Public health terminology: Hindrance to a Health in All Policies approach?

2017 ◽  
Vol 46 (1) ◽  
pp. 68-73 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ellen S. Synnevåg ◽  
Roar Amdam ◽  
Elisabeth Fosse
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Systematic Approach ◽  
Local Level ◽  
Health Policies ◽  
Health In All Policies ◽  
Health Work ◽  
Cross Sectional ◽  
Public Health Policies ◽  
National Public Health ◽  
The One

Aim: National public health policies in Norway are based on a Health in All Policies (HiAP) approach. At the local level, this means that public health, as a cross-sectional responsibility, should be implemented in all municipal sectors by integrating public health policies in municipal planning and management systems. The paper investigates these local processes, focusing on the use of public health terminology and how this terminology is translated from national to local contexts. We ask whether the terms ‘public health’ and ‘public health work’ are suitable when implementing an HiAP approach. Methods: A qualitative case study based on analyses of interviews and planning documents was performed in three Norwegian municipalities. Results: The results present dilemmas associated with using public health terminology when implementing an HiAP approach. On the one hand, the terms are experienced as wide, complex, advanced and unnecessary. On the other hand, the terms are experienced as important for a systematic approach towards understanding public health ideology and cross-sectional responsibility. One municipality used alternative terminology. Conclusions: This paper promotes debate about the appropriateness of using the terms ‘public health’ and ‘public health work’ at the local level. It suggests that adaptation is suitable and necessary, unless it compromises knowledge, responsibility and a systematic approach. This study concludes that the use of terminology is a central factor when implementing the Norwegian Public Health Act at the local level.

Epidemiological surveillance and performance assessment: the two roles of health indicators during the COVID-19 pandemic

2021 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 186-203
Author(s):  
Nathan Genicot
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Performance Assessment ◽  
Health Indicators ◽  
Health Policies ◽  
Epidemiological Surveillance ◽  
Public Health Policies ◽  
History Of ◽  
And Performance ◽  
The One ◽  
Massive Development

AbstractThe COVID-19 pandemic has given rise to the massive development and use of health indicators. Drawing on the history of international public health and of the management of infectious disease, this paper attempts to show that the normative power acquired by metrics during the pandemic can be understood in light of two rationales: epidemiological surveillance and performance assessment. On the one hand, indicators are established to evaluate and rank countries’ responses to the outbreak; on the other, the evolution of indicators has a direct influence on the content of public health policies. Although quantitative data are an absolute necessity for coping with such disasters, it is critical to bear in mind the inherent partiality and precarity of the information provided by health indicators. Given the growing importance of normative quantitative devices during the pandemic, and assuming that their influence is unlikely to decrease in the future, they call for close scrutiny.

National public health policies for prevention and care in urinary incontinence in the elderly

1998 ◽  
Vol 16 (S1) ◽  
pp. S71-S73 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hansjoerg Melchior ◽  
Vinod Kumar ◽  
Nancy Muller ◽  
Hanneke van Maanen ◽  
Christine Norton
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Urinary Incontinence ◽  
The Elderly ◽  
Health Policies ◽  
Public Health Policies ◽  
National Public Health

scholarly journals Dietary patterns in the French adult population: a study from the second French national cross-sectional dietary survey (INCA2) (2006–2007)

2016 ◽  
Vol 116 (2) ◽  
pp. 300-315 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. Gazan ◽  
C. Béchaux ◽  
A. Crépet ◽  
V. Sirot ◽  
P. Drouillet-Pinard ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Food Consumption ◽  
Dietary Patterns ◽  
Adult Population ◽  
Health Policies ◽  
Dietary Survey ◽  
Cross Sectional ◽  
Potential Health ◽  
Contaminant Exposure ◽  
Public Health Policies

AbstractIdentification and characterisation of dietary patterns are needed to define public health policies to promote better food behaviours. The aim of this study was to identify the major dietary patterns in the French adult population and to determine their main demographic, socio-economic, nutritional and environmental characteristics. Dietary patterns were defined from food consumption data collected in the second French national cross-sectional dietary survey (2006–2007). Non-negative-matrix factorisation method, followed by a cluster analysis, was implemented to derive the dietary patterns. Logistic regressions were then used to determine their main demographic and socio-economic characteristics. Finally, nutritional profiles and contaminant exposure levels of dietary patterns were compared using ANOVA. Seven dietary patterns, with specific food consumption behaviours, were identified: ‘Small eater’, ‘Health conscious’, ‘Mediterranean’, ‘Sweet and processed’, ‘Traditional’, ‘Snacker’ and ‘Basic consumer’. For instance, the Health-conscious pattern was characterised by a high consumption of low-fat and light products. Individuals belonging to this pattern were likely to be older and to have a better nutritional profile than the overall population, but were more exposed to many contaminants. Conversely, individuals of Snacker pattern were likely to be younger, consumed more highly processed foods, had a nutrient-poor profile but were exposed to a limited number of food contaminants. The study identified main dietary patterns in the French adult population with distinct food behaviours and specific demographic, socio-economic, nutritional and environmental features. Paradoxically, for better dietary patterns, potential health risks cannot be ruled out. Therefore, this study demonstrated the need to conduct a risk–benefit analysis to define efficient public health policies regarding diet.

Interim Evaluation of South Korea’s Response to COVID-19 and Preparation for a Post-COVID-19 World in Public Health

2020 ◽  
Vol 35 (3) ◽  
pp. 169-190
Author(s):  
Youngmee Jee
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Risk Communication ◽  
Legal System ◽  
Success Factors ◽  
Emerging Diseases ◽  
Health Policies ◽  
Private Partnership ◽  
Public Health Policies ◽  
Key Success Factors ◽  
National Public Health

The aims of this study are to describe the key success factors of South Korea’s response to COVID-19 and to prepare for the post-COVID-19 world in public health. The MERS-CoV outbreak in 2015 provided the country with opportunities to enhance its national public health capacity in responding to emerging diseases, particularly in the areas of governance, testing, and tracing strategies, public-private partnership, risk communication, and the legal system supporting the government’s actions. This newly established system played a key role in South Korea’s relatively successful response to COVID-19. In this study, I evaluate that response and propose public health policies with a view to preparing for the post- COVID-19 world.

scholarly journals Revealing the influence of national public health policies for the outbreak of the SARS-CoV-2 epidemic in Wuhan, China through status dynamic modeling

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tianyi Qiu ◽  
Han Xiao
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Real Time ◽  
Dynamic Model ◽  
Health Policies ◽  
Chinese Government ◽  
Wuhan City ◽  
Public Health Policies ◽  
Infected People ◽  
End Point ◽  
National Public Health

SummaryBackgroundThe epidemic caused by SARS-CoV-2 was first reported in Wuhan, China, and now is spreading worldwide. The Chinese government responded to this epidemic with multiple public health policies including locking down the city of Wuhan, establishing multiple temporary hospitals, and prohibiting public gathering events. Here, we constructed a new real-time status dynamic model of SEIO (MH) to reveal the influence of national public health policies and to model the epidemic in Wuhan.MethodsA real-time status dynamic model was proposed to model the population of Wuhan in status Susceptible (S), Exposed (E), Infected with symptoms (I), with Medical care (M), and Out of the system (O) daily. Model parameters were fitted according to the daily report of new infections from Jan. 27th, 2020 to Feb. 2nd, 2020. Using the fitted parameters, the epidemic under different conditions was simulated and compared with the current situation.FindingAccording to our study, the first patient is most likely appeared on Nov. 29th, 2019. There had already been 4,153 infected people and 6,536 exposed ones with the basic reproduction number R0 of 2.65 before lockdown, whereas R0 dropped to 1.98 for the first 30 days after the lockdown. The peak point is Feb. 17th, 2020 with 24,115 infected people and the end point is Jun. 17th, 2020. In total, 77,453 people will be infected. If lockdown imposed 7 days earlier, the total number of infected people would be 21,508, while delaying the lockdown by 1-6 days would expand the infection scale 1.23 to 4.94 times. A delay for 7 days would make the epidemic finally out of control. Doubling the number of beds in hospitals would decrease the total infections by 28%, and further investment in bed numbers would yield a diminishing return. Last, public gathering events that increased the transmission parameter by 5% in one single day would increase 4,243 infected people eventually.InterpretationOur model forecasted that the peak time in Wuhan was Feb. 17th, 2020 and the epidemic in Wuhan is now under control. The outbreak of SARS-CoV-2 is currently a global public health threat for all nations. Multiple countries including South Korea, Japan, Iran, Italy, and the United States are suffering from SARS-CoV-2. Our study, which simulated the epidemic in Wuhan, the first city in the world fighting against SARS-CoV-2, may provide useful guidance for other countries in dealing with similar situations.FundingNational Natural Science Foundation of China (31900483) and Shanghai Sailing program (19YF1441100).Research in contextEvidence before this studyThe epidemic of SARS-CoV-2 has been currently believed to started from Wuhan, China. The Chinese government started to report the data including infected, cured and dead since Jan 20th, 2020. We searched PubMed and preprint archives for articles published up to Feb 28th, 2020, which contained information about the Wuhan outbreak using the terms of “SARS-CoV-2”, “2019-nCoV”, “COVID-19”, “public health policies”, “coronavirus”, “CoV”, “Wuhan”, “transmission model”, etc. And a number of articles were found to forecast the early dynamics of the SARS-CoV-2 epidemic and clinical characteristics of COVID-19. Several of them mentioned the influence of city lockdown, whereas lacked research focused on revealing the impact of public health policies for the outbreak of SARS-CoV-2 through modeling study.Added value of this studyAs the first study systemically analysis the effect of three major public health policies including 1) lockdown of Wuhan City, 2) construction of temporary hospitals and 3) reduction of crowed gathering events in Wuhan city. The results demonstrated the epidemic in Wuhan from the potential first patient to the end point as well as the influence of public health policies are expected to provide useful guidance for other countries in fighting against the epidemic of SRAS-CoV-2.Implications of all the available evidenceAvailable evidence illustrated the human-to-human transmission of SARS-CoV-2, in which the migration of people in China during the epidemic may quickly spread the epidemic to the rest of the nation. These findings also suggested that the lockdown of Wuhan city may slow down the spread of the epidemic in the rest of China.

scholarly journals Decreased prevalence of hypercholesterolaemia and stabilisation of obesity trends in 5-year-old children: possible effects of changed public health policies

2014 ◽  
Vol 170 (2) ◽  
pp. 293-300 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katarina Sedej ◽  
Primož Kotnik ◽  
Magdalena Avbelj Stefanija ◽  
Urh Grošelj ◽  
Andreja Širca Čampa ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Public Health Problem ◽  
Overweight And Obesity ◽  
Health Policies ◽  
Obesity Prevalence ◽  
Cross Sectional ◽  
Public Health Policies ◽  
Logistic Regression Models ◽  
Obesity Trends ◽  
The Impact

BackgroundOverweight/obesity in children is a worldwide public health problem. Together with hypercholesterolaemia they are associated with early atherosclerotic complications.ObjectivesIn this study, we aimed to investigate the anthropometric characteristics and total cholesterol (TC) levels in a population of 5-year-old children, to determine trends in the prevalence of overweight/obesity and hypercholesterolaemia in 5-year-old children over a period of 8 years (2001–2009) and to assess the impact of modified national nutritional guidelines for kindergartens implemented in 2005.DesignCross-sectional studies of overweight/obesity prevalence in the years 2001, 2003–2005 and 2009, and hypercholesterolaemia in years 2001 and 2009, in 5-year-old children.SubjectsAltogether, 12 832 (6308 girls/6524 boys) children were included.MethodsOverweight/obesity was defined by IOTF criteria. Hypercholesterolaemia was defined by TC level >5 mmol/l. Multivariable logistic regression models were used.ResultsNo correlation between BMI values and TC levels was found. Overweight and obesity prevalence were stabilised from 2001 to 2009 (odds ratio (OR) (95% CI): 1.13 (0.99–1.3) and 1.13 (0.89–1.42) respectively). Girls were more frequently overweight/obese than boys (OR (95% CI): 0.71 (0.65–0.79) and 0.75 (0.64–0.89) respectively). Prevalence of hypercholesterolaemia significantly decreased from 2001 to 2009 (OR (95% CI): 0.47 (0.41–0.55)). It was less frequent in boys than in girls (OR (95% CI): O.7 (0.61–0.8)).ConclusionsThis is the first study to describe a negative trend in the prevalence of hypercholesterolaemia in pre-pubertal children. In addition, the prevalence of overweight/obesity in these children has been stabilised. Nationwide changes in public health policies could have influenced these observations.

scholarly journals Prevalence of Physical Activity among Adolescents from 105 Low, Middle, and High-Income Countries

2020 ◽  
Vol 17 (9) ◽  
pp. 3145 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adilson Marques ◽  
Duarte Henriques-Neto ◽  
Miguel Peralta ◽  
João Martins ◽  
Yolanda Demetriou ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Physical Activity ◽  
Physical Inactivity ◽  
Health Policies ◽  
Activity Levels ◽  
Cross Sectional ◽  
Public Health Policies ◽  
Age Related ◽  
Timor Leste ◽  
National Prevalence

Introduction: Physical activity (PA) is a beneficial health behaviour, however most adolescents worldwide are physically inactive. Updated information on the prevalence and trends of PA is important to inform national and international authorities and support countries’ public health policies and actions. This study aimed to present the worldwide, regional, and national prevalence of PA participation according to its frequency in adolescents. Methods: This study is based on cross-sectional surveys of adolescents’ populations from several countries and all regions worldwide. The sample comprised 520,533 adolescents (251,788 boys; 268,745 girls), from 105 countries and regions. Results: Most adolescents engaged in PA up to 3 days/week (57.1%; 95% CI: 56.9; 57.2). The prevalence of engaging in PA every day decreases over the age from 28.2% at age of 11–12 years (95% CI: 27.4; 29.0) to 21.2% at age of 16–17 years (95% CI: 20.3; 22.0) among boys; and from 19.4% (95% CI: 18.5; 20.2) to 11.1% (95% CI: 10.1; 12.0) among girls. For boys and girls who engaged in PA 5-6 days/week, the prevalence increases from countries with the lowest human development index to countries with the highest. Cambodia (7.3%, 95% CI: 3.8; 10.8), Philippines (7.7%, 95% CI: 5.6; 9.7), Sudan (8.8%, 95% CI: 4.7; 12.9), Timor-Leste (8.9%, 95% CI: 5.5; 12.3), and Afghanistan (10.1%, 95% CI: 6.1; 14.1) were the countries with the lowest prevalence of sufficient PA. Conclusions: National, regional, and worldwide data on the prevalence of physical activity in adolescents highlights the importance of improving the global levels of PA, especially in girls. Identifying the factors causing the age-related decrease in physical activity levels will permit public health entities to define priority actions and policies against physical inactivity.

scholarly journals Quality of life of individuals with stroke and their caregivers in a city of Triângulo Mineiro

2014 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 453-464 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mary Lícia de Lima ◽  
Jair Lício Ferreira Santos ◽  
Namie Okino Sawada ◽  
Lívia Aparecida Pereira de Lima
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Quality Of Life ◽  
Negative Impact ◽  
Reference Group ◽  
Health Policies ◽  
Cross Sectional Survey ◽  
Cross Sectional ◽  
Public Health Policies ◽  
Stroke Group

Objective: To compare the quality of life (QoL) of individuals with stroke and their caregivers. Methods: This is an observational cross-sectional survey, involving 83 individuals who suffered a stroke. The participants were divided into four groups: group of individuals with stroke who have caregivers (44), group of individuals with stroke without caregivers (39), group of caregivers (44) and a reference group (83) in the period of March to May 2010. To assess QoL, the instrument used was the WHOQOL-bref. Results: The highest scores for the four fields were observed increasingly for the group of individuals with stroke with caregivers, the stroke group without caregivers followed by the group of caregivers and the reference group. The comparison of scores between groups showed that the presence of stroke and the fact of being caregiver affect QoL in all domains of WHOQOL-bref. Conclusion: It was possible to understand the negative impact that stroke causes in the lives of the affected ones and their caregivers, in order to better target public health policies.

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