scholarly journals COVID-19 Surveillance Data: A Primer for Epidemiology and Data Science

2021 ◽  
pp. e1-e6
Author(s):  
Daniel Tarantola ◽  
Nabarun Dasgupta

Our primary objective is to improve COVID-19 metrics to enhance the quality of COVID-19 surveillance—an urgent need raised by several authors in professional and general media.1–5 We offer specific suggestions on how pandemic surveillance metrics can be better reported to improve the quality of analytical epidemiology. Health care providers and public health practitioners may find these criteria useful when conducting analyses, and students may be able to self-correct mistakes in written work. Data scientists may treat this as a primer for selecting and reporting metrics for dashboards. (Am J Public Health. Published online ahead of print January 21, 2021: e1–e6. https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2020.306088 )

2020 ◽  
Vol 30 (Supplement_5) ◽  
Author(s):  
S Villadsen ◽  
S Dias

Abstract For complex public health interventions to be effective their implementation needs to adapt to the situation of those implementing and those receiving the intervention. While context matter for intervention implementation and effect, we still insist on learning from cross-country comparison of implementation. Next methodological challenges include how to increase learning from implementation of complex public health interventions from various context. The interventions presented in this workshop all aims to improve quality of reproductive health care for immigrants, however with different focus: contraceptive care in Sweden, group based antenatal care in France, and management of pregnancy complications in Denmark. What does these interventions have in common and are there cross cutting themes that help us to identify the larger challenges of reproductive health care for immigrant women in Europe? Issues shared across the interventions relate to improved interactional dynamics between women and the health care system, and theory around a woman-centered approach and cultural competence of health care providers and systems might enlighten shared learnings across the different interventions and context. Could the mechanisms of change be understood using theoretical underpinnings that allow us to better generalize the finding across context? What adaption would for example be needed, if the Swedish contraceptive intervention should work in a different European setting? Should we distinguish between adaption of function and form, where the latter might be less important for intervention fidelity? These issues will shortly be introduced during this presentation using insights from the three intervention presentations and thereafter we will open up for discussion with the audience.


F1000Research ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
pp. 98 ◽  
Author(s):  
Feisul Mustapha ◽  
Michael Calopietro ◽  
Karoline Kragelund Nielsen ◽  
Jens Aagaard-Hansen ◽  
Shiang Cheng Lim ◽  
...  

The burden of diabetes continues to increase in Malaysia, and the public primary health sector has an insufficient number of health care providers well-trained in diabetes care. The Ministry of Health Malaysia collaborated with Steno Diabetes Center to educate primary care doctors and nurses on the fundamentals of clinical diabetes care using a competency-based approach that blends e-learning, classroom-based learning, and clinic-based group work. This programme is called Steno REACH Certificate Course in Clinical Diabetes Care (SRCC). The aim of this study was to assess the effectiveness of the SRCC intervention in improving diabetes-related knowledge, attitudes, skills and clinical practices among non-specialised doctors and general nurses working in public health clinics in Malaysia. This paper presents the study protocol. A quasi-experimental, mixed-methods study based on Solomon’s Four Group Design was applied. Non-specialist doctors and general nurses from ten health clinics were randomly selected to receive the educational intervention. Comparison clinics were purposive selected matching on proxy indicators for quality of diabetes care. The intervention consisted of 50 hours of e-learning, 48 hours of classroom-based learning and approximately 25 hours of work-based learning that covered all main aspects of clinical diabetes care and delivered over a six-month period. Primary outcomes were changes in diabetes-related knowledge, attitudes, skills, and clinical practice. Patients’ perceptions regarding the quality of care provided were classified as a secondary outcome. Other outcome measures included patients' assessment of their chronic disease care and providers' perceptions, attitudes and perceived barriers in care delivery. Results from this study will inform future educational approaches within the Malaysian health system. The study is unique because it evaluated a pertinent public health topic using a very robust methodology.


Encyclopedia ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
pp. 744-763
Author(s):  
Ayodeji Iyanda ◽  
Kwadwo Boakye ◽  
Yongmei Lu

Health disparity is an unacceptable, unjust, or inequitable difference in health outcomes among different groups of people that affects access to optimal health care, as well as deterring it. Health disparity adversely affects disadvantaged subpopulations due to a higher incidence and prevalence of a particular disease or ill health. Existing health disparity determines whether a disease outbreak such as coronavirus disease 2019, caused by the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), will significantly impact a group or a region. Hence, health disparity assessment has become one of the focuses of many agencies, public health practitioners, and other social scientists. Successful elimination of health disparity at all levels requires pragmatic approaches through an intersectionality framework and robust data science.


2020 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
pp. 1-8
Author(s):  
H. C. Okeke ◽  
P. Bassey ◽  
O. A. Oduwole ◽  
A. Adindu

Different mix of clients visit primary health care (PHC) facilities, and the quality of services is critical even in rural communities. The study objective was to determine the relationship between socio-demographic characteristics and client satisfaction with the quality of PHC services in Calabar Municipality, Cross River State, Nigeria. Specifically to describe aspects of the health facilities that affect client satisfaction; determine the health-care providers’ attitude that influences client satisfaction; and determine the socio-demographic characteristics that influence client satisfaction with PHC services. A cross-sectional survey was adopted. Ten PHCs and 500 clients utilizing services in PHC centers in Calabar Municipality were randomly selected. Clients overall satisfaction with PHC services was high (80.8%). Divorced clients were less (75.0%) satisfied than the singles and the married counterparts (81%), respectively. Clients that were more literate as well as those with higher income were less satisfied, 68.0% and 50.0%, respectively, compared to the less educated and lower-income clients, 92.0% and 85.0% respectively. These differences in satisfaction were statistically significant (P = 0.001). Hence, it was shown that client characteristics such as income and literacy level show a significant negative relationship with the clients satisfaction with the quality of PHC services in Calabar Municipality.


2003 ◽  
Vol 42 (02) ◽  
pp. 185-189 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. Haux ◽  
C. Kulikowski ◽  
A. Bohne ◽  
R. Brandner ◽  
B. Brigl ◽  
...  

Summary Objectives: The Yearbook of Medical Informatics is published annually by the International Medical Informatics Association (IMIA) and contains a selection of excellent papers on medical informatics research which have been recently published (www.yearbook.uni-hd.de). The 2003 Yearbook of Medical Informatics took as its theme the role of medical informatics for the quality of health care. In this paper, we will discuss challenges for health care, and the lessons learned from editing IMIA Yearbook 2003. Results and Conclusions: Modern information processing methodology and information and communication technology have strongly influenced our societies and health care. As a consequence of this, medical informatics as a discipline has taken a leading role in the further development of health care. This involves developing information systems that enhance opportunities for global access to health services and medical knowledge. Informatics methodology and technology will facilitate high quality of care in aging societies, and will decrease the possibilities of health care errors. It will also enable the dissemination of the latest medical and health information on the web to consumers and health care providers alike. The selected papers of the IMIA Yearbook 2003 present clear examples and future challenges, and they highlight how various sub-disciplines of medical informatics can contribute to this.


2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (6) ◽  
pp. 989-993
Author(s):  
Andrew Thomas ◽  
Annie Thomas

Acute and chronic digestive diseases are causing increased burden to patients and are increasing the United States health care spending. The purpose of this case report was to present how nonconfirmatory and conflicting diagnoses led to increased burden and suffering for a patient thus affecting quality of life. There were many physician visits and multiple tests performed on the patient. However, the primary care physician and specialists could not reach a confirmatory diagnosis. The treatment plans did not offer relief of symptoms, and the patient continues to experience digestive symptoms, enduring this burden for over 2 years. The central theme of this paper is to inform health care providers the importance of utilizing evidence-based primary care specialist collaboration models for better digestive disease outcomes. Consistent with patient’s experience, the authors propose to pilot/adopt the integrative health care approaches that are proven effective for treating digestive diseases.


2020 ◽  
Vol 136 (1) ◽  
pp. 39-46
Author(s):  
Joanna G. Katzman ◽  
Laura E. Tomedi ◽  
Karla Thornton ◽  
Paige Menking ◽  
Michael Stanton ◽  
...  

Project ECHO (Extension for Community Healthcare Outcomes) at the University of New Mexico is a telementoring program that uses videoconferencing technology to connect health care providers in underserved communities with subject matter experts. In March 2020, Project ECHO created 10 coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) telementoring programs to meet the public health needs of clinicians and teachers living in underserved rural and urban regions of New Mexico. The newly created COVID-19 programs include 7 weekly sessions (Community Health Worker [in English and Spanish], Critical Care, Education, First-Responder Resiliency, Infectious Disease Office Hours, and Multi-specialty) and 3 one-day special sessions. We calculated the total number of attendees, along with the range and standard deviation, per session by program. Certain programs (Critical Care, Infectious Disease Office Hours, Multi-specialty) recorded the profession of attendees when available. The Project ECHO research team collected COVID-19 infection data by county from March 11 through May 31, 2020. During that same period, 9765 health care and general education professionals participated in the COVID-19 programs, and participants from 31 of 35 (89%) counties in New Mexico attended the sessions. Our initial evaluation of these programs demonstrates that an interprofessional clinician group and teachers used the Project ECHO network to build a community of practice and social network while meeting their educational and professional needs. Because of Project ECHO’s large reach, the results of the New Mexico COVID-19 response suggest that the rapid use of ECHO telementoring could be used for other urgent national public health problems.


2015 ◽  
Vol 4 (4) ◽  
pp. 378-384
Author(s):  
Peter W. Grandjean ◽  
Burritt W. Hess ◽  
Nicholas Schwedock ◽  
Jackson O. Griggs ◽  
Paul M. Gordon

Kinesiology programs are well positioned to create and develop partnerships within the university, with local health care providers, and with the community to integrate and enhance the activities of professional training, community service, public health outreach, and collaborative research. Partnerships with medical and health care organizations may be structured to fulfill accreditation standards and the objectives of the “Exercise is Medicine®” initiative to improve public health through primary prevention. Barriers of scale, location, time, human resources, and funding can be overcome so all stakeholder benefits are much greater than the costs.


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