scholarly journals VACCINE HESITANCY: A THREAT TO VACCINE PREVENTABLE DISEASE PROGRAMS

2019 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Disease Transmission ◽  
Cost Effective ◽  
Vaccine Safety ◽  
Polio Eradication ◽  
Health Interventions ◽  
Childhood Vaccination ◽  
Vaccine Hesitancy ◽  
Public Health Interventions ◽  
Eradication Program

Childhood vaccination program provides one of the most cost-effective public health interventions. Vaccination prevents about 2-3 million deaths a year.1 Disease elimination and eradication programs are one of the most effective way to interrupt disease transmission, which results in reducing morbidity and mortality. After successful eradication of small pox in 19772, the world is close to achieve the goal of polio eradication. Polio eradication program has evolved since its beginning around three decades ago. However, the program has seen several challenges during this time around the globe. Hesitation to vaccinate remains one of the most important factors to determine the course of eradication program. Vaccine hesitancy is “the reluctance or refusal to vaccinate despite the availability of vaccines”.1 Any factor affecting the public trust in vaccine safety, purity or efficacy can result in variable level of vaccine hesitancy.3-5 Vaccine hesitancy, if not addressed timely and effectively, can hamper the progress of the program and pose challenges to completion of the disease eradication and elimination programs. Vaccine hesitancy affects the coverage and has impact on overall immunity levels and it needs to be taken seriously. Among all public health interventions, immunization programs were able to investigate the details of the reasons for not vaccinating children. Probably, to our knowledge, the polio program has underwent the most in-depth exploration on the causes of reluctance to vaccinate than any other public health program. However, vaccine hesitancy is comparatively difficult to capture in routine immunization program. Vaccine hesitancy becomes more obvious during supplementary immunization campaigns as the interventions are for brief time and the time taken by community to react to intervention is short as well. While the goal of eradicating polio is near, the issues of vaccine hesitancy are still adversely affecting the global eradication of polio.

scholarly journals The Role of Public Health Communication in Combating Vaccine Hesitancy: A Historical Comparison

2020 ◽  
pp. 31-33
Author(s):  
Isabel Dewey
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Science Communication ◽  
Vaccine Safety ◽  
Health Interventions ◽  
Vaccine Hesitancy ◽  
Mmr Vaccine ◽  
Public Health Interventions ◽  
Health Crisis ◽  
Historical Comparison ◽  
The Difference

In the current COVID-19 global health crisis, discussions of vaccine safety and hesitancy are being brought to light, as they were during many historical pandemics. In order to suggest effective public health interventions, it is important to examine the historically conventional interventions implemented during previous pandemics. In this review, the governmental role and communication strategies during the smallpox and the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine hesitancies are compared. Specifically, it assesses how these factors may have contributed to vaccine hesitancy and the difference in outcomes. This discussion emphasizes the importance of effective science communication and public health interventions in the prevention and eradication of diseases.

scholarly journals Evolution of disease transmission during the COVID-19 pandemic: patterns and determinants

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jie Zhu ◽  
Blanca Gallego
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Disease Transmission ◽  
Clustering Algorithm ◽  
Health Interventions ◽  
Transmission Model ◽  
Model Parameters ◽  
Public Health Interventions ◽  
Forecasting Accuracy ◽  
Time Lagged ◽  
The Impact

AbstractEpidemic models are being used by governments to inform public health strategies to reduce the spread of SARS-CoV-2. They simulate potential scenarios by manipulating model parameters that control processes of disease transmission and recovery. However, the validity of these parameters is challenged by the uncertainty of the impact of public health interventions on disease transmission, and the forecasting accuracy of these models is rarely investigated during an outbreak. We fitted a stochastic transmission model on reported cases, recoveries and deaths associated with SARS-CoV-2 infection across 101 countries. The dynamics of disease transmission was represented in terms of the daily effective reproduction number ($$R_t$$ R t ). The relationship between public health interventions and $$R_t$$ R t was explored, firstly using a hierarchical clustering algorithm on initial $$R_t$$ R t patterns, and secondly computing the time-lagged cross correlation among the daily number of policies implemented, $$R_t$$ R t , and daily incidence counts in subsequent months. The impact of updating $$R_t$$ R t every time a prediction is made on the forecasting accuracy of the model was investigated. We identified 5 groups of countries with distinct transmission patterns during the first 6 months of the pandemic. Early adoption of social distancing measures and a shorter gap between interventions were associated with a reduction on the duration of outbreaks. The lagged correlation analysis revealed that increased policy volume was associated with lower future $$R_t$$ R t (75 days lag), while a lower $$R_t$$ R t was associated with lower future policy volume (102 days lag). Lastly, the outbreak prediction accuracy of the model using dynamically updated $$R_t$$ R t produced an average AUROC of 0.72 (0.708, 0.723) compared to 0.56 (0.555, 0.568) when $$R_t$$ R t was kept constant. Monitoring the evolution of $$R_t$$ R t during an epidemic is an important complementary piece of information to reported daily counts, recoveries and deaths, since it provides an early signal of the efficacy of containment measures. Using updated $$R_t$$ R t values produces significantly better predictions of future outbreaks. Our results found variation in the effect of early public health interventions on the evolution of $$R_t$$ R t over time and across countries, which could not be explained solely by the timing and number of the adopted interventions.

The Economics of Infectious Diseases

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katharina Hauck
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Infectious Diseases ◽  
Disease Transmission ◽  
Health Interventions ◽  
Health System Strengthening ◽  
Economic Research ◽  
Economic Evaluations ◽  
Research Needs ◽  
Public Health Interventions ◽  
The Impact

Economics can make immensely valuable contributions to our understanding of infectious disease transmission and the design of effective policy responses. The one unique characteristic of infectious diseases makes it also particularly complicated to analyze: the fact that it is transmitted from person to person. It explains why individuals’ behavior and externalities are a central topic for the economics of infectious diseases. Many public health interventions are built on the assumption that individuals are altruistic and consider the benefits and costs of their actions to others. This would imply that even infected individuals demand prevention, which stands in conflict with the economic theory of rational behavior. Empirical evidence is conflicting for infected individuals. For healthy individuals, evidence suggests that the demand for prevention is affected by real or perceived risk of infection. However, studies are plagued by underreporting of preventive behavior and non-random selection into testing. Some empirical studies have shown that the impact of prevention interventions could be far greater than one case prevented, resulting in significant externalities. Therefore, economic evaluations need to build on dynamic transmission models in order to correctly estimate these externalities. Future research needs are significant. Economic research needs to improve our understanding of the role of human behavior in disease transmission; support the better integration of economic and epidemiological modeling, evaluation of large-scale public health interventions with quasi-experimental methods, design of optimal subsidies for tackling the global threat of antimicrobial resistance, refocusing the research agenda toward underresearched diseases; and most importantly to assure that progress translates into saved lives on the ground by advising on effective health system strengthening.

Public Health or Clinical Ethics: Thinking beyond Borders

2002 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 35-45 ◽  
Author(s):  
Onora O'Neill
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Medical Ethics ◽  
Clinical Medicine ◽  
Clinical Care ◽  
Effective Means ◽  
Cost Effective ◽  
Health Interventions ◽  
Individual Autonomy ◽  
Public Health Interventions ◽  
Health Measures

Most work in medical ethics across the last twenty-five years has centered on the ethics of clinical medicine. Even work on health and justice has, in the main, been concerned with the just distribution of (access to) clinical care for individual patients. By contrast, the ethics of public health has been widely neglected. This neglect is surprising, given that public health interventions are often the most effective (and most cost-effective) means of improving health in rich and poor societies alike.In this essay I explore two sources of contemporary neglect of public health ethics. One source of neglect is that contemporary medical ethics has been preoccupied—in my view damagingly preoccupied—with the autonomy of individual patients. Yet individual autonomy can hardly be a guiding ethical principle for public health measures, since many of them must be uniform and compulsory if they are to be effective. A second source of neglect is that contemporary political philosophy has been preoccupied—in my view damagingly preoccupied—with the requirements for justice within states or societies, and (until very recently) has hardly discussed justice across borders. Yet public health problems often cross borders, and public health interventions have to measure up to the problems they address.

scholarly journals Evolution of disease transmission rate during the course of SARS-COV-2: Patterns and determinants

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jie Zhu ◽  
Blanca Gallego
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Disease Transmission ◽  
Reproduction Number ◽  
Transmission Rate ◽  
Region Of Interest ◽  
Health Interventions ◽  
Transmission Model ◽  
Public Health Interventions ◽  
Containment Measures ◽  
The Impact

Abstract To date, many studies have argued the potential impact of public health interventions on flattening the epidemic curve of SARS-CoV-2. Most of them have focused on simulating the impact of interventions in a region of interest by manipulating contact patterns and key transmission parameters to reflect different scenarios. Our study looks into the evolution of the daily effective reproduction number during the epidemic via a stochastic transmission model. We found this measure (although model-dependent) provides an early signal of the efficacy of containment measures. This epidemiological parameter when updated in real-time can also provide better predictions of future outbreaks. Our results found a substantial variation in the effect of public health interventions on the dynamic of SARS-CoV-2 transmission over time and across countries, that could not be explained solely by the timing and number of the adopted interventions. This suggests that further knowledge about the idiosyncrasy of their implementation and effectiveness is required. Although sustained containment measures have successfully lowered growth in disease transmission, more than half of the 101 studied countries failed to maintain the effective reproduction number close to or below 1. This resulted in continued growth in reported cases. Finally, we were able to predict with reasonable accuracy which countries would experience outbreaks in the next 30 days.

Immunization

2010 ◽  
pp. 93-109
Author(s):  
Claudia L. Swanton ◽  
Barbara J. Timm ◽  
Heidi K. Roeber Rice
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Hepatitis B ◽  
Health Interventions ◽  
Childhood Vaccination ◽  
Public Health Interventions ◽  
Vaccine Preventable Diseases ◽  
The Public ◽  
Awareness Campaigns ◽  
China And India ◽  
Effective Public Health

The use of vaccines can be traced back to China and India before 200 BC. Vaccination, now considered one of the most effective public health interventions, became common practice in the 1940s with the introduction of vaccines for diphtheria and tetanus. Since that time, many infectious diseases have been well controlled through vaccination. This chapter focuses on live and attenuated bacterial and viral vaccines and those that are composed of toxoids. Hepatitis B, pneumococcal disease, and influenza are the most common vaccine-preventable diseases in adults. Rates of childhood vaccination remain suboptimal. Ideally, vaccination begins before infants are dismissed home after birth. Targeted awareness campaigns can be used to educate providers and the public about the importance of immunization.

scholarly journals Economic evaluations of public health interventions for physical activity and diet: systematic review

2020 ◽  
Vol 30 (Supplement_5) ◽  
Author(s):  
M Gebreslassie ◽  
F Sampaio ◽  
C Nystrand ◽  
R Ssegonja ◽  
I Feldman
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Physical Activity ◽  
Systematic Review ◽  
Dietary Habits ◽  
Cost Effective ◽  
Health Technology ◽  
Health Interventions ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
Economic Evaluations ◽  
Public Health Interventions

Abstract Background Physical inactivity and unhealthy dietary habits are associated with an increased disease and economic burden. Despite the prevalence of different public health programs, decision-makers encounter a multitude of challenges in prioritizing interventions for optimal resource allocation. The aim of this systematic review, therefore, was to identify economic evaluations of public health interventions targeting physical activity and healthy diet, and assess the quality and transferability of the findings to the Swedish context. Methods A search of published economic evaluations was conducted through electronic databases including PubMed, Web of Science, PsycINFO, National Health Service Economic Evaluation Databases (NHS EED) and the Health Technology Assessment Database (HTA). An additional search was done using references of relevant systematic reviews and, websites of relevant organizations were checked to find grey literature. Quality and transferability of the economic evaluations were appraised using a quality assessment tool developed by the Swedish Agency for Health Technology Assessment. Preliminary Results Thirty-two economic evaluations of 178 interventions were included; thirteen studies targeting physical activity, thirteen targeting healthy diet and six targeting both. The interventions varied in terms of their content, setting, mode of delivery and target populations. A majority of the economic evaluations reported that the interventions were likely to be cost-effective; however, considerable variations in the methodological and reporting qualities were observed. Only half of the economic evaluations were rated to have a high probability of transferring to the Swedish context. Conclusions Most of the interventions were reported to be cost-effective. However, a variation in quality and transferability of the available evidence to the Swedish context were observed. Key messages Public health interventions targeting physical activity and dietary habits have a high potential to be cost-effective. Decision makers should consider transferability and suitability of findings of economic evaluation from a different context to a decision problem at hand.

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