scholarly journals Urban Education: High-Quality Education, the Economic Impact it Generates, and the Tragedy of Urban Education in the United States of America

2021 ◽  
Vol Volume II (December 2021) ◽  
pp. 103-127
Author(s):  
Sergio Paez

Education is an investment in improving the quality of life for individuals, and therefore benefiting society in general. Education in the United States of America exemplifies a correlation between the level of an individual's education, their salary level due to those academic qualifications, and the impact they generate within themselves, their families, society, and within the nation. This contemporary study of education in the U.S. shows how a community in an urban center of Massachusetts made fundamental changes to transform the education of its students who historically experienced school failure. This exceptional case of leadership and altruism was accomplished with intensive influence from the State Government. This case can be the basis for educational initiatives that can have relevance and social impact anywhere in the world. At a global level, we can see that a society with high levels of education, based on knowledge and academic training, stands out for the multiple opportunities that arise to obtain a higher quality of life. The outcomes of a good education are beneficial to the growth of an entire society. Societies benefit from advances in technological and economic fields, health systems, construction and accessible housing, industry, commerce, and even social security.

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 16-25 ◽  
Author(s):  
Georgine Lamvu ◽  
Oscar Antunez-Flores ◽  
Mona Orady ◽  
Beth Schneider

Introduction: Endometriosis is a burdensome chronic disease that can be difficult to diagnose, yet few studies examine experiences along the continuum of disease state. We sought to explore women’s journeys to an endometriosis diagnosis, experience with endometriosis pain, and interactions with healthcare practitioners. Methods: An anonymous 23-question online survey was distributed to women (aged >19 years) who self-identified as having a surgical or nonsurgical diagnosis of endometriosis and living in seven English-speaking countries through the social media network MyEndometriosisTeam.com . Results: From January through April 2018, 317 women in the United States and 134 women outside the United States completed the survey. More than 50% of the women waited 6 or more years for a diagnosis of endometriosis. Overall, 54.3% experienced endometriosis-related pain daily. Respondents (US/non-US) reported a significant impairment in quality of life that interfered with their family (45.7%/45.5%) and social life (40.1%/44.0%), education/career (42.9%/46.3%), and sexual function (68.1%/70.1%). Women reported their disease led to other conditions, including fatigue (93.6%), gastrointestinal issues (91.8%), and difficulty sleeping (87.4%). Many women were not satisfied with their practitioner’s ability to listen to concerns and felt that their practitioner’s treatment recommendations lacked consistency with their own goals/needs. Conclusion: Women still experience long delays and difficult journeys to an endometriosis diagnosis. Disease-associated pain is pervasive and has direct and indirect impacts on quality of life. Women are frequently not satisfied with disease-management options presented to them by their practitioners. These results suggest a need for improved medical education on disease state for both patients and practitioners.


2012 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Z. Heflin Frinces

Entrepreneur is a subject that has been widely discussed because it has long been recognized to have played a significant role in not only increasing one’s income  but more than that it has been noted to improve  people’s quality of life and nation’s prosperity as it has been shown in the experiences of many developed and developing countries such as Malaysia, Singapore, Taiwan, Hongkong, Japan, South Korea, the United States of America, and most of European countries. At present governments of those countries are providing a great deals of attention and efforts to increase number of entrepreneurs in these countries including Indonesian Government. As noted in this article that it requires at least 2% of a country’s population are entrepreneurs to reach a prosperity level of a country and to increase purchasing power of the population. Those experiences have led  many experts and governments in many countries are very keen to study nature and characteristics of  entrepreneurs and looking for right answers to questions as to why is it so important to be an entrepreneur?, why society need entrepreneur?, and what are the elements of becoming successful entrepreneurs?. Answers to these questions will be found in this article. But what interest to some quarters to note is that (1) successful entrepreneur are characterized as to have strong willingness to take risk and to undertake strategic changes as required to make progress, and (2) there are specific skills such as skills to produce products and services, to market, and to calculate cost and profit quickly required by any successful entrepreneurs.


2018 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-5 ◽  
Author(s):  
I Kirilov ◽  
M Atzeni ◽  
A Perra ◽  
D Moro ◽  
MG Carta

Background: The objective of this research is to verify whether European projects on Active Aging (AA) and Elderly Quality of Life (Qol) funded by the Seventh Framework Programme (FP7) produce an impact on literature similar to projects funded by the National Health Institute (NHI) of the United States on international literature using well-known bibliometric indicators. This effort may be useful in developing standardized and replicable procedures. Methods: Fifteen randomly selected projects on AA and Elderly Qol concluded in August 2017 and funded by FP7 were compared to similar projects funded by the US NHI with reference to papers published (Scopus and Scholar), papers published in Q1 journals, and the number of citations of the papers linked to the projects. Results: In all the indicators considered, the European projects showed no difference with the US NHI projects. Conclusions: The EU-funded AA and Qol Elderly projects have an impact on scientific literature comparable to projects funded in the United States by the NHI Agency. Our results are consistent with the data on general medical research, which indicates that, European research remains at a high level of competitiveness. In this experimental study, our methodology appeared to be convincing and reliable and it could be applied to the extent of the impact of more extensive research areas. Our research did not evaluate the relationship between funding required by research and scientific productivity.


PLoS ONE ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (12) ◽  
pp. e0260805
Author(s):  
Gagan Jain ◽  
Lauren Walter ◽  
Carolyn Reed ◽  
Patricia O’Donnell ◽  
Jeffrey Troy

Background Hereditary angioedema (HAE) is a rare disease that manifests as recurrent and debilitating angioedema attacks, significantly impacting patients’ quality of life. Objective To assess communication dynamics between patients with HAE and treating physicians and the impact this has on the treatment of HAE in the United States. Methods This observational study used an institutional review board–approved protocol to collect four sources of patient–physician communication data from the period between January 2015 and May 2017: in-office conversations between patients aged ≥18 years with HAE and physicians, follow-up dictations with physicians, telephone interviews with patients and physicians, and publicly available social media posts from patients. Participant language was qualitatively assessed and key communication elements and communication gaps identified. Results Twenty-five in-office conversations, 14 follow-up physician dictations, and 17 telephone interviews were conducted with a total of 29 unique patients, 4 caregivers, and 14 physicians. In-office conversations were generally physician-driven and focused primarily on symptom frequency, location, and severity; lexicon from both parties centered on “episodes” and “swelling.” During visits, impact on quality of life was not routinely assessed by physicians nor discussed proactively by patients; however, during telephone interviews and online, patients frequently described the multifaceted burden of HAE. Patients highlighted the difficulties they experience by using repetition, emphasis, and metaphors; they also varied the descriptors used for attacks depending on the communication goal. Physicians used intensifiers to emphasize the necessity of rescue medication access, whereas prophylactic treatments were positioned as an option for frequent or laryngeal attacks. Conclusion Vocabulary differences suggest that the full impact of HAE is not consistently communicated by patients to physicians during clinical visits, indicating the potential for misaligned understanding of disease burden. A patient-driven, rather than physician-driven approach to the discussions may elicit valuable information that could help to optimize treatment approaches.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer L Lee ◽  
Christian J Cerrada ◽  
Mai Ka Ying Vang ◽  
Kelly Scherer ◽  
Caroline Tai ◽  
...  

Background: Chronic pain affects approximately 50 million adults in the United States and impacts mood, everyday functioning, and quality of life. The challenges of analgesic clinical trials and, therefore, the approval of new non-opioid analgesics, are based in part on a fundamental lack of understanding of those outcomes that are relevant to an individual's overall functioning. Objectives: To determine the behaviors and health outcomes associated with chronic pain. This manuscript presents an overview of the study design, baseline health and behavioral characteristics of our sample, and preliminary findings of how behavioral characteristics differ between individuals with and without chronic pain. Methods: The study is a decentralized digital longitudinal cohort study of 10,036 individuals (5,832 with chronic pain [CP] and 4,204 with no chronic pain [NCP), age 18 years or older, living in the United States. The study period was one year. Data were collected from wearable activity trackers and health or fitness mobile applications to capture passively collected behavioral data including steps, sleep, and heart rate. Patient-reported outcomes on mood and pain, including the BPI-SF, PHQ-9, and GAD-7, were collected at various timepoints during the study. Results: The data suggest greater levels of depression and anxiety, lower quality of life, less physical activity, more variable sleep, and higher resting heart rate are associated with CP. Conclusions: The longitudinal data from the larger study will yield substantial contributions to the body of literature in chronic pain, particularly in delineating relational and causal factors relevant to the impact of chronic pain, and potential development of a digital biomarker to assess and monitor patients' everyday experience with chronic pain.


Author(s):  
Marios Stavrakas ◽  
Georgios Kyriafinis ◽  
Miltiadis Tsalighopoulos

Hearing disorders are quite common in our days, not only due to congenital causes, environmental factors abut also due to the increased rate of diagnosis. Hearing loss is one of the commonest reasons to visit an ENT Department both in the clinic and in the acute setting. Approximately 15% of American adults (37.5 million) aged 18 and over report some trouble hearing. One in eight people in the United States (13 percent, or 30 million) aged 12 years or older has hearing loss in both ears, based on standard hearing examinations. About 2 percent of adults aged 45 to 54 have disabling hearing loss. The rate increases to 8.5 percent for adults aged 55 to 64. Nearly 25 percent of those aged 65 to 74 and 50 percent of those who are 75 and older have disabling hearing loss. These figures depict the impact on patients' quality of life and the necessity for early and accurate diagnosis and treatment. It is important to mention that congenital hearing loss and deafness is also a condition that requires early diagnosis and hearing aiding in order to develop normal speech. Profound, early-onset deafness is present in 4–11 per 10,000 children, and is attributable to genetic causes in at least 50% of cases.


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