Public Health Policy Actions to Address Health Issues Associated with Drought in a Changing Climate

2020 ◽  
Vol 48 (4) ◽  
pp. 653-663
Author(s):  
Rachel E. Lookadoo ◽  
Jesse E. Bell
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Climate Change ◽  
Health Systems ◽  
The United States ◽  
Health Issues ◽  
Policy Action ◽  
Public Health Systems ◽  
Local Risk ◽  
State And Local ◽  
Public Health Strategies

Over the last century, droughts have caused more deaths internationally than any other weather- or climate-related disaster. Like other natural disasters, droughts cause significant changes in the environment that can lead to negative health outcomes. As droughts are becoming more frequent and intense with climate change, public health systems need to address impacts associated with these events. Partnering with federal and local entities, we evaluated the state of knowledge of drought and health in the United States through a National Drought and Public Health Summit and a series of subsequent regional workshops. The intended outcome was to develop public health strategies for implementing activities to better support and prepare public health systems for future droughts. The information gathered from this work identified multiple policy and law options to address the public health issues associated with drought. These policy recommendations include the use of public health emergency declarations for drought events, increased usage of preparedness evaluations for drought emergencies, and engagement of drought and climate experts in state and local risk assessments. As drought events are projected to increase in frequency and magnitude with climate change, taking policy action now will help decrease the health impacts of drought and save lives.

Using the Turning Point Model State Public Health Law

2003 ◽  
Vol 31 (S4) ◽  
pp. 88-89
Author(s):  
Lawrence O. Gostin ◽  
Glen Safford ◽  
Deborah Erickson
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Health Systems ◽  
Turning Point ◽  
Planning Process ◽  
National Level ◽  
Health Law ◽  
Point Model ◽  
Public Health Systems ◽  
State And Local ◽  
Local Levels

The Turning Point Initiative is an initiative for which the Robert Wood Johnson (RWJ) and W.K. Kellogg foundations partnered in order to fund a group of states and a number of communities within each of those states to work through a planning process to look at ways to strengthen their public health systems at the state and local levels. Out of that process, the states and communities would come together at the national level to talk about what they had been learning and what the issues were. There were a number of issues that resonated with all of the states.

scholarly journals 1.E. Workshop: Comparative Public Health: Politics, science, and professionalism

2019 ◽  
Vol 29 (Supplement_4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
United States ◽  
United Kingdom ◽  
Occupational Health ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Health Systems ◽  
Health And Safety ◽  
Occupational Health And Safety ◽  
The United States ◽  
Public Health Systems

Abstract Look around EUPHA, or any other public health conference. Public health is difficult to define, in theory and in practice. Its boundaries are all blurred, whether with medicine, schools, environmental protection or workplace safety inspectorates. Too often, we overstate the similarities between public health systems among countries. Efforts to promote networks, good practice, and even basic coordination have been undermined for decades by misunderstandings born of different educational, organizational, financial and political systems. The lack of comparison, and comparative political analysis in particular, also means that countries can have very similar debates about the proper nature and scope of public health, an about who is to blame for deficiencies, without awareness of when they are distinctive and when they are actually part of larger trends. This project aims to identify and explain variation in the scope and organization of public health systems in selected high-income countries. Based on a formalized comparative historical analysis of Austria, France, Germany, Poland, the United Kingdom and the United States, researchers in the study first mapped the various axes of divergence: workforce composition, organization, levels of government, relationship to medicine, and the extent to which public health encompassed adjacent areas such as environmental health and occupational health and safety. For each country we then followed both case studies (communicable disease control including vaccines, HIV/AIDS, tobacco control, diet and nutrition, occupational health and safety) as well as the legislative history of the public health field in order to identify its changing organization and scope. It then identifies the relative role of historical legacies, changing science, burden of disease and politics in explaining patterns of both divergence and convergence. This workshop presents four country specific case studies (France, Germany, United Kingdom and the United States) that identify the most important forms of variation and the political, scientific and professional drivers of convergence and divergence. Key messages Political organization and scope as images of public health are grossly under-researched and nonexistent in a comparative nature. Understanding the scope and organization of public health in different countries will permit better lesson-drawing and identification of relevant and effective levers of change.

scholarly journals Climate change projections and public health systems: Building evidence-informed connections

One Health ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 2 ◽  
pp. 152-154 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gillian Fielding ◽  
Michelle McPherson ◽  
Patti Hansen-Ketchum ◽  
Donna MacDougall ◽  
Hugo Beltrami ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Climate Change ◽  
Health Systems ◽  
Climate Change Projections ◽  
Public Health Systems

scholarly journals Preparedness and Emergency Response Research Centers: Using a Public Health Systems Approach to Improve All-Hazards Preparedness and Response

2014 ◽  
Vol 129 (6_suppl4) ◽  
pp. 8-18 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mary Leinhos ◽  
Shoukat H. Qari ◽  
Mildred Williams-Johnson
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Health Systems ◽  
Emergency Response ◽  
Institute Of Medicine ◽  
Research Centers ◽  
Local Public Health ◽  
Public Health Systems ◽  
Systems Research ◽  
New Public Health ◽  
State And Local

In 2008, at the request of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Institute of Medicine (IOM) prepared a report identifying knowledge gaps in public health systems preparedness and emergency response and recommending near-term priority research areas. In accordance with the Pandemic and All-Hazards Preparedness Act mandating new public health systems research for preparedness and emergency response, CDC provided competitive awards establishing nine Preparedness and Emergency Response Research Centers (PERRCs) in accredited U.S. schools of public health. The PERRCs conducted research in four IOM-recommended priority areas: ( 1) enhancing the usefulness of public health preparedness and response (PHPR) training, ( 2) creating and maintaining sustainable preparedness and response systems, ( 3) improving PHPR communications, and ( 4) identifying evaluation criteria and metrics to improve PHPR for all hazards. The PERRCs worked closely with state and local public health, community partners, and advisory committees to produce practice-relevant research findings. PERRC research has generated more than 130 peer-reviewed publications and nearly 80 practice and policy tools and recommendations with the potential to significantly enhance our nation's PHPR to all hazards and that highlight the need for further improvements in public health systems.

scholarly journals Climate change: challenges for public health systems

2020 ◽  
Vol 28 (1) ◽  
pp. 6-9
Author(s):  
Peter Hefele
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Climate Change ◽  
Health Policy ◽  
Health Systems ◽  
Public Health Policy ◽  
Public Health Systems ◽  
Individual Health ◽  
Climate Resilience ◽  
Weather And Climate ◽  
Health Institutions

AbstractThe effects of climate change can already be felt today. It greatly affects individual health and public health systems. Accordingly, it is important not only to reduce greenhouse gases, but also to prepare for the weather and climate change-related consequences, and adapt to them. National and global health institutions have only recently started to analyze and enhance climate resilience through public health policy.

scholarly journals Cracks in the System: The Effects of the Coronavirus Pandemic on Public Health Systems

2020 ◽  
Vol 50 (6-7) ◽  
pp. 455-466 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kate Tulenko ◽  
Dominique Vervoort
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
United States ◽  
Health Systems ◽  
Disease Outbreaks ◽  
State Level ◽  
The United States ◽  
Public Health Services ◽  
Health Security ◽  
Public Health Systems ◽  
The Impact

The novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has rapidly wrought havoc on the world, exposing the gaps in public health systems of countries that were previously considered most prepared for infectious disease outbreaks. Notably, despite being ranked highest on the Global Health Security Index, the United States has been severely hit with nearly two million confirmed cases and one hundred thousand deaths by the end of May 2020. In addition to the public health fragmentation from the federal to the state level and lagging regulations, early reports highlight substantial socioeconomic disparities and health system barriers contributing to the spread and impact of the pandemic in the United States. In this review, we explore the impact of COVID-19 on public health systems by assessing systems through the lens of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Ten Essential Public Health Services. Building on prepandemic and COVID-19 observations and lessons, we propose recommendations moving forward to prepare for future waves and other disease outbreaks.

scholarly journals Ten years since the crises in Syria: lessons for planetary and public health

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 110-111
Author(s):  
P. Lal
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Climate Change ◽  
Food Security ◽  
Climate Variability ◽  
Health Systems ◽  
Environmental Degradation ◽  
Direct Link ◽  
Civil Unrest ◽  
Public Health Systems

Climate scientists have attributed the war in Syria to persistent droughts caused by damming of rivers and growing aridity due to climate change. As result of the war, there has been widespread migration, hunger, malnutrition, and a collapse of public health systems. While many climate researchers question the direct link of climate variability to civil unrest, there is no doubt that mitigating and reversing Syria’s environmental degradation, and reviving food security and public health systems will play an important role in avoiding future unrest in the region.

Can increases in Twitter posts predict increases in cumulative incidence of COVID-19 in the United States? Evidence that social media can inform epidemic surveillance. (Preprint)

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ruoyan Sun ◽  
Henna Budhwani
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
United States ◽  
Cumulative Incidence ◽  
Hot Spots ◽  
Adult Population ◽  
State Level ◽  
The United States ◽  
Education Attainment ◽  
Public Health Systems ◽  
Per Capita

BACKGROUND Though public health systems are responding rapidly to the COVID-19 pandemic, outcomes from publicly available, crowd-sourced big data may assist in helping to identify hot spots, prioritize equipment allocation and staffing, while also informing health policy related to “shelter in place” and social distancing recommendations. OBJECTIVE To assess if the rising state-level prevalence of COVID-19 related posts on Twitter (tweets) is predictive of state-level cumulative COVID-19 incidence after controlling for socio-economic characteristics. METHODS We identified extracted COVID-19 related tweets from January 21st to March 7th (2020) across all 50 states (N = 7,427,057). Tweets were combined with state-level characteristics and confirmed COVID-19 cases to determine the association between public commentary and cumulative incidence. RESULTS The cumulative incidence of COVID-19 cases varied significantly across states. Ratio of tweet increase (p=0.03), number of physicians per 1,000 population (p=0.01), education attainment (p=0.006), income per capita (p = 0.002), and percentage of adult population (p=0.003) were positively associated with cumulative incidence. Ratio of tweet increase was significantly associated with the logarithmic of cumulative incidence (p=0.06) with a coefficient of 0.26. CONCLUSIONS An increase in the prevalence of state-level tweets was predictive of an increase in COVID-19 diagnoses, providing evidence that Twitter can be a valuable surveillance tool for public health.

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