez C

Abstract In the second half of the 1960s, prêt-à-porter (ready-to-wear) fashion was established in Chile. As an alternative to haute couture (high fashion), prêt-à-porter brought an eagerness for modernisation that was reflected in the setting up of a network of women-led boutiques, which developed strongly between 1967 and 1973. This article first examines the precedents that allowed for the creation of a ‘local fashion system’ that promoted collective work around trades such as knitting and dressmaking. It also analyses the arrangement of a circuit of boutiques in the comuna of Providencia, a strategic sector of Santiago de Chile (the capital city) that fostered the dynamics of social gathering. Later, the article describes the profile of the designer-entrepreneurs whose work was attuned to a female consumer segment that aimed to access a new formula of the modernising bourgeoisie. It also reassesses the rise of a movement called Moda Autóctona, which distanced itself from European fashion and was supported by the government during the socialist regime of Salvador Allende. Lastly, it tackles the eventual dismantling of this network of women’s fashion stores as a result of the installation of a military dictatorship in Chile.


2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Archana Shrestha ◽  
Rashmi Maharjan ◽  
Biraj Man Karmacharya ◽  
Swornim Bajracharya ◽  
Niharika Jha ◽  
...  

Abstract Background Cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) are the leading cause of deaths and disability in Nepal. Health systems can improve CVD health outcomes even in resource-limited settings by directing efforts to meet critical system gaps. This study aimed to identify Nepal’s health systems gaps to prevent and manage CVDs. Methods We formed a task force composed of the government and non-government representatives and assessed health system performance across six building blocks: governance, service delivery, human resources, medical products, information system, and financing in terms of equity, access, coverage, efficiency, quality, safety and sustainability. We reviewed 125 national health policies, plans, strategies, guidelines, reports and websites and conducted 52 key informant interviews. We grouped notes from desk review and transcripts’ codes into equity, access, coverage, efficiency, quality, safety and sustainability of the health system. Results National health insurance covers less than 10% of the population; and more than 50% of the health spending is out of pocket. The efficiency of CVDs prevention and management programs in Nepal is affected by the shortage of human resources, weak monitoring and supervision, and inadequate engagement of stakeholders. There are policies and strategies in place to ensure quality of care, however their implementation and supervision is weak. The total budget on health has been increasing over the past five years. However, the funding on CVDs is negligible. Conclusion Governments at the federal, provincial and local levels should prioritize CVDs care and partner with non-government organizations to improve preventive and curative CVDs services.


1994 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 267-272 ◽  
Author(s):  
Harold Varmus

The following is an edited version of the Keynote Speech delivered at the Annual Meeting of the American Society for Cell Biology by Harold Varmus, Director of the National Institutes of Health. The address, entitled Basic Science and the NIH, was given at the opening of the meeting in New Orleans on December 11, 1993. It was Varmus' first public policy talk as NIH Director.


2010 ◽  
Vol 55 (03) ◽  
pp. 419-434 ◽  
Author(s):  
GREGORY C. CHOW

In 1979 the United States and China established normal diplomatic relations, allowing me to visit China and study the Chinese economy. After doing so for 30 years since and advising the government of Taiwan in the 1960s and the 1970s and the government of the People's Republic of China in the 1980s and the 1990s, this is an opportune moment for me to summarize the important lessons I have learned. The lessons will be summarized in four parts: on economic science, on formulating economic policy and providing economic advice, on the special characteristics of the Chinese economy and on the experience of China's economic reform. At the beginning, I should comment on the quality of Chinese official data on which almost all quantitative studies referred to in this article were based. Chow (2006) has presented the view that by and large the official data are useful and fairly accurate. The main justification is that every time I tested an economic hypothesis or estimated an economic relation using the official data the result confirmed the well-established economic theory. It would be a miracle if I had the power to make the Chinese official statisticians fabricate data to support my hypotheses. Even if I had had the power, most of the data had already been published for years before I conceived the ideas of the studies reported in this article.


2021 ◽  
Vol 69 (5. ksz.) ◽  
pp. 184-201
Author(s):  
János Schmehl

During the coronavirus pandemic the Hungarian Prison Service had to introduce measures that were unknown for the service previously and which had a significant impact on the daily duty of the staff. To adapt measures taken by the government for the prison service, the pandemic risks occurring during the special activities had to be modelled. The Operational Body built-up and operated in the Hungarian Prison Service Headquarters took several measures that ensured the framework of rules needed for successful protection. The virus could not enter the Hungarian prisons during the first wave and later on the statistics show more favorable infection and mortality rates among the inmates than in civil life. The current study presents the strategy of defense and the method of central management, as well as provides insight into the background of the decisions made.


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