scholarly journals Integrating tuberculosis research with public health infrastructure: Lessons on community engagement from Orizaba, Mexico

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 ◽  
pp. 11
Author(s):  
Renaud F. Boulanger ◽  
Lourdes García-García ◽  
Letitia Ferreyra-Reyes ◽  
Sergio Canizales-Quintero ◽  
Manuel Palacios-Martínez ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Community Engagement ◽  
Health Workers ◽  
Research Programme ◽  
Local Context ◽  
Community Members ◽  
Retrospective Case ◽  
Local Public Health ◽  
Public Health Infrastructure ◽  
Health Infrastructure

Background: The Orizaba Health Region, in Veracruz, Mexico, has hosted the research programme of the Consorcio Mexicano contra la Tuberculosis since 1995. Methods: The objective of this retrospective case study conducted in 2009 was to describe and explain the evolution and outcomes of the stakeholder and community engagement activities of the Consorcio. Recorded interviews and focus groups were coded to identify major themes related to the success of stakeholder and community engagement activities. Results: The Consorcio successfully managed to embed its research program into the local public health infrastructure. This integration was possible because the core research team tailored its engagement strategy to the local context, while focusing on a large spectrum of stakeholders with various positions of authority and responsibility. The overall engagement strategy can be described as a three-pronged endeavor: building a “coalition” with local authorities, nurturing “camaraderie” with community health workers, and striving to be “present” in the lives of community members and participants. Conclusions: The Consorcio’s efforts teach valuable lessons on how to approach stakeholder and community engagement in tuberculosis (TB) research, particularly in developing countries. Furthermore, the health outcomes reveal stakeholder and community engagement as a potentially under-tapped tool to promote disease control.

scholarly journals What can we learn from Israel’s rapid roll out of COVID 19 vaccination?

2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin McKee ◽  
Selina Rajan
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Health Workers ◽  
Vaccination Program ◽  
The Political ◽  
Young Population ◽  
Disadvantaged Groups ◽  
Public Health Infrastructure ◽  
Health Infrastructure ◽  
The World ◽  
Roll Out

AbstractIsrael has led the world in rolling out its COVID-19 vaccination program. This experience provides lessons that others can learn from. It is, however, necessary to consider some national specificities, including the small size of the country, its young population, and the political imperative to drive this program forward. Israel also has a number of other advantages, including a strong public health infrastructure. The lessons that can be learnt include the importance of coordinating delivery mechanisms with the inevitable prioritisation of groups within the population, timely deployment of a skilled cadre of health workers, a recognition that not everyone in the population shares in the benefits of digital connectedness, the need to reach out to disadvantaged groups, based on an understanding of the barriers that they face, and the importance of placing COVID-19 vaccination within a comprehensive response to the pandemic.

Innovative Infrastructure in New Jersey: Using Health Education Professionals to Inform and Educate During a Crisis

2008 ◽  
Vol 9 (4_suppl) ◽  
pp. 88S-95S ◽  
Author(s):  
Laura Taylor ◽  
Suzanne Miro ◽  
Sylvia H. Bookbinder ◽  
Thomas Slater
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
New Jersey ◽  
Emerging Infections ◽  
Federal Funds ◽  
Local Public Health ◽  
Education Professionals ◽  
Department Of Health ◽  
Public Health Infrastructure ◽  
Health Infrastructure ◽  
Senior Services

Federal funding supports the growth and development of public health infrastructure and preparedness. The New Jersey Department of Health and Senior Services used federal funds to increase local public health infrastructure that included the hiring of health educators or risk communicators (HERCs). The HERCs are a diverse group of health and communications professionals trained in emergency communication. They provide crisis information regarding pubic health threats. Over the years, the role and duties of HERCs have expanded from bioterrorism to all-hazards approach and emerging infections public health preparedness, including pandemic influenza. This article describes how HERCs are used in the New Jersey public health infrastructure.

scholarly journals Actionable lessons for the US COVID vaccine program

2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Gary L. Freed
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Local Health ◽  
National Strategy ◽  
Individual State ◽  
Health Departments ◽  
Local Health Departments ◽  
Public Health Infrastructure ◽  
Health Infrastructure ◽  
The Us ◽  
Vaccine Distribution

AbstractWhen attempting to provide lessons for other countries from the successful Israeli COVID-19 vaccine experience, it is important to distinguish between the modifiable and non-modifiable components identified in the article by Rosen, et al. Two specific modifiable components included in the Israeli program from which the US can learn are (a) a national (not individual state-based) strategy for vaccine distribution and administration and (b) a functioning public health infrastructure. As a federal government, the US maintains an often complex web of state and national authorities and responsibilities. The federal government assumed responsibility for the ordering, payment and procurement of COVID vaccine from manufacturers. In designing the subsequent steps in their COVID-19 vaccine distribution and administration plan, the Trump administration decided to rely on the states themselves to determine how best to implement guidance provided by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). This strategy resulted in 50 different plans and 50 different systems for the dissemination of vaccine doses, all at the level of each individual state. State health departments were neither financed, experienced nor uniformly possessed the expertise to develop and implement such plans. A national strategy for the distribution, and the workforce for the provision, of vaccine beyond the state level, similar to that which occurred in Israel, would have provided for greater efficiency and coordination across the country. The US public health infrastructure was ill-prepared and ill-staffed to take on the responsibility to deliver > 450 million doses of vaccine in an expeditious fashion, even if supply of vaccine was available. The failure to adequately invest in public health has been ubiquitous across the nation at all levels of government. Since the 2008 recession, state and local health departments have lost > 38,000 jobs and spending for state public health departments has dropped by 16% per capita and spending for local health departments has fallen by 18%. Hopefully, COVID-19 will be a wakeup call to the US with regard to the need for both a national strategy to address public health emergencies and the well-maintained infrastructure to make it happen.

Immigrant Communities and COVID-19: Strengthening the Public Health Response

2021 ◽  
Vol 111 (S3) ◽  
pp. S224-S231
Author(s):  
Lan N. Đoàn ◽  
Stella K. Chong ◽  
Supriya Misra ◽  
Simona C. Kwon ◽  
Stella S. Yi
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Health Care ◽  
Health Care Providers ◽  
Low Income ◽  
Immigrant Communities ◽  
Care Providers ◽  
Public Health Response ◽  
The Public ◽  
Public Health Infrastructure ◽  
Health Infrastructure

The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed the many broken fragments of US health care and social service systems, reinforcing extant health and socioeconomic inequities faced by structurally marginalized immigrant communities. Throughout the pandemic, even during the most critical period of rising cases in different epicenters, immigrants continued to work in high-risk-exposure environments while simultaneously having less access to health care and economic relief and facing discrimination. We describe systemic factors that have adversely affected low-income immigrants, including limiting their work opportunities to essential jobs, living in substandard housing conditions that do not allow for social distancing or space to safely isolate from others in the household, and policies that discourage access to public resources that are available to them or that make resources completely inaccessible. We demonstrate that the current public health infrastructure has not improved health care access or linkages to necessary services, treatments, or culturally competent health care providers, and we provide suggestions for how the Public Health 3.0 framework could advance this. We recommend the following strategies to improve the Public Health 3.0 public health infrastructure and mitigate widening disparities: (1) address the social determinants of health, (2) broaden engagement with stakeholders across multiple sectors, and (3) develop appropriate tools and technologies. (Am J Public Health. 2021;111(S3):S224–S231. https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2021.306433 )

scholarly journals The effect of community dialogues and sensitization on patient reporting of adverse events in rural Uganda: uncontrolled before-after study

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Helen Byomire Ndagije ◽  
Leonard Manirakiza ◽  
Dan Kajungu ◽  
Edward Galiwango ◽  
Donna Kusemererwa ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Adverse Events ◽  
Community Engagement ◽  
Adverse Drug Events ◽  
Health Workers ◽  
Household Survey ◽  
Rural Setting ◽  
Health Issues ◽  
Community Members ◽  
Cross Sectional ◽  
Before And After

AbstractBackgroundThe patients that experience adverse events are in the best position to report them, only if they were empowered to do so. Systematic community engagement and support to patients in a rural setting to monitor any potential harm from medicines should provide evidence for patient safety.MethodsThis paper describes an uncontrolled before and after study aimed at assessing the effect of a community engagement strategy, the Community Dialogues and Sensitization (CDS) intervention between January and April 2017, on the knowledge, attitude and practice of reporting adverse drug events by community members in the two eastern Ugandan districts. A representative cross-sectional baseline household survey was done prior to the intervention in September 2016 (n=1034) and the end-line survey (n=827) in July 2017.ResultsAfter implementation of the CDS intervention, there was an overall 20% (95% CI=16- 25) increase in awareness about adverse drug events in the community. The young people (15- 24 years) demonstrated a 41% (95% CI =31-52) increase and the un-educated showed a 50% (95% CI=37-63) increase in awareness about adverse drug events. The attitudes towards reporting increased overall by 5% in response to whether there was a need to report ADEs (95% CI =3-7). An overall 115% (95% CI =137-217) increase in the population that had ever experienced ADEs was also reported.ConclusionOur evaluation shows that the CDS intervention increases knowledge, improves attitudes by catalyzing discussions among community members and health workers on health issues and monitoring safety of medicines.

scholarly journals Potential for community based surveillance of febrile diseases: Feasibility of self-administered rapid diagnostic tests in Iquitos, Peru and Phnom Penh, Cambodia

2021 ◽  
Vol 15 (4) ◽  
pp. e0009307
Author(s):  
Amy C. Morrison ◽  
Julia Schwarz ◽  
Jennie L. Mckenney ◽  
Jhonny Cordova ◽  
Jennifer E. Rios ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Infectious Diseases ◽  
Disease Transmission ◽  
Diagnostic Tests ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Health Workers ◽  
Rapid Diagnostic Tests ◽  
Community Members ◽  
Phnom Penh ◽  
Local Public Health ◽  
At Home

Rapid diagnostic tests (RDTs) have the potential to identify infectious diseases quickly, minimize disease transmission, and could complement and improve surveillance and control of infectious and vector-borne diseases during outbreaks. The U.S. Defense Threat Reduction Agency’s Joint Science and Technology Office (DTRA-JSTO) program set out to develop novel point-of-need RDTs for infectious diseases and deploy them for home use with no training. The aim of this formative study was to address two questions: 1) could community members in Iquitos, Peru and Phnom Penh, Cambodia competently use RDTs of different levels of complexity at home with visually based instructions provided, and 2) if an RDT were provided at no cost, would it be used at home if family members displayed febrile symptoms? Test kits with written and video (Peru only) instructions were provided to community members (Peru [n = 202]; Cambodia [n = 50]) or community health workers (Cambodia [n = 45]), and trained observers evaluated the competency level for each of the several steps required to successfully operate one of two multiplex RDTs on themselves or other consenting participant (i.e., family member). In Iquitos, >80% of residents were able to perform 11/12 steps and 7/15 steps for the two- and five-pathogen test, respectively. Competency in Phnom Penh never reached 80% for any of the 12 or 15 steps for either test; the percentage of participants able to perform a step ranged from 26–76% and 23–72%, for the two- and five-pathogen tests, respectively. Commercially available NS1 dengue rapid tests were distributed, at no cost, to households with confirmed exposure to dengue or Zika virus; of 14 febrile cases reported, six used the provided RDT. Our findings support the need for further implementation research on the appropriate level of instructions or training needed for diverse devices in different settings, as well as how to best integrate RDTs into existing local public health and disease surveillance programs at a large scale.

scholarly journals GLOBAL SPREAD OF INFECTIOUS DISEASES

2004 ◽  
Vol 12 (03) ◽  
pp. 289-300 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. HSU ◽  
A. ZEE
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Infectious Diseases ◽  
Human Mobility ◽  
Air Travel ◽  
Peak Number ◽  
Public Health Infrastructure ◽  
Health Infrastructure ◽  
Global Spread ◽  
Epidemiological Parameters ◽  
Simple Models

We develop simple models for the global spread of infectious diseases, emphasizing human mobility via air travel and the variation of public health infrastructure from region to region. We derive formulas relating the total and peak number of infections in two countries to the rate of travel between them and their respective epidemiological parameters.

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