scholarly journals Addressing the “shadow pandemic” through a public health approach to violence prevention

2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 60-65
Author(s):  
Lara C. Snowdon ◽  
Emma R. Barton ◽  
Annemarie Newbury ◽  
Bryony Parry ◽  
Mark A. Bellis ◽  
...  

Experts from across the globe have warned of the adverse consequences of COVID-19 lockdown and physical distancing restrictions on violence in the home, with the United Nations describing it as a shadow pandemic. This social innovation narra-tive explores how a public health approach to violence prevention is implemented in Wales during the COVID-19 pandemic by the multi-agency Wales Violence Prevention Unit. The article highlights early trends in monitoring data on the impact of COVID-19 restrictions on violence, including likely increases in domestic and sexual violence and abuse, concerns over the safety of children and young people, both online and in the home, and increased reporting of elder abuse. The article supports the notion of a shadow pandemic, emphasizing the lack of data that routinely measures violence in the home and online that disproportionately affects women, children, and older people, as well as vulnerable and minority populations. This renders these forms of violence much less “visible” to policy-makers in comparison with violence in public spaces, but they are of no less public health significance. Through sharing this narrative and early findings, we call for increased focus on the develop-ment of new data collection methods and violence prevention programs during the COVID-19 pandemic and in the future.

2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. e000762
Author(s):  
Christy Adams ◽  
Deborah A Kuhls ◽  
Shelli Stephens-Stidham ◽  
Julie Alonso ◽  
Stewart Williams ◽  
...  

For decades, the American College of Surgeons Committee on Trauma (ACSCOT) has published Resources for Optimal Care of the Injured Patient, which outlines specific criteria necessary to be verified by the college as a trauma center, including having an organized and effective approach to prevention of trauma. However, the document provides little public health-specific guidance to assist trauma centers with developing these approaches. An advisory panel was convened in 2017 with representatives from national trauma and public health organizations with the purpose of identifying strategies to support trauma centers in the development of a public health approach to injury and violence prevention and to better integrate these efforts with those of local and state public health departments. This panel developed the Standards and Indicators for Model Level I and II Trauma Center Injury and Violence Prevention Programs. The document outlines five, consensus-based core components of a model injury and violence prevention program: (1) leadership, (2) resources, (3) data, (4) effective interventions, and (5) partnerships. We think this document provides the missing public health guidance and is an essential resource to trauma centers for effectively addressing injury and violence in our communities. We recommend the Standards and Indicators be referenced in the injury prevention chapter of the upcoming revision of ACSCOT’s Resources for Optimal Care of the Injured Patient as guidance for the development, implementation and evaluation of injury prevention programs and be used as a framework for program presentation during ACSCOT verification visits.


2020 ◽  
pp. 074391562098384
Author(s):  
Norah Campbell ◽  
Sarah Browne ◽  
Marius Claudy ◽  
Melissa Mialon ◽  
Hercberg Serge ◽  
...  

Ultra-processed food manufacturers have proposed that product reformulation should be a key strategy to tackle obesity. In determining the impact of reformulation on population dietary behaviours, policy makers are often dependant on data provided by these manufacturers. Where such data are “gifted” to regulators there may be an implicit expectation of reciprocity that adversely influences nutrition policies. We sought to assess Europe’s industry-led reformulation strategy in five countries deploying critical policy studies as an approach. We found that interim results on industry-led food reformulation did not meet their targets. Information asymmetries exist between food industry and policy makers: the latter are not privy to marketing intelligence and must instead rely on data that are voluntarily donated by food industry actors. These data represent a distorted snippet of the marketing intelligence system from whence they came. Because these data indeed bear all the hallmarks of a gift, regulatory and public health authorities operate within a gift economy. The implications of this “data gift economy” are strategic delay and goal-setting when the field is not visible. Ultimately, this could diminish the implementation of public health nutrition policies that are contrary to the commercial interests of ultra-processed food producers.


2020 ◽  
Vol 15 ◽  
pp. 50 ◽  
Author(s):  
Houssine Zine ◽  
Adnane Boukhouima ◽  
El Mehdi Lotfi ◽  
Marouane Mahrouf ◽  
Delfim F.M. Torres ◽  
...  

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) poses a great threat to public health and the economy worldwide. Currently, COVID-19 evolves in many countries to a second stage, characterized by the need for the liberation of the economy and relaxation of the human psychological effects. To this end, numerous countries decided to implement adequate deconfinement strategies. After the first prolongation of the established confinement, Morocco moves to the deconfinement stage on May 20, 2020. The relevant question concerns the impact on the COVID-19 propagation by considering an additional degree of realism related to stochastic noises due to the effectiveness level of the adapted measures. In this paper, we propose a delayed stochastic mathematical model to predict the epidemiological trend of COVID-19 in Morocco after the deconfinement. To ensure the well-posedness of the model, we prove the existence and uniqueness of a positive solution. Based on the large number theorem for martingales, we discuss the extinction of the disease under an appropriate threshold parameter. Moreover, numerical simulations are performed in order to test the efficiency of the deconfinement strategies chosen by the Moroccan authorities to help the policy makers and public health administration to make suitable decisions in the near future.


Author(s):  
Thomas Simon ◽  
Kimberly Hurvitz

Violence, including child maltreatment, youth violence, intimate partner violence, and sexual violence, is a significant public health problem in the United States. A public health approach can help providers understand the health burden from violence, evaluate evidence for prevention strategies, and learn where to turn for information about planning and implementing prevention strategies for this preventable problem. For the past three decades, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has published “Healthy People” objectives for the next decade. The Healthy People 2020 initiative includes 13 measurable objectives related to violence prevention, one of which was selected as a Healthy People 2020 Leading Health Indicator. Progress to achieve these objectives can save thousands of lives, reduce the suffering of victims and their families, and decrease financial cost to the law enforcement and healthcare systems. The role that nurses can and do play in violence prevention is critical and extends beyond just caring for victims to also include preventing violence before it happens. This article summarizes the violence prevention objectives in Healthy People 2020 and the resources for prevention available to support nurses and others as they move prevention efforts forward in communities to stop violence before it starts.


2016 ◽  
pp. 245-255
Author(s):  
Massoud Samiei

Despite all the progress made in cancer research and in the fight against cancer, the disease cannot be completely eradicated in the foreseeable future. A logical public health measure must therefore focus all efforts on preventing and confining the disease, i.e. a systematic and coordinated approach to reduce the impact of cancer on populations. Such an organised approach is called cancer control. It forms part of a holistic and coordinated approach, called a national cancer control plan/ programme (NCCP), involving the public sector, non-governmental organizations, academia, and the private sector. Policy makers and cancer advocacy groups should consider cancer control planning, and its financing and implementation, a public health necessity and not an option. The model proposed here is a hybrid one. The success of cancer control planning depends greatly on the availability and functionality of local cancer data and knowledge, in addition to adequate resources and government commitment.


2019 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 2-5
Author(s):  
Alexander Butchart ◽  
Stephanie Burrows ◽  
Berit Kieselbach

Abstract Violence is a major public health problem and in recent years has become increasingly important on the global public health agenda. This article provides an overview of the history and significance of interpersonal violence – including child maltreatment, youth violence, intimate partner violence and elder abuse – in global health and development policy, and illustrates the public health approach to violence prevention.


Author(s):  
David Clarke

There has been slow progress with finding practical solutions to health systems corruption, a topic that has long languished in policy-makers "too difficult tray." Efforts to achieve universal health coverage (UHC) provide a new imperative for addressing the long-standing problem of corruption in health systems making fighting corruption at all levels and in all its forms a priority. In response, health system corruption should be classified as a risk to public health and addressed by adopting a public health approach. Taking a public health approach to health systems corruption could promote a new paradigm for working on health system anti-corruption efforts. A public health approach could increase the space for policy dialogue about corruption, focus work to address corruption on prevention, help generate and disseminate evidence about effective interventions strategies, and because of its focus on multisectoral action would provide new opportunities for promoting cooperation on anti-corruption work across multiple agencies and sectors. Using a public health approach to tackle health system corruption could help address the current inertia around the topic and create a new positive mindset among policy-makers who would come to see corruption as a manageable public health problem rather than an intractable one.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Bernal-Serrano ◽  
Hector Carrasco ◽  
Lindsay Palazuelos ◽  
Joel M. Mubiligi ◽  
Catherine Oswald ◽  
...  

The Mexican government’sapproach to COVID-19 is failing. The strategy—to care for those that require hospitalization (20% of all cases), deliver mass communication messages, and regulate social distancing following a stoplight system for the rest of the population-is not aggressive enough for prevention. An anemic public health approach with scarce testing and no contact tracing or quarantine, has led to a sky-rocketing number of new infections and deaths. If the current trend continues, Mexico will see around 130 thousand deaths by December and a 53% annualized rate of decrease in the GDP. The government must implement a clear federal strategy to stop the spread of the virus: widespread testing, isolation of symptomatic cases; tracing, and quarantiningof their contacts. This comprehensive public health strategy with targeted social support to protect the vulnerable is a proven approach. Through evaluating other countries’ programs and extrapolating lessons for the Mexican context, we demonstrate thatimplementing testing and contact tracing for all acute respiratory infections is feasible with Mexico’s current resources. A strategy where symptomatic patients are tested and isolated and contacts are quarantined, can suppress community spread, save lives, reduce suffering, decrease the burden on hospitals, and restart the economic activity earlier and in a safer way. The more we wait to implement comprehensive testing and tracing to suppress the epidemic, the more people will become infected, and the impact of this measures will decrease.


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