Keeping the Focus on Public Health: The Struggles of a Tobacco Prevention Task Force

2003 ◽  
Vol 30 (6) ◽  
pp. 771-788 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jacquie A. Shillis ◽  
Beverly A. Hall ◽  
Gail G. Sneden ◽  
Nell H. Gottlieb
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Task Force ◽  
Tobacco Prevention ◽  
Policy Success ◽  
Public Health Officials ◽  
The Common ◽  
And Control ◽  
Future Program ◽  
Product Sets

This case study examines a nonlegislative task force as it struggled to reach internal consensus despite external-political constraints. The study highlights the convergence of politics and science, revealing complex issues likely to be confronted by advocates and public health officials. Three themes capture participants’experiences: context, sizing up the opportunities and constraints; task force process, tacit strategy to operate outside the political context and play the science card; and aftermath, a glass half full. The task force took advantage of ambiguous parameters, crafting a comprehensive statewide plan to reduce tobacco use and breaking out of the common public health paradigm of allowing budget considerations to drive program design. These internal victories could not sustain a policy success in the legislature. However, the group’s product sets science-based standards for future program development, and the task force’s process provides valuable insights into other states developing tobacco prevention and control policies.

scholarly journals Reflecting on the first two COVID-19 deaths in Uganda: a public health case study

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joseph Kawuki ◽  
Quraish Sserwanja ◽  
Nathan Obore ◽  
Johnson Wang ◽  
Joseph Lau
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Health Center ◽  
Prevention And Control ◽  
Support Staff ◽  
Effective Prevention ◽  
The Public ◽  
First Case ◽  
Health Relevance ◽  
And Control

Abstract Objective: COVID-19 being a rapidly evolving pandemic, early lessons from the first deaths must be learnt to help feed into the public health guidelines. This study, therefore, aims to present the first two deaths due to COVID-19 in Uganda and their public health relevance.Cases: The first case was a 34-year female and support staff at a health center II. She first presented with COVID-19 like symptoms before dying on 21st July 2020. The second case was an 80 years old female, who also presented with COVID-19 like symptoms before dying on 24th July 2020. The postmortem samples of both cases were confirmed positive for COVID-19. Conclusion: This study identifies a need for timely identification and testing of COVID-19 suspects, strengthening of health center capacity, as well as more awareness for effective prevention and control of COVID-19.

scholarly journals The King of Dirt: Public Health and Sanitation in Late Medieval Ghent

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Janna Coomans
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Common Good ◽  
Urban Governance ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Late Medieval ◽  
Urban Sanitation ◽  
Preventative Health ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
The Common

Taking the office of the coninc der ribauden in Ghent as a case-study, this article reconstructs the enforcement of urban sanitation and preventative health practices during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. The coninc managed a wide range of issues perceived as potentially polluting, damaging or threateningto health. Banning waste and chasing pigs as well as prostitutes off the streets, the office implemented a governmental vision on communal well-being. Health interests, as part of a broader pursuit of the common good, therefore played an important yet hitherto largely overlooked role in medieval urban governance.

Legionnaires’ disease

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nick Phin ◽  
Falguni Naik ◽  
Elaine Stanford ◽  
Sam Ghebrehewet
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Health Management ◽  
Severe Pneumonia ◽  
Background Information ◽  
Source Of Infection ◽  
Salient Points ◽  
Legionnaires Disease ◽  
And Control ◽  
Typical Scenario

This chapter describes Legionnaires’ disease and its importance as a preventable cause of severe pneumonia—one that mainly affects older people and has a high mortality rate. The background information and epidemiology of Legionnaires’ disease describe the salient points succinctly. The approach to surveillance and public health management is described in detail, as, unlike many infectious diseases, the source of infection is in the environment and infection is not spread from person to person. A case study is used to describe a typical scenario, the principles used in the investigation, as well as the management and control of such incidents. Top tips are provided to reinforce key and essential activities.

Mathematical models of transmission and control of infectious agents

2021 ◽  
pp. 241-258
Author(s):  
Alex Welte ◽  
Cari van Schalkwyk
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Mathematical Modelling ◽  
Mathematical Models ◽  
Statistical Modelling ◽  
Model Construction ◽  
Primary Data ◽  
Infectious Agents ◽  
The Common ◽  
And Control ◽  
Epidemiological Situation

Indeed, the ‘heavy lifting’ of healthcare is in the care of patients, the development and distribution of vaccines, drugs and devices, and the conception and implementation of sensible systems and policies. However, in recent decades, spectacular increases in the availability of computational capacity have paved the way for mathematical modelling to play an ever-increasing role in many aspects of public health, by supporting formal analyses at various scales of the processes involved. This chapter explores a particular kind of ‘modelling’—and it is not the common (bio)statistical kind. We focus on what we would call ‘dynamical’ modelling (as opposed to ‘statistical’ modelling). This essentially entails the reduction, to mathematics, of key facts and principles inherent in the ‘processes’ or ‘mechanisms’ in an epidemiological situation. We can then manipulate these mathematical constructs, in search of insights that, while ultimately implied in the model construction, are not superficially apparent from our primary data and our intuition.

Acute Enteric Disease Outbreaks

2019 ◽  
pp. 421-436
Author(s):  
Ian T. Williams ◽  
Laura Whitlock ◽  
Matthew E. Wise
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Disease Outbreaks ◽  
The United States ◽  
Foodborne Illness ◽  
The Public ◽  
Enteric Diseases ◽  
Health Community ◽  
Public Health Officials ◽  
And Control ◽  
Investigation Process

Public health officials investigate outbreaks to control them, to prevent additional illnesses, and to learn how to prevent similar outbreaks in the future. The process the public health community uses to detect, investigate, and control enteric (intestinal) disease outbreaks from food, water, and other sources involves certain procedural steps. These include detecting a possible outbreak, defining and finding cases, generating hypotheses about likely sources, testing the hypotheses and evaluating evidence, finding contamination sources, controlling the outbreak, and determining when the outbreak is over. Investigating outbreaks of acute enteric diseases can be a dynamic and complex undertaking involving multiple public health and regulatory partners in different jurisdictions. This chapter provides an overview of the investigation process with an emphasis on multijurisdictional foodborne illness investigations in the United States.

scholarly journals The pandemic of social media panic travels faster than the COVID-19 outbreak

2020 ◽  
Vol 27 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Anneliese Depoux ◽  
Sam Martin ◽  
Emilie Karafillakis ◽  
Raman Preet ◽  
Annelies Wilder-Smith ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Social Media ◽  
Real Time ◽  
Control Measures ◽  
Public Health Officials ◽  
The Creation ◽  
And Control

We need to rapidly detect and respond to public rumours, perceptions, attitudes and behaviours around COVID-19 and control measures. The creation of an interactive platform and dashboard to provide real-time alerts of rumours and concerns about coronavirus spreading globally would enable public health officials and relevant stakeholders to respond rapidly with a proactive and engaging narrative that can mitigate misinformation.

scholarly journals Dengue and Dengue Hemorrhagic Fever

1998 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 480-496 ◽  
Author(s):  
Duane J. Gubler
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Dengue Fever ◽  
Dengue Hemorrhagic Fever ◽  
Prevention And Control ◽  
Hemorrhagic Fever ◽  
Geographic Region ◽  
Control Programs ◽  
The Past ◽  
Public Health Officials ◽  
And Control

SUMMARY Dengue fever, a very old disease, has reemerged in the past 20 years with an expanded geographic distribution of both the viruses and the mosquito vectors, increased epidemic activity, the development of hyperendemicity (the cocirculation of multiple serotypes), and the emergence of dengue hemorrhagic fever in new geographic regions. In 1998 this mosquito-borne disease is the most important tropical infectious disease after malaria, with an estimated 100 million cases of dengue fever, 500,000 cases of dengue hemorrhagic fever, and 25,000 deaths annually. The reasons for this resurgence and emergence of dengue hemorrhagic fever in the waning years of the 20th century are complex and not fully understood, but demographic, societal, and public health infrastructure changes in the past 30 years have contributed greatly. This paper reviews the changing epidemiology of dengue and dengue hemorrhagic fever by geographic region, the natural history and transmission cycles, clinical diagnosis of both dengue fever and dengue hemorrhagic fever, serologic and virologic laboratory diagnoses, pathogenesis, surveillance, prevention, and control. A major challenge for public health officials in all tropical areas of the world is to devleop and implement sustainable prevention and control programs that will reverse the trend of emergent dengue hemorrhagic fever.

scholarly journals The correct secret

Focaal ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 2016 (75) ◽  
pp. 45-58 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katherine A. Mason
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Crucial Role ◽  
Common Good ◽  
Disease Incidence ◽  
Local Public Health ◽  
The Public ◽  
Incidence Data ◽  
Public Health Officials ◽  
Local Officials ◽  
The Common

In this article I argue that the global biosecurity project that arose out of the events of the SARS epidemic of 2003 created a new balance of secrecy and transparency within the public health arm of the Chinese state. In an effort to meet national and international demands for greater transparency in support of a “common good,” local public health officials engaged in what I call hypertransparency. This hypertransparency took two forms: the real-time online sharing of disease incidence data within the public health bureaucracy, and the over-performance of disease fighting strategies in front of a wider local and global public. Because local Chinese officials interpreted the “common good” differently from their international partners, neither of these efforts succeeded in erasing the crucial role that local officials continued to play in determining what should and should not be shared, and with whom. Secrecy continued to be an important component of China’s securitization efforts, with hypertransparency ultimately concealing more than it revealed.

scholarly journals “The Most Disastrous and Fatal Epidemic”

2021 ◽  
pp. 003335492110003
Author(s):  
E. Thomas Ewing
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Respiratory Diseases ◽  
Historical Perspective ◽  
Influenza Pandemic ◽  
The United States ◽  
Disease Outbreak ◽  
Mortality Statistics ◽  
Public Health Officials ◽  
State Board

During the Russian influenza pandemic, which reached the United States in late 1889, US public health officials attempted to document the number of deaths associated with this disease outbreak. A historical perspective illuminates the complex categories used to classify deaths from influenza-associated diseases; substantial changes in weekly, monthly, and yearly death totals; and thoughtful efforts by health officials to measure the epidemic as it happened. The 1114 influenza deaths reported by the Connecticut State Board of Health in the 3 years after the January 1890 outbreak must be supplemented by the notable increases in the number of deaths from respiratory diseases, which elevates the likely toll to more than 7000 deaths during the epidemic. Whereas historians of public health have primarily examined efforts to control communicable diseases, this case study of mortality statistics reported by town officials and analyzed by the Connecticut State Board of Health demonstrates how officers of the local boards of health also responded to unexpected outbreaks of a familiar disease such as influenza. Understanding how organizations measured influenza-associated mortality illustrates an important stage in the development of American public health and also makes an important contribution to studying pandemics in history.

scholarly journals Dengue- aetiology and treatment

2017 ◽  
Vol 5 (01) ◽  
Author(s):  
Pushkar Singh Rawat ◽  
Kajal Patel ◽  
Sneha Srivastava ◽  
Sudhir Mehrotra
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Dengue Fever ◽  
Dengue Hemorrhagic Fever ◽  
Prevention And Control ◽  
Hemorrhagic Fever ◽  
Geographic Region ◽  
Control Programme ◽  
Control Programs ◽  
Public Health Officials ◽  
And Control

Dengue fever, a very old disease, has re-emerged during past 20 years besides, an expanded geographic distribution of both the viruses and the mosquito vectors. With increased epidemic activity, the development of hyperendemicity (the co-circulation of multiple serotypes), and the emergence of dengue hemorrhagic fever in new geographic regions. In 1998 this mosquito-borne disease was the most important tropical infectious disease after malaria, with an estimated 100 million cases of dengue fever, 500,000 cases of dengue hemorrhagic fever, and 25,000 deaths annually. The reasons for this resurgence and emergence of dengue hemorrhagic fever in 21st century are complex and not fully understood, but demographic, societal, and public health infrastructure changes in the past 30 years have contributed greatly. Based on the data of National Vector Borne Disease Control Programme (NVBDCP), the number of cases reported in 2016 in India was about 1,11,880 for dengue with 227 deaths1. This paper reviews the changing epidemiology of dengue and dengue hemorrhagic fever by geographic region, the natural history and transmission cycles, clinical diagnosis of both dengue fever and dengue hemorrhagic fever, serologic and virologic laboratory diagnoses, pathogenesis, surveillance, prevention, and control. Major challenges for public health officials in all tropical areas of the world is to develop and implement sustainable prevention and control programs that will reverse the trend of emergent dengue hemorrhagic fever.

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