scholarly journals Patient and caregiver socioeconomic burden of first-line systemic therapy for advanced gastroesophageal adenocarcinoma

2022 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hong Xiao ◽  
David Bertwistle ◽  
Keerun Khela ◽  
Chloe Middleton-Dalby ◽  
Jennifer Hall

Aim: This study assessed the work productivity and financial impact of advanced gastroesophageal adenocarcinomas, comprising gastric, esophageal and gastroesophageal junction cancers, on patients of working age and their caregivers. Patients & methods: A multicenter medical chart review and surveys of patients with advanced gastroesophageal adenocarcinoma and their caregivers was conducted in France, Germany, the UK, China, Japan and the USA. Results: Across differing regions, the study highlighted the impact of cancer on patients’ ability to work, to function normally and on their wellbeing, as well as the economic burden placed on patients and their caregivers. Conclusion: Advanced gastroesophageal adenocarcinomas have a significant impact on patients’ and caregivers’ well-being and are associated with reduced work productivity, and income loss.

2021 ◽  
pp. medethics-2020-106588
Author(s):  
Sarah Munday ◽  
Julian Savulescu

The past few years have brought significant breakthroughs in understanding human genetics. This knowledge has been used to develop ‘polygenic scores’ (or ‘polygenic risk scores’) which provide probabilistic information about the development of polygenic conditions such as diabetes or schizophrenia. They are already being used in reproduction to select for embryos at lower risk of developing disease. Currently, the use of polygenic scores for embryo selection is subject to existing regulations concerning embryo testing and selection. Existing regulatory approaches include ‘disease-based' models which limit embryo selection to avoiding disease characteristics (employed in various formats in Australia, the UK, Italy, Switzerland and France, among others), and 'laissez-faire' or 'libertarian' models, under which embryo testing and selection remain unregulated (as in the USA). We introduce a novel 'Welfarist Model' which limits embryo selection according to the impact of the predicted trait on well-being. We compare the strengths and weaknesses of each model as a way of regulating polygenic scores. Polygenic scores create the potential for existing embryo selection technologies to be used to select for a wider range of predicted genetically influenced characteristics including continuous traits. Indeed, polygenic scores exist to predict future intelligence, and there have been suggestions that they will be used to make predictions within the normal range in the USA in embryo selection. We examine how these three models would apply to the prediction of non-disease traits such as intelligence. The genetics of intelligence remains controversial both scientifically and ethically. This paper does not attempt to resolve these issues. However, as with many biomedical advances, an effective regulatory regime must be in place as soon as the technology is available. If there is no regulation in place, then the market effectively decides ethical issues.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 132
Author(s):  
Anna McNamara

The impact of Covid-19 placed Higher Education leadership in a state of crisis management, where decision making had to be swift and impactful. This research draws on ethea of mindfulness, actor training techniques, referencing high-reliability organisations (HRO). Interviews conducted by the author with three leaders of actor training conservatoires in Higher Education institutions in Australia, the UK and the USA reflect on crisis management actions taken in response to the impact of Covid-19 on their sector, from which high-frequency words are identified and grouped thematically. Reflecting on these high-frequency words and the thematic grouping, a model of mindful leadership is proposed as a positive tool that may enable those in leadership to recognise and respond efficiently to wider structural frailties within Higher Education, with reference to the capacity of leaders to operate with increased mindfulness, enabling a more resilient organisation that unlocks the locus of control.


BMJ Open ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. e047632
Author(s):  
Helen Humphreys ◽  
Laura Kilby ◽  
Nik Kudiersky ◽  
Robert Copeland

ObjectivesTo explore the lived experience of long COVID with particular focus on the role of physical activity.DesignQualitative study using semistructured interviews.Participants18 people living with long COVID (9 men, 9 women; aged between 18–74 years; 10 white British, 3 white Other, 3 Asian, 1 black, 1 mixed ethnicity) recruited via a UK-based research interest database for people with long COVID.SettingTelephone interviews with 17 participants living in the UK and 1 participant living in the USA.ResultsFour themes were generated. Theme 1 describes how participants struggled with drastically reduced physical function, compounded by the cognitive and psychological effects of long COVID. Theme 2 highlights challenges associated with finding and interpreting advice about physical activity that was appropriately tailored. Theme 3 describes individual approaches to managing symptoms including fatigue and ‘brain fog’ while trying to resume and maintain activities of daily living and other forms of exercise. Theme 4 illustrates the battle with self-concept to accept reduced function (even temporarily) and the fear of permanent reduction in physical and cognitive ability.ConclusionsThis study provides insight into the challenges of managing physical activity alongside the extended symptoms associated with long COVID. Findings highlight the need for greater clarity and tailoring of physical activity-related advice for people with long COVID and improved support to resume activities important to individual well-being.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher Marshall ◽  
Kate Lanyi ◽  
Rhiannon Green ◽  
Georgie Wilkins ◽  
Fiona Pearson ◽  
...  

BACKGROUND There is increasing need to explore the value of soft-intelligence, leveraged using the latest artificial intelligence (AI) and natural language processing (NLP) techniques, as a source of analysed evidence to support public health research activity and decision-making. OBJECTIVE The aim of this study was to further explore the value of soft-intelligence analysed using AI through a case study, which examined a large collection of UK tweets relating to mental health during the COVID-19 pandemic. METHODS A search strategy comprising a list of terms related to mental health, COVID-19, and lockdown restrictions was developed to prospectively collate relevant tweets via Twitter’s advanced search application programming interface over a 24-week period. We deployed a specialist NLP platform to explore tweet frequency and sentiment across the UK and identify key topics of discussion. A series of keyword filters were used to clean the initial data retrieved and also set up to track specific mental health problems. Qualitative document analysis was carried out to further explore and expand upon the results generated by the NLP platform. All collated tweets were anonymised RESULTS We identified and analysed 286,902 tweets posted from UK user accounts from 23 July 2020 to 6 January 2021. The average sentiment score was 50%, suggesting overall neutral sentiment across all tweets over the study period. Major fluctuations in volume and sentiment appeared to coincide with key changes to any local and/or national social-distancing measures. Tweets around mental health were polarising, discussed with both positive and negative sentiment. Key topics of consistent discussion over the study period included the impact of the pandemic on people’s mental health (both positively and negatively), fear and anxiety over lockdowns, and anger and mistrust toward the government. CONCLUSIONS Through the primary use of an AI-based NLP platform, we were able to rapidly mine and analyse emerging health-related insights from UK tweets into how the pandemic may be impacting people’s mental health and well-being. This type of real-time analysed evidence could act as a useful intelligence source that agencies, local leaders, and health care decision makers can potentially draw from, particularly during a health crisis.


Author(s):  
Fairgrieve Duncan ◽  
Richard Goldberg

Product Liability is a recognised authority in the field and covers the product liability laws through which manufacturers, retailers, and others may be held liable to compensate persons who are injured, or who incur financial loss, when the products which they manufacture or sell are defective or not fit for their purpose. Product defects may originate in the production process, be one of design, or be grounded in a failure to issue an adequate warning or directions for safe use and practitioners advising business clients or claimants will find this book provides all the necessary information for practitioners to manage a product liability claim. This new edition has been fully updated to take account of 10 years of development in case law and regulation, and the increasing impact of cross-border and transnational sale of goods. The Court of Justice of the European Union handed down major rulings concerning the Product Liability Directive which affect the application of the Directive and national arrangements and Fairgrieve and Goldberg examines this in detail. For any legal practitioner operating in areas which require knowledge of European product liability law, an understanding of the impact of recent developments is essential and this work is an essential resource for practitioners working on product liability, sale of goods, personal injury and negligence. The work provides comprehensive coverage of the law of negligence as it applies to product liability, of the strict liability provisions of the Consumer Protection Act 1987, and of the EU's Product Liability Directive on which the Act is based. Although the majority of cases involve pharmaceuticals and medical devices, in recent English cases the allegedly defective products have been as diverse as a child's buggy, an All Terrain Vehicle, and even a coffee cup. Many cases are brought as group actions, and the book examines the rights of those who are injured by defective products. As well as considering the perspective of the law as it has developed in the UK, this edition contains detailed discussion of case law from other jurisdictions including the USA, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, France and Germany. The coverage in the work is complemented by a full analysis of issues which arise in transnational litigation involving problems of jurisdiction and the choice of laws.


Author(s):  
Dhruva Pathak ◽  
Vijayakumar Bharathi S. ◽  
Padma Mala E.

The study investigated the impact of mandatory work from home due COVID-19 on personal and professional lives of people with different demographics. Statistical analysis of an online survey data (N=237) reveals that the impact on personal life dimensions—healthy lifestyle, family bonding, and physical stress—does not differ across people within different demographics. However, impact on emotional well-being is sensitive to gender and industry groups. Family size is also an important demographic factor impacted upon personal life dimensions. Professional dimensions related to work productivity and adopting new ways of working does not differ across demographics except for occupational role. Dimensions related to new skill development and change in professional attitude does differ across occupational roles. The study concludes by stating future research directions for mandatory work from home situation, and prescription to post-COVID-19 strategies for organizations.


2019 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ilka H. Gleibs ◽  
Andrea Lizama Alvarado

Previous research has found inconsistent results on the impact of work-status (permanent vs. fixed term vs. causal work) on attitudinal and behavioural outcomes. This study explored this topic from a social identity perspective and examines the effect of communication climate, organisational and team identification on job-affective well-being, organisational commitment and intentions to recommend. In Study 1, 631 professionals working in Chile completed our survey. In Study 2, which was pre-registered, 520 professionals from the UK completed the same survey. In both studies we conducted multi-group path analyses comparing employees with three work-statuses: permanent, fixed-term, and casual workers (Study 1: n = 369, 129, and 131, respectively; Study 2: n = 438, 53, and 34, respectively). We found work-status influenced the relationship between organisational and team identification with job-affective well-being, but not with organisational citizenship behaviour or intentions to recommend. Across all groups, communication climate was an important predictor for identification measures, job-affective well-being and intention to recommend. These findings offer an understanding of the dynamics of social identification in the workplace that are related to work-status in the context of two different countries; Chile, a country that is characterised by high rates of fixed-term and casual job agreement and the UK, which has comparatively fewer non-standard work-arrangements.


2018 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ruth Allan Rigby ◽  
Marlene Chan ◽  
April L. Colosimo

Lifelong learning and cognitive resilience are integral to a changing 21st century education paradigm for learners of all ages, as they are for health and well being of the individual student and wider community. Neuroscience in particular is continually making inroads on the impact that learning has on the brain and the interrelationships between body and mind that help to maintain physical and intellectual capacity over a lifetime. There is a long-standing community dedicated to sustainable lifelong learning on campus, the McGill Community for Lifelong Learning (MCLL). There are also worldwide efforts underway to promote lifelong learning in the context of age friendly cities under the auspices of UNESCO and the World Health Organization. Moreover, the international network of Age Friendly Universities, Lifelong Learning Institutes and over 200 University Based Retirement Communities (UBRCs) in the USA offer resources, guidelines, operating principles and research for building unique and innovative local responses to the changing demographics, increased cultural diversity and technological changes in education futures for learners in a given community. The poster will highlight national and international research initiatives and networks to enhance well-being and mental health through lifelong learning.Different L4 community options will be explored, building on MCLL’s peer learning experience over the past 27 years. It will reflect opportunities for interdisciplinary collaboration with university and wider Montreal community stakeholders, including health care professionals, caregivers, and educators.The poster will demonstrate that a lifelong learning approach to whole person care has the potential to be transformative. 


2021 ◽  
pp. 285-304
Author(s):  
Ivana Křížková ◽  
Meng Le Zhang ◽  
Dan Olner ◽  
Gwilym Pryce

AbstractInthischapter, we highlight the importance of social frontiers—sharp spatial divisions in the residential make-up of adjacent communities—as a potentially important form of segregation. The handful of studies estimating the impacts of social frontiers have been based in the USA and the UK, both of which are free-market democracies with a long history of immigration, ethnic mix and segregation. There are currently no studies of social frontiers in former socialist countries, for example, or in countries where immigration and ethnic mix are only a recent phenomenon or non-existent. This chapter aims to address this research gap by estimating the impacts of social frontiers on crime rates in a post-socialistcountry, Czechia. We demonstrate how a Bayesianspatial conditional autoregressive estimation can be used to detect social frontiers in this setting, and we use a fixed effect quasi-Poisson model to investigate the impact on crime. Our results suggest that in new immigration destinations, social frontiers may not be associated with higher rates of crime, at least in the short run. Moreover, our use of cultural distance measures helps to promote a more nuanced approach to studying the impact of segregation and highlights the role of cultural diversity in understanding the link between immigrant segregation and crime. We reflect on how this approach could contribute to the study of segregation and inequality in the Chinese context.


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