Health Technology Assessment

2011 ◽  
pp. 26-41
Author(s):  
Lise Lund Haheim ◽  
Berit Morland

Scientific publications in medical fields are rapidly increasing and are overwhelming in numbers. This poses a challenge to health authorities, and health professionals who need knowledge to make informed decisions in finding the best evidence for treatment and practice in the health provision to the public. They need an accessible system that handle the information flow using a systematic approach. This applies to developing and industrialized countries alike. The rapid development of health technologies with the introduction of new drugs, devices, and complex treatment modalities to achieve better health outcomes increases the need for evaluation of the treatment effect. This chapter illustrates how the health service handles the information flow utilizing information technology, and the great benefit that is gained by this methodology.

Author(s):  
Lise Lund Haheim ◽  
Berit Morland

Scientific publications in medical fields are rapidly increasing and are overwhelming in numbers. This poses a challenge to health authorities, and health professionals who need knowledge to make informed decisions in finding the best evidence for treatment and practice in the health provision to the public. They need an accessible system that handle the information flow using a systematic approach. This applies to developing and industrialized countries alike. The rapid development of health technologies with the introduction of new drugs, devices, and complex treatment modalities to achieve better health outcomes increases the need for evaluation of the treatment effect. This chapter illustrates how the health service handles the information flow utilizing information technology, and the great benefit that is gained by this methodology.


2013 ◽  
Vol 29 (4) ◽  
pp. 410-417 ◽  
Author(s):  
Caroline Pagotto ◽  
Fabiana Varallo ◽  
Patrícia Mastroianni

Introduction: Spontaneous adverse drug events (ADE) reporting is the main source of data for assessing the risk/benefit of drugs available in the pharmaceutical market. However, its major limitation is underreporting, which hinders and delays the signal detection by Pharmacovigilance (PhV).Objectives: To identify the techniques of educational intervention (EI) for promotion of PhV by health professionals and to assess their impact.Methods: A systematic review was performed in the PUBMED, PAHO, LILACS and EMBASE databases, from November/2011 to January/2012, updated in March/2013. The strategy search included the use of health descriptors and a manual search in the references cited by selected papers.Results: 101 articles were identified, of which 16 met the inclusion criteria. Most of these studies (10) were conducted in European hospitals and physicians were the health professionals subjected to most EI (12), these studies lasted from one month to two years. EI with multifaceted techniques raised the absolute number, the rate of reporting related to adverse drug reactions (ADR), technical defects of health technologies, and also promoted an improvement in the quality of reports, since there was increased reporting of ADR classified as serious, unexpected, related to new drugs and with high degree of causality.Conclusion: Multifaceted educational interventions for multidisciplinary health teams working at all healthcare levels, with sufficient duration to reach all professionals who act in the institution, including issues related to medication errors and therapeutic ineffectiveness, must be validated, with the aim of standardizing the Good Practice of PhV and improve drug safety indicators.


2021 ◽  
Vol 118 (29) ◽  
pp. e2024597118
Author(s):  
Michael Bang Petersen ◽  
Alexander Bor ◽  
Frederik Jørgensen ◽  
Marie Fly Lindholt

During the rapid development and rolling out of vaccines against COVID-19, researchers have called for an approach of “radical transparency,” in which vaccine information is transparently disclosed to the public, even if negative information can decrease vaccine uptake. Consistent with theories about the psychology of conspiracy beliefs, these calls predict that a lack of transparency may reduce trust in health authorities and may facilitate the spread of conspiracy theories, which may limit the long-term capabilities of health authorities during and after the pandemic. On the basis of preregistered experiments conducted on large, representative samples of Americans and Danes (N > 13,000), the current study contrasts the effects of vague vaccine communication with transparent communication, which discloses either positive or negative vaccine features. The evidence demonstrates that transparent negative communication may indeed harm vaccine acceptance here and now but that it increases trust in health authorities. Furthermore, the alternative of vague, reassuring communication does not increase vaccine acceptance either and leads to both lower trust and higher endorsement of conspiracy theories.


2015 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 447-458 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anat Gesser-Edelsburg ◽  
Yaffa Shir-Raz ◽  
Nathan Walter ◽  
Emilio Mordini ◽  
Dimitris Dimitriou ◽  
...  

ABSTRACTObjectiveRecent years have seen advances in theories and models of risk and crisis communication, with a focus on emerging epidemic infection. Nevertheless, information flow remains unilateral in many countries and does not take into account the public’s polyvocality and the fact that its opinions and knowledge often “compete” with those of health authorities. This article addresses the challenges organizations face in communicating with the public sphere.MethodsOur theoretical approach is conceptualized through a framework that focuses on the public sphere and that builds upon existing guidelines and studies in the context of health and pandemics. We examine how health organizations cope with the public’s transformation from recipients to an active and vocal entity, ie, how and to what extent health organizations address the public’s anxiety and concerns arising in the social media during outbreaks.ResultsAlthough international organizations have aspired to relate to the public as a partner, this article identifies notable gaps.ConclusionsOrganizations must involve the public throughout the crisis and conduct dialogues free of prejudices, paternalism, and preconceptions. Thereby, they can impart precise and updated information reflecting uncertainty and considering cultural differences to build trust and facilitate cooperation with the public sphere. (Disaster Med Public Health Preparedness. 2015;9:447–458)


Author(s):  
Natalia Kostenko

The subject matter of research interest here is the movement of sociological reflection concerning the interplay of public and private realms in social, political and individual life. The focus is on the boundary constructs embodying publicity, which are, first of all, classical models of the space of appearance for free citizens of the polis (H. Arendt) and the public sphere organised by communicative rationality (Ju. Habermas). Alternative patterns are present in modern ideas pertaining to the significance of biological component in public space in the context of biopolitics (M. Foucault), “inclusive exclusion of bare life” (G. Agamben), as well as performativity of corporeal and linguistic experience related to the right to participate in civil acts such as popular assembly (J. Butler), where the established distinctions between the public and the private are levelled, and the interrelationship of these two realms becomes reconfigured. Once the new media have come into play, both the structure and nature of the public sphere becomes modified. What assumes a decisive role is people’s physical interaction with online communication gadgets, which instantly connect information networks along various trajectories. However, the rapid development of information technology produces particular risks related to the control of communications industry, leaving both public and private realms unprotected and deforming them. This also urges us to rethink the issue of congruence of the two ideas such as transparency of societies and security.


Communicology ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 74-88
Author(s):  
D.A. Kemenev

The article investigates the imageological aspect of mentor’s communicative competence in public service and reveals the communicative functions of mentor’s image in relation to the mentees. The author determines the communicative skills necessary for the mentor in all processes and stages of this personnel technology. Based on the analysis of scientific publications, the author discloses and justifies the role models of mentor’s behavior in relation to the mentees from the perspective of the mentor’s image, authority, and communicative competence. The author has conducted an expert survey among public servants, which allowed identify the main professional, business, moral, psychological, and integral qualities that are the most effectively developed by the public servant in the process of performing mentor’s functions. As a result, the author suggests a structural-logical model of the communicative competence of a mentor in the public service in the process of perceiving its communicative knowledge, skills, and competencies for achieving the effectiveness of mentoring.


2020 ◽  
Vol 27 (34) ◽  
pp. 5790-5828 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ze Wang ◽  
Chunyang He ◽  
Jing-Shan Shi

Neurodegenerative diseases are a heterogeneous group of disorders characterized by the progressive degeneration of the structure and function of the central nervous system or peripheral nervous system. Alzheimer's Disease (AD), Parkinson's Disease (PD) and Spinal Cord Injury (SCI) are the common neurodegenerative diseases, which typically occur in people over the age of 60. With the rapid development of an aged society, over 60 million people worldwide are suffering from these uncurable diseases. Therefore, the search for new drugs and therapeutic methods has become an increasingly important research topic. Natural products especially those from the Traditional Chinese Medicines (TCMs), are the most important sources of drugs, and have received extensive interest among pharmacist. In this review, in order to facilitate further chemical modification of those useful natural products by pharmacists, we will bring together recent studies in single natural compound from TCMs with neuroprotective effect.


2020 ◽  
Vol 21 ◽  
Author(s):  
Boniface Pone ◽  
Ferreira Igne Elizabeth

: Neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) are responsible for over 500,000 deaths annually and are characterized by multiple disabilities. Leishmaniasis and Chagas disease are among the most severe NTDs, and are caused by the Leishmania sp, and Trypanosoma cruzi, respectively. Glucantime, pentamidine and miltefosine are commonly used to treat leishmaniasis, whereas nifurtimox, benznidazole are current treatments for Chagas disease. However, these treatments are associated with drug resistance, and severe side effects. Hence, the development of synthetic products, especially those containing N02, F, or Cl, which chemical groups are known to improve the biological activity. The present work summarizes the information on the antileishmanial and antitrypanosomal activity of nitro-, chloro-, and fluoro-synthetic derivatives. Scientific publications referring to halogenated derivatives in relation to antileishmanial and antitrypanosomal activities were hand searched in databases such as SciFinder, Wiley, Science Direct, PubMed, ACS, Springer, Scielo, and so on. According to the literature information, more than 90 compounds were predicted as lead molecules with reference to their IC50/EC50 values in in vitro studies. It is worth to mention that only active compounds with known cytotoxic effects against mammalian cells were considered in the present study. The observed activity was attributed to the presence of nitro-, fluoro- and chloro-groups in the compound backbone. All in all, nitro and h0alogenated derivatives are active antileishmanial and antitrypanosomal compounds and can serve as baseline for the development of new drugs against leishmaniasis and Chagas disease. However, efforts on in vitro and in vivo toxicity studies of the active synthetic compounds is still needed. Pharmacokinetic studies, and the mechanism of action of the promising compounds need to be explored. The use of new catalysts and chemical transformation can afford unexplored halogenated compounds with improved antileishmanial and antitrypanosomal activity.


2017 ◽  
Vol 17 (19) ◽  
pp. 2129-2142 ◽  
Author(s):  
Renata Płocinska ◽  
Malgorzata Korycka-Machala ◽  
Przemyslaw Plocinski ◽  
Jaroslaw Dziadek

Background: Mycobacterium tuberculosis (M. tuberculosis), the causative agent of tuberculosis, is a leading infectious disease organism, causing millions of deaths each year. This serious pathogen has been greatly spread worldwide and recent years have observed an increase in the number of multi-drug resistant and totally drug resistant M. tuberculosis strains (WHO report, 2014). The danger of tuberculosis becoming an incurable disease has emphasized the need for the discovery of a new generation of antimicrobial agents. The development of novel alternative medical strategies, new drugs and the search for optimal drug targets are top priority areas of tuberculosis research. Factors: Key characteristics of mycobacteria include: slow growth, the ability to transform into a metabolically silent - latent state, intrinsic drug resistance and the relatively rapid development of acquired drug resistance. These factors make finding an ideal antituberculosis drug enormously challenging, even if it is designed to treat drug sensitive tuberculosis strains. A vast majority of canonical antibiotics including antituberculosis agents target bacterial cell wall biosynthesis or DNA/RNA processing. Novel therapeutic approaches are being tested to target mycobacterial cell division, twocomponent regulatory factors, lipid synthesis and the transition between the latent and actively growing states. Discussion and Conclusion: This review discusses the choice of cellular targets for an antituberculosis therapy, describes putative drug targets evaluated in the recent literature and summarizes potential candidates under clinical and pre-clinical development. We focus on the key cellular process of DNA replication, as a prominent target for future antituberculosis therapy. We describe two main pathways: the biosynthesis of nucleic acids precursors – the nucleotides, and the synthesis of DNA molecules. We summarize data regarding replication associated proteins that are critical for nucleotide synthesis, initiation, unwinding and elongation of the DNA during the replication process. They are pivotal processes required for successful multiplication of the bacterial cells and hence they are extensively investigated for the development of antituberculosis drugs. Finally, we summarize the most potent inhibitors of DNA synthesis and provide an up to date report on their status in the clinical trials.


2021 ◽  
Vol 30 (9) ◽  
pp. S8-S16
Author(s):  
Eleanor L Stevenson ◽  
Cheng Ching-Yu ◽  
Chang Chia-Hao ◽  
Kevin R McEleny

Male-factor infertility is a common but stigmatised issue, and men often do not receive the emotional support and the information they need. This study sought to understand awareness of male fertility issues compared to female fertility among the UK general male public, and also what were perceived as being the optimum methods for providing support for affected men, emotionally and through information. Men feel that male infertility is not discussed by the public as much as female infertility. Lifestyle issues that affect male fertility are not well understood, and men affected by infertility desire more support, including online, from health professionals and through peer support. Health professionals, including those in public health, could offer evidence-based programmes to reduce stigma and increase public knowledge about infertility, as well as offer emotional support to men with infertility problems.


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