scholarly journals Inclusive Finance, Environmental Regulation, and Public Health in China: Lessons for the COVID-19 Pandemic

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xia Liu ◽  
Suqin Guo

The slow-down of the Chinese economy and the depression in the global economy during the COVID-19 show that governments should provide stimulus packages. These policies should be inclusive in terms of financial gains. Using the panel data of 30 regions in China from 2006 to 2016, this paper uses the Poisson Pseudo-Maximum Likelihood (PPML) estimator to analyze the impact of inclusive finance on public health. The results show that inclusive finance has a significant positive effect on public health. The performance of the eastern region is significantly better than that of the central and western regions. When we consider the combined effect of environmental regulation, the improvement effect of inclusive finance on public health is still significant, and the coefficient increases in the eastern region. Similarly, there is also a significant improvement effect in the central and western regions. Our findings reveal that environmental regulation promotes the beneficial effect of inclusive finance. Therefore, it is important to improve the inclusive financial development mechanism and enhance environmental regulation intensity for solving public health issues. Lessons related to the COVID-19 pandemic are also discussed.

2018 ◽  
Vol 34 (6) ◽  
pp. 1241-1249 ◽  
Author(s):  
Louis Rice ◽  
Rachel Sara

Abstract In 1991, Dahlgren and Whitehead produced a highly influential model of the determinants of health that has since been used by numerous national and international public health organizations globally. The purpose of the model is to enable interventions that improve health to be addressed at four key policy levels. It is not a model of health or disease; instead the model is structured around health policy decision-making. However the model needs an update, since it was devised there has been a digital revolution that has transformed every aspect of: human life, our cities, society and the fundamental principles upon which the global economy operates. The article examines the impact of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) on the determinants of health. ICT has given rise to a new Information Age that is implicated in many of the major global health issues today. Addressing contemporary health issues requires intervention at the level of ICT, particularly as health communication online is central to the delivery and dissemination of public health policies.


2020 ◽  
Vol 30 (Supplement_5) ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  

Abstract This workshop is dedicated on SDGs in the focus of environmental and health issues, as very important and actual topic. One of the characteristics of today's societies is the significant availability of modern technologies. Over 5 billion (about 67%) people have a cellphone today. More than 4.5 billion people worldwide use the Internet, close to 60% of the total population. At the same time, one third of the people in the world does not have access to safe drinking water and half of the population does not have access to safe sanitation. The WHO at UN warns of severe inequalities in access to water and hygiene. Air, essential to life, is a leading risk due to ubiquitous pollution and contributes to the global disease burden (7 million deaths per year). Air pollution is a consequence of traffic and industry, but also of demographic trends and other human activities. Food availability reflects global inequality, famine eradication being one of the SDGs. The WHO warns of the urgency. As technology progresses, social inequality grows, the gap widens, and the environment continues to suffer. Furthermore, the social environment in societies is “ruffled” and does not appear to be beneficial toward well-being. New inequalities are emerging in the availability of technology, climate change, education. The achievement reports on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), also point out to the need of reviewing individual indicators. According to the Sustainable Development Agenda, one of the goals is to reduce inequalities, and environmental health is faced by several specific goals. The Global Burden of Disease is the most comprehensive effort to date to measure epidemiological levels and trends worldwide. It is the product of a global research collaborative and quantifies the impact of hundreds of diseases, injuries, and risk factors in countries around the world. This workshop will also discuss Urban Health as a Complex System in the light of SDGs. Climate Change, Public Health impacts and the role of the new digital technologies is also important topic which is contributing to SDG3, improving health, to SDG4, allowing to provide distance health education at relatively low cost and to SDG 13, by reducing the CO2 footprint. Community Engagement can both empower vulnerable populations (so reducing inequalities) and identify the prior environmental issues to be addressed. The aim was to search for public health programs using Community Engagement tools in healthy environment building towards achievement of SDGs. Key messages Health professionals are involved in the overall process of transformation necessary to achieve the SDGs. Health professionals should be proactive and contribute to the transformation leading to better health for the environment, and thus for the human population.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (21) ◽  
pp. 12225
Author(s):  
Silvio Cristiano ◽  
Samuele Zilio

An increasing interest has been present in scientific literature and policy making for the links between urban environments and health, as also learnt from the COVID-19 pandemic. Collaboration between urban planning and public health is therefore critical for enhancing the capabilities of a city to promote the well-being of its people. However, what leverage potential for urban health can be found in existing plans, policies, and strategies that address urban health? Starting from the relationship between urban systems and health issues, the purpose of this contribution is to broaden the systemic knowledge of urban systems and health so as to try to figure out the impact potential of local urban governance on public health. Considering the systemic nature of health issues, as defined by the World Health Organisation, this is done through a systems thinking epistemological approach. Urban health proposals are studied and assessed in four European cities (Copenhagen, London, Berlin, and Vienna). Current criticalities are found, starting from the guiding goal of such proposals, yet a systemic approach is suggested aimed at supporting and evaluating lasting and healthy urban planning and management strategies.


2009 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 107-113 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hélène Verdoux ◽  
Marie Tournier ◽  
Bernard Bégaud

SummaryBackground– As a large number of persons are exposed to prescribed psychotropic drugs, their utilisation and impact should be further explored at the population level.Aims– To illustrate the interest of pharmacoepidemiological studies of psychotropic drugs by selected examples of major public health issues.Method– Selective review of the literature. Results – Many questions remain unsolved regarding the behavioural teratogenicity of prenatal exposure to psychotropic drugs, the impact of their increasing use in children, the long-term cognitive consequences of exposure to benzodiazepines, and the risks associated with extension of indications of antipsychotic drugs.Conclusion– Pharmacoepidemiological studies need to be further developed owing to the large number of public health questions raised by the extensive and expanding use of psychotropic drugs.


2021 ◽  
pp. 199-209
Author(s):  
Branislav Fabry

The article deals with the contemporary legal and ethical challenges, caused by coronavirus COVID-19. It analyses the reason why the western world was so much surprized by that pandemics. The text mentions the succeses of western medicine in the battle against epidemics in the 20th century and sees it as one of the reason for underestimating the public health issues in 21st century. The article also emphasizes on other contemporary threat, the antimicrobiotic resistance and the need for new legal answers to pandemics. It deals with problem of human genome editing as the central topic by creating of hereditary immunity against new viral threats. The text also mentions the risks of such new treatment and the impact on human dignity that is understood as leading value in the contemporary legal regulation on biotechnology.


2021 ◽  
Vol 2021 ◽  
pp. 1-13
Author(s):  
Shuangliang Yao ◽  
Xiang Su

This paper uses the super-efficiency SBM model to measure the green economic efficiency considering undesired output and analyzes the spatial distribution difference of green economic efficiency; secondly, the nonlinear panel threshold model is used to empirically study the nonlinear relationship between environmental regulations and green economic efficiency, and further analyzed the threshold effect of environmental regulations on the efficiency of green economy and concluded as follows. (1) The green economy efficiency index in the eastern region is mostly more significant than 1, and the green economy efficiency in most provinces in the eastern region has improved. These provinces have higher regional production levels and less environmental pollution. The green economy efficiency of the central region is second only to the eastern region. The green economy efficiency of provinces in the western region except Chongqing is less than 1, indicating that these provinces have insufficient regional production, severe environmental pollution, or extensive resource depletion. (2) The impact of environmental regulations on the efficiency of the green economy presents an inverted “U” shape, with a threshold of 0.5128 for environmental regulations. The impact of the industrial structure on the efficiency of the green economy changes from inhibition to promotion after crossing the threshold of the intensity of environmental regulation, and the degree of opening to the outside world has a complementary effect on the efficiency of the green economy. The impact of urbanization on the efficiency of the green economy changes from promotion to suppression after surpassing the threshold of the intensity of environmental regulations.


Viruses ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 8
Author(s):  
Ray Taylor ◽  
Richard Bowen ◽  
James F. Demarest ◽  
Michael DeSpirito ◽  
Airn Hartwig ◽  
...  

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has claimed the lives of millions of people worldwide since it first emerged. The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on public health and the global economy has highlighted the medical need for the development of broadly acting interventions against emerging viral threats. Galidesivir is a broad-spectrum antiviral compound with demonstrated in vitro and in vivo efficacy against several RNA viruses of public health concern, including those causing yellow fever, Ebola, Marburg, and Rift Valley fever. In vitro studies have shown that the antiviral activity of galidesivir also extends to coronaviruses. Herein, we describe the efficacy of galidesivir in the Syrian golden hamster model of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection. Treatment with galidesivir reduced lung pathology in infected animals compared with untreated controls when treatment was initiated 24 h prior to infection. These results add to the evidence of the applicability of galidesivir as a potential medical intervention for a range of acute viral illnesses, including coronaviruses.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hongxing Tu ◽  
Songtao Xu ◽  
Xu Xiao

Abstract Using DEA-Tobit model, the paper empirically analyzes the impact of environmental regulation and technological innovation on industrial environmental efficiency with the data from Chinese Cement Industry. The results show that both environmental regulation and technological innovation all have a significant role in promoting the environmental efficiency of cement industry. Among all the influencing factors, the improvement of pollution disposal capacity has the biggest positive effect on environmental efficiency, while the energy-saving effect caused by environmental regulation is not obvious, the factor endowment structure has no substantial impact on environmental efficiency. Adhering to the strategy of "reducing emissions mainly and saving energy as auxiliary", continuously optimizing the energy consumption structure, raising the level of industrialization and industrial agglomeration are conducive to the sustainable development of China’s cement industry.


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