The way we were: a snapshot of Australian public health in 1993

It is widely accepted that policy-makers (in Nepal and elsewhere) can learn valuable lessons from the way other countries run their health and social services. We highlight some of the specific contributions the discipline of sociology can make to cross-national comparative research in the public health field. Sociologists call attention to often unnoticed social and cultural factors that influence the way national reproductive health care systems are created and operated. In this paper we address questions such as: ‘Why do these health services appear to be operating successfully in one country, but not another?’; ‘What is it in one country that makes a particular public health intervention successful and how is the cultural context different in a neighbouring country?’ The key examples in this paper focus on maternity care and sex education in the Netherlands and the UK, as examples to highlight the power of cross-national research. Our key messages are: a) Cross-national comparative research can help us to understand the design and running of health services in one country, say Nepal, by learning from a comparison with other countries, for example Sri Lanka or India. b) Cultural factors unique to a country affect the way that reproductive health care systems operate. c) Therefore,we need to understand why and how services work in a certain cultural context before we start trying to implement them in another cultural context.

Download Full-text

THE ANTI-ECHINOCOCCIASIS CAMPAIGN IN CYPRUS

Journal of the Hellenic Veterinary Medical Society ◽

10.12681/jhvms.20150 ◽

1974 ◽

Vol 25 (2) ◽

pp. 9

Author(s):

Κ. ΠΟΛΥΔΩΡΟΥ

Keyword(s):

Public Health ◽

Animal Breeding ◽

Infestation Rate ◽

Stray Dogs ◽

The Public ◽

Complete Eradication ◽

Or Groups ◽

The Way

The author is referring to the anti - echinococciasis en npaign in Cyprus which started in February 1971. A 15 years program was arranged in order to obtain a complete eradication of the disease. Since the application of this program that is 2 1/2 years 33.748 stray dogs were killed and 2.532 female dogs became sterile by hysterectomy. Information about the disease and its dangers was given by specialized persons or groups to different State staff, slaughterhouses staff, animal breeders, schools» housewives etc. Complementary measures were taken : registration and taxation of dogs» disinfestation etc. The results of this campaign are already very satisfactory. The infestation rate in young ruminants and swine was reduced 83,3 - 95% and in dogs 58.8%. Especially the infestation rate in dogs beign 6.8% during 1972 dropped to 2.8% in the first six months of 1973. The echinococciasis which was a scourge for the animal breeding and the Public Health of Cyprus is on the way of its definite eradication.

Download Full-text

Rolling East and Resettlement

Fortress Dark and Stern ◽

10.1093/oso/9780190618414.003.0003 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 57-93

Author(s):

Wendy Z. Goldman ◽

Donald Filtzer

Keyword(s):

Public Health ◽

Public Health Officials ◽

The Way

The transfer and resettlement of millions of people, including children, invalids, and elderly, posed a vast challenge to public health officials, factory managers, and local soviets. People crammed into freight and cattle cars, and their journeys were often derailed by bombing, illness, and death. Child measles and typhus took a deadly toll. Evacuees from Leningrad during the siege were often in no condition to travel. Families left their dead at unknown stations along the way. The exhausted people who reached their destinations were billeted with other families, in barracks, and in earthen dugouts. Newcomers and natives clashed. Construction crews built their own shelters before laying new electricity, water, and railway lines, and erecting structures for the evacuated factories. Factories too were ordered to merge and share space. Along with new hazards, new, more efficient methods of production emerged. The war proved a powerful crucible, forcing every branch of administration to confront challenges of epic proportions.

Download Full-text

2553 Authors’ perceptions of the interdisciplinarity of their research

Journal of Clinical and Translational Science ◽

10.1017/cts.2018.49 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 2 (S1) ◽

pp. 5-5

Author(s):

Christine M. Weston ◽

Mia S. Terkowitz ◽

Daniel E. Ford

Keyword(s):

Public Health ◽

Social Science ◽

Computer Science ◽

Basic Science ◽

Academic Disciplines ◽

Research Article ◽

Study Population ◽

Subjective Views ◽

Major Discipline ◽

The Way

OBJECTIVES/SPECIFIC AIMS: The objectives of this study were to compare different methods for determining the disciplines involved in a research article. We sought to address the following questions: To what extent does the number of disciplines reported by an article’s corresponding author agree with their description of the article as unidisciplinary or interdisciplinary? (Q1) and To what extent does the corresponding author’s description of the research as unidisciplinary or interdisciplinary agree with its classification as unidisciplinary or interdisciplinary based on the affiliation of its co-authors? (Q2). METHODS/STUDY POPULATION: Using Scopus, we randomly selected 100 articles from 2010 and 2015 from science teams that had at least 1 author affiliated with Johns Hopkins. Author affiliations were grouped into common academic disciplines: Basic Science, Medicine (and all clinical specialties), Public Health, Engineering, Social Science, Computer Science, Pharmacy, Nursing, and Other. Articles with more than 1 discipline were considered, interdisciplinary. We then sent an online Qualtrics survey to the corresponding author of each article and asked them to indicate (1) all of the disciplines that contributed to the research article at hand, and (2) to indicate whether they considered the research to be “unidisciplinary” or “interdisciplinary” based on definitions that we provided. RESULTS/ANTICIPATED RESULTS: For Q1, we asked corresponding authors to indicate the number of disciplines involved in their research and then to choose the definition that best described their research. Among 76 respondents, 42 indicated that their research consisted of 1 discipline, and 34 indicated that their research consisted of more than 1 discipline. Of the 42 respondents who indicated that their research consisted of one discipline, 21 (50%) respondents described their research as “unidisciplinary” and 21 (50%) described their research as “interdisciplinary.” However, of the 34 respondents who indicated that their research consisted of more than 1 discipline, all but 1 (97%) described their research as “interdisciplinary.” For Q2, we assigned a discipline to each co-author based on his/her affiliation and counted the number of disciplines involved. Among 76 respondents, of the 22 who described their research as “unidisciplinary,” 16 (73%) were categorized as “unidisciplinary” and 6 (27%) were categorized as “interdisciplinary,” using this method. Of the 54 respondents who described their research as “interdisciplinary,” 30 (56%) were categorized as “interdisciplinary” and 24 (44%) as “unidisciplinary.” DISCUSSION/SIGNIFICANCE OF IMPACT: Our results highlight that different methods for determining whether a given research article is interdisciplinary are likely to yield different results. Even when researchers indicate that their research is based within one major discipline, they may still consider it interdisciplinary. Likewise, classifying an article as either unidisciplinary or interdisciplinary based on the affiliations of its co-authors, may not be consistent with the way it is viewed by its authors. It is important to acknowledge that assessing the interdisciplinarity of research is complex and that objective and subjective views may differ.

Download Full-text