Shared values, shared health, shared prosperity

2020 ◽  
pp. 83-98
Author(s):  
Davies and
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Private Sector ◽  
Working Conditions ◽  
Shared Values ◽  
Complex Relationship ◽  
Health Security ◽  
The Past ◽  
Individual Family ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Over Time

This chapter looks at the relationship between commerce and health, some of the choices involved, and the impacts they have on total health. Public health specialists and policymakers have only recently begun to explore the complex relationship between commerce and health, what it has been in the past, what it is now, and importantly what it could look like as we re-build society post COVID-19. The role that work and employers play in our individual, family, and collective health, security, and prosperity has developed over time, and the dependence of companies on the health of their workforce, and their vulnerability when employees are ill, has changed too. The private sector can contribute to health in its immediate community, and nationally through the products it promotes, the working conditions for its employees, and the causes it supports.

scholarly journals Quantifying the relationship between lockdowns, mobility, and effective reproduction number (Rt) during the COVID-19 pandemic in the Greater Toronto Area

2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher Dainton ◽  
Alexander Hay
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Secular Trend ◽  
Reproduction Number ◽  
Time Lag ◽  
Correlation Coefficients ◽  
Greater Toronto Area ◽  
Global Mobility ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Second Wave ◽  
Over Time

Abstract Background The effectiveness of lockdowns in mitigating the spread of COVID-19 has been the subject of intense debate. Data on the relationship between public health restrictions, mobility, and pandemic growth has so far been conflicting. Objective We assessed the relationship between public health restriction tiers, mobility, and COVID-19 spread in five contiguous public health units (PHUs) in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) in Ontario, Canada. Methods Weekly effective reproduction number (Rt) was calculated based on daily cases in each of the five GTA public health units between March 1, 2020, and March 19, 2021. A global mobility index (GMI) for each PHU was calculated using Google Mobility data. Segmented regressions were used to assess changes in the behaviour of Rt over time. We calculated Pearson correlation coefficients between GMI and Rt for each PHU and mobility regression coefficients for each mobility variable, accounting for time lag of 0, 7, and 14 days. Results In all PHUs except Toronto, the most rapid decline in Rt occurred in the first 2 weeks of the first province-wide lockdown, and this was followed by a slight trend to increased Rt as restrictions decreased. This trend reversed in all PHUs between September 6th and October 10th after which Rt decreased slightly over time without respect to public health restriction tier. GMI began to increase in the first wave even before restrictions were decreased. This secular trend to increased mobility continued into the summer, driven by increased mobility to recreational spaces. The decline in GMI as restrictions were reintroduced coincides with decreasing mobility to parks after September. During the first wave, the correlation coefficients between global mobility and Rt were significant (p < 0.01) in all PHUs 14 days after lockdown, indicating moderate to high correlation between decreased mobility and decreased viral reproduction rates, and reflecting that the incubation period brings in a time-lag effect of human mobility on Rt. In the second wave, this relationship was attenuated, and was only significant in Toronto and Durham at 14 days after lockdown. Conclusions The association between mobility and COVID-19 spread was stronger in the first wave than the second wave. Public health restriction tiers did not alter the existing secular trend toward decreasing Rt over time.

scholarly journals Lessons on the Economics of Pandemics from Recent Research

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-7
Author(s):  
Sewon Hur ◽  
Michael Jenuwine
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Economic Crisis ◽  
Economic Activity ◽  
Government Intervention ◽  
Economic Research ◽  
Social Distancing ◽  
The Past ◽  
Containment Measures ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Economic Studies

The spread of the COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in a dual public health and economic crisis. Many economic studies in the past few months have explored the relationship between the spread of disease and economic activity, the role for government intervention in the crisis, and the effectiveness of testing and containment policies. This Commentary summarizes the methods and findings of a number of these studies. The economic research conducted to date shows that adequate testing and selective containment measures can be effective in fighting the COVID-19 pandemic, and in the absence of adequate testing capabilities, optimal interventions involve social distancing and other lockdown measures.

scholarly journals Anger fast and slow: mediations of justice and violence in the age of populism

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 169-185 ◽  
Author(s):  
William Davies
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Political Action ◽  
Political Rhetoric ◽  
Perceived Injustice ◽  
Ideal Types ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Status ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Over Time

The rise of populist political rhetoric and mobilisation, together with a conflict-riven digital public sphere, has generated growing interest in anger as a central emotion in politics. Anger has long been recognised as a powerful driver of political action and resistance, by feminist scholars among others, while political philosophers have reflected on the relationship of anger to ethical judgement since Aristotle. This article seeks to differentiate between two different ideal types of anger, in order to illuminate the status of anger in contemporary populist politics and rhetoric. First, there is anger that arises in an automatic, pre-conscious fashion, as a somatic, reactive and performative way, to an extent that potentially spirals into violence. Second, there is anger that builds up over time in response to perceived injustice, potentially generating melancholia and ressentiment. Borrowing Kahneman’s dualism, the article refers to these as ‘fast’ and ‘slow’ anger, and deploys the distinction to understand how the two interact. In the hands of the demagogue or troll, ‘fast anger’ can be deployed to focus all energies on the present, so as to briefly annihilate the past and the ‘slow anger’ that has been deposited there. And yet only by combining the conscious reflection of memory with the embodied response of action can anger ever be meaningfully sated in politics.

The Changing Nature of Professional Regulation in Canada, 1867–1961

2009 ◽  
Vol 33 (2) ◽  
pp. 217-243 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tracey L. Adams
Keyword(s):  
The State ◽  
State Agencies ◽  
Professional Regulation ◽  
The Past ◽  
State Research ◽  
Growing Body ◽  
Significant Change ◽  
Canadian Provinces ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Over Time

There is a growing body of literature exploring the relationship between regulated professions and the state. Research has shown that the state is the key source of power for professions, and it has suggested that professions may support and assist state agencies and actors in many ways. Although studies have documented changing state-profession relations across region and era and recent research points to significant change in the regulation of some professions in the past decade or two, there remains much that we do not know about the changing nature of professional regulation over time. In this article I examine professional regulation in four Canadian provinces between 1867 and 1961. The findings reveal distinct eras of professional regulation and definite differences in who is regulated and how over time. There are many more regulated professions toward the end of the period, they are more closely regulated by the state, and their relationships to each other are more closely delineated. The implications for our understanding of state-profession relations over time are discussed.

scholarly journals Back to the future: the changing frontiers of nutrition research and its relationship to policy

2011 ◽  
Vol 71 (1) ◽  
pp. 190-197 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter J. Morgan
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Food Security ◽  
Nutritional Deficiencies ◽  
Political Agenda ◽  
Emerging Nations ◽  
The Past ◽  
Nutrition Research ◽  
The Future ◽  
Nutritional Transition ◽  
The Relationship

Seventy years have elapsed since the Nutrition Society was founded and John Boyd Orr became its first Chairman. Over the intervening period, nutrition research has embraced and responded to a wide variety of challenges as the requirements of research have evolved and changed. This paper reflects on some of the major challenges that have influenced nutrition research over the past 70 years and considers where nutrition stands today along with the challenges for the future. In the past, these challenges have included food security and improvements in animal nutrition to enhance production through problems of overnutrition, such as CVD and obesity, as well as the recognition of the importance of early-life nutrition. The challenges for the future include how to translate the increasingly comprehensive and complex understanding of the relationship between nutrition and health, being gained as a result of the genomic revolution, into simple and accessible policy advice. It also includes how we learn more about the ways in which diet can help in the prevention of obesity as well as the ways in which we prevent the rise in complex diseases in emerging nations as they undergo nutritional transition. From this, it is clear that nutrition research has moved a long way from its initial focus on nutritional deficiencies to a subject, which is at the heart of public health consideration. This evolution of nutrition research means that today diet and health are high on the political agenda and that nutrition remains a priority area for research. It has been 70 years since 1941 when the Nutrition Society was established, under its first Chairman, John Boyd Orr. At that time there were many who believed that nutrition research had reached its peak and there was little left to discover. This view stemmed from the fact that most vitamins and minerals had been discovered and that the syndromes associated with nutritional deficiencies in these were largely known. Despite this gloomy prognosis, the intervening 70 years have witnessed a remarkable evolution in nutrition research, which has underpinned key Government policies, ranging from food security right through to public health. This review considers some major developments that have helped to shape nutrition research over the past 70 years and in so doing have changed its frontiers.

scholarly journals Price, quality, and market dynamics of malaria rapid diagnostic tests: analysis of Global Fund 2009–2018 data

2022 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Rachel Wittenauer ◽  
Spike Nowak ◽  
Nick Luter
Keyword(s):  
Product Quality ◽  
Market Share ◽  
Diagnostic Tests ◽  
Global Fund ◽  
Rapid Diagnostic Tests ◽  
Product Type ◽  
Quality Data ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Over Time

Abstract Background Rapid diagnostic tests (RDTs) for malaria are a vital part of global malaria control. Over the past decade, RDT prices have declined, and quality has improved. However, the relationship between price and product quality and their larger implications on the market have yet to be characterized. This analysis used purchase data from the Global Fund together with product quality data from the World Health Organization (WHO) and Foundation for Innovative New Diagnostics (FIND) Malaria RDT Product Testing Programme to understand three unanswered questions: (1) Has the market share by quality of RDTs in the Global Fund’s procurement orders changed over time? (2) What is the relationship between unit price and RDT quality? (3) Has the market for RDTs financed by the Global Fund become more concentrated over time? Methods Data from 10,075 procurement transactions in the Global Fund’s database, which includes year, product, volume, and price, was merged with product quality data from all eight rounds of the WHO-FIND programme, which evaluated 227 unique RDT products. To describe trends in market share by quality level of RDT, descriptive statistics were used to analyse trends in market share from 2009 to 2018. A generalized linear regression model was then applied to characterize the relationship between price and panel detection score (PDS), adjusting for order volume, year purchased, product type, and manufacturer. Third, a Herfindahl–Hirschman Index (HHI) score was calculated to characterize the degree of market concentration. Results Lower-quality RDTs have lost market share between 2009 and 2018, as have the highest-quality RDTs. No statistically significant relationship between price per test and PDS was found when adjusting for order volume, product type, and year of purchase. The HHI was 3,570, indicating a highly concentrated market. Conclusions Advancements in RDT affordability, quality, and access over the past decade risk stagnation if health of the RDT market as a whole is neglected. These results suggest that from 2009 to 2018, this market was highly concentrated and that quality was not a distinguishing feature between RDTs. This information adds to previous reports noting concerns about the long-term sustainability of this market. Further research is needed to understand the causes and implications of these trends.

scholarly journals Financial Assistance for Health Security: Effects of International Financial Assistance on Capacities for Preventing, Detecting, and Responding to Public Health Emergencies

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew R. Boyce ◽  
Mark J. Meyer ◽  
John D. Kraemer ◽  
Rebecca Katz
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Capacity Development ◽  
Financial Assistance ◽  
Security Assessment ◽  
Health Security ◽  
Assessment Scores ◽  
Public Health Emergencies ◽  
Positive Effects ◽  
Distributed Lag ◽  
Over Time

Background: Health security funding is intended to improve capacities for preventing, detecting, and responding to public health emergencies. Recent years have witnessed substantial increases in the amounts of donor financial assistance to health security from countries, philanthropies, and other development partners. To date, no work has examined the effects of assistance on health security capacity development over time. This paper presents an analysis of the time-lagged effects of assistance for health security on levels of capacity. Methods: We collected publicly available health security assessment scores published between 2010 and 2019 and data relating to financial assistance for health security. Using validated methods, we rescaled assessment scores on analogous scales to enable comparison and binned them in quartiles. We then used a distributed lag model in a Bayesian ordinal regression framework to assess the effects of assistance for health security on capacity development over time. Results: Strong evidence exists for associations between financial assistance and select capacities on a variety of lagged time intervals. Financial assistance had positive effects on zoonotic disease capacities in the year it was disbursed, and positive effects on legislation, laboratory, workforce, and risk communication capacities one year after disbursal. Financial assistance had negative effects on laboratory and emergency response capacities two years after it was disbursed. Financial assistance did not have measurable effects on coordination, antimicrobial resistance, food safety, biosafety, surveillance, or response preparedness capacities over the timeframe considered. Conclusions: Financial assistance for health security is associated with positive effects for several core health security capacities. However, for the majority of capacities, levels of funding were not significantly associated with capacity level, though we cannot fully exclude endogeneity. Future work should continue to investigate these relationships in different contexts and examine other factors that may contribute to capacity development.

scholarly journals Why does library holding format really matter for book impact assessment?: Modelling the relationship between citations and altmetrics with print and electronic holdings

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ashraf Maleki
Keyword(s):  
Impact Assessment ◽  
Regression Models ◽  
Weak Correlation ◽  
Follow Up Study ◽  
The Past ◽  
Google Books ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Statistical Results ◽  
Over Time

AbstractScholarly books are important outputs in some fields and their many publishing formats seem to introduce opportunities to scrutinize their impact. As there is a growing interest in the publisher-enforced massive collection of ebooks in libraries in the past decade, this study examined how this influences the relationship that library print holdings (LPH), library electronic holdings (LEH) and total library holdings (TLH) have with other metrics. As a follow up study to a previous research on OCLC library holdings, the relationship between library holdings and twelve other metrics including Scopus Citations, Google Books (GB) Citations, Goodreads engagements, and Altmetric indicators were examined for 119,794 Scopus-indexed book titles across 26 fields. Present study confirms the weak correlation levels observed between TLH and other indicators in previous studies and contributes additional evidence that print holdings can moderately reflect research, educational and online impact of books consistently more efficient than eholdings and total holdings across fields and over time, except for Mendeley for which eholdings slightly prevailed. Regression models indicated that along with other dimensions, Google Books Citations frequently best explained LPH (in 14 out of 26 fields), whereas Goodreads User counts were weak, but the best predictor of both LEH and TLH (in 15 fields out of 26), suggesting significant association of eholdings with online uptake of books. Overall, findings suggest that inclusion of eholdings overrides the more impactful counts of print holdings in Total Library Holdings metric and therefore undermines the statistical results, whilst print holdings has both statistically and theoretically promising underlying assumptions for prediction of impact of books and shows greater promise than the general Library Holding metric for book impact assessment. Thus, there is a need for a distinction between print and electronic holding counts to be made, otherwise total library holding data need to be interpreted with caution.

scholarly journals Community participation and private sector engagement are fundamental to achieving universal health coverage and health security in Africa: reflections from the second Africa health forum

2019 ◽  
Vol 13 (S9) ◽  
Author(s):  
Olushayo Olu ◽  
Pamela Drameh-Avognon ◽  
Emil Asamoah-Odei ◽  
Francis Kasolo ◽  
Thomas Valdez ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Private Sector ◽  
World Health Organization ◽  
Universal Health Coverage ◽  
World Health ◽  
Health Coverage ◽  
Health Security ◽  
Cabo Verde ◽  
Health Organization ◽  
Universal Health

Abstract Background Inadequate access to quality health care services due to weak health systems and recurrent public health emergencies are impediments to the attainment of Universal Health Coverage and health security in Africa. To discuss these challenges and deliberate on plausible solutions, the World Health Organization Regional Office for Africa, in collaboration with the Government of Cabo Verde, convened the second Africa Health Forum in Praia, Cabo Verde on 26–28 March 2019, under the theme Achieving Universal Health Coverage and Health Security: The Africa We Want to See. Methods The Forum was conducted through technical sessions consisting of high-level, moderated panel discussions on specific themes, some of them preceded by keynote addresses. There were booth exhibitions by Member States, World Health Organization and other organizations to facilitate information exchanges. A Communiqué highlighting the recommendations of the Forum was issued during the closing ceremony. More than 750 participants attended. Relevant information from the report of the Forum and notes by the authors were extracted and synthesized into these proceedings. Conclusions The Forum participants agreed that the role of community engagement and participation in the attainment of Universal Health Coverage, health security and ultimately the Sustainable Development Goals cannot be overemphasized. The public sector of Africa alone cannot achieve these three interrelated goals; other partners, such as the private sector, must be engaged. Technological innovations will be a key driver of the attainment of these goals; hence, there is need to harness the comparative advantages that they offer. Attainment of the three goals is also intertwined – achieving one paves the way for achieving the others. Thus, there is need for integrated public health approaches in the planning and implementation of interventions aimed at achieving them. Recommendations To ensure that the recommendations of this Forum are translated into concrete actions in a sustainable manner, we call on African Ministers of Health to ensure their integration into national health sector policies and strategic documents and to provide the necessary leadership required for their implementation. We also call on partners to mainstream these recommendations into their ongoing support to World Health Organization African Member States.

The Perils of Panic

2016 ◽  
Vol 42 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 223-255 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael S. Sinha ◽  
Wendy E. Parmet
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Infectious Disease ◽  
United States ◽  
Global Health ◽  
Emerging Infectious Diseases ◽  
The Past ◽  
Aids Epidemic ◽  
History Of ◽  
Deadly Disease ◽  
The Relationship

This Article explores the connections between emerging infectious diseases, domestic disease panics, global health, and the law by comparing the American response to Ebola to the initial American response to the AIDS epidemic. We demonstrate that in both cases the arrival of a new deadly disease was initially met with fear, stigma and the use of law to “other” those associated with the disease. We begin by reviewing the initial responses to the AIDS epidemic. We then offer a brief history of emerging infectious disease scares over the past few decades, highlighting the problematic rhetoric that paved the way for the Ebola panic. We then review the 2014 Ebola outbreak, noting its similarities and distinctions from the early AIDS epidemic. Finally, we examine United States policies regarding HIV and Ebola in Africa. We conclude with some tentative observations about the relationship between germ panics, law, and public health.

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