Level of Health Competence of 14–19-Year-Old Students

Preventive healthcare is a top priority in modern health policy. As its main elements, the health education and health culture of the population are essential. Medical specialists bear almost little responsibility for their development and quality. Educators, the school as an institution, the family and society have a key role to play in this regard. In Bulgaria, health education is not present as an independent subject at school. It is embedded in various classroom and extracurricular forms of education. The purpose of this study is to establish the level of health knowledge among 14–19-year-old Bulgarian students achieved through the education system, family and social environment. It also explores the possibilities for enhancing the health competence of high school students.

Regional Model of Organization of Preventive Medical Care for Children (Through the Republic of Tatarstan)

The analysis and assessment of regional characteristics of the preventive healthcare organization for children population in the Republic of Tatarstan were carried out within this research. It has revealed the major issues of prevention system in children healthcare in the Republic. Our goal was to develop and implement a set of measures on improvement of medical prevention in the system of children healthcare, and to evaluate their efficacy. The guidelines developed for preventive care in children have allowed us to create three-level model of preventive care for children in five main areas. The provision of medical, social, legal, psychological, and pedagogical care for children and adolescents (especially for children in difficult circumstances and/or socially dangerous situations) is one of the major issues for preserving the health of future generations in contrast to all socio-economic changes. This necessitates the creation of new forms, approaches, and mechanisms, as well as the development of measures on improvement of existing preventive technologies at the individual, group, and population levels via using information technologies.

Lessons from Covid-19: A Plan for Action (Pages 59-67) in Journal of the Harvard Club of India

The need for a National Public Health Agency in India is of crucial relevance today. Along with a responsive public health system, we need to focus on preventive healthcare and the promotion of healthy lifestyles. The country, as it marks its 75th year of Independence, must remember that it is essential to bring in structural change for effective public health governance.

Predictors of parents’ infant vaccination decisions: A concept derivation

The myths surrounding coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) vaccines have prompted scientists to refocus their attention on vaccine hesitancy, which is fuelled by the spread of misinformation. The scientific investigation of behavioural concepts relating to vaccine hesitancy can be enhanced by the examination of behavioural concepts from the field of consumer sciences. South African consumer scientists study personal decisions that contribute to individuals’ well-being, including the decisions to prevent ill health. Current data on the predictors of vaccination decisions do not incorporate consumer science constructs imperative in decision-making, which could provide fresh insights in addressing vaccine hesitancy. This study aimed to investigate and illustrate the analogy between concepts of the Health Belief Model (HBM) as parent model, and consumer behaviour that could affect parents’ infant vaccination decisions, by applying a concept derivation approach. The HBM was analysed within the context of public health, including literature from consumers’ vaccination decisions, medical decisions, paediatrics, vaccinology, virology and nursing. Through a qualitative, theory derivation strategy, six main concepts of the HBM were redefined to consumer sciences, using four iterative concept derivation steps. Concept derivation resulted in consumer behaviour concepts that could be possible predictors of parents’ infant vaccination decisions, including consumers’ values; risk perception; consideration of immediate and future consequences; self-efficacy; cues to action; demographics; personal information and knowledge. These predictors could be a starting point for a context- and product-specific consumer primary preventive healthcare decisions model. Our findings highlight the opportunities for interdisciplinary collaboration in investigating consumer primary healthcare-related behaviour.Contribution: This study introduced interfaces between consumer science and health science literature. Through interdisciplinary collaboration, a better understanding of influences to promote primary preventive healthcare can be achieved.

Preventieve gezondheidszorg: principes, gezondheidsdoelstellingen en toekomstige uitdagingen

Preventive healthcare: principles, health goals and future challenges Preventive healthcare is an interesting and strong evolving domain of public healthcare (PHC). Nowadays, PHC is an interplay of 3 elements: health protection, disease prevention and health promotion. During the past 2 centuries most health gain was realized through environmental health protective measures such as the closure of cesspools and access to potable water, and through disease prevention thanks to the increasing knowledge on hygiene, microbiology and the development of vaccines. However, with declining premature deaths due to infectious diseases the disease pattern in the population changed. With increasing age, the prevalence of non-communicable diseases (NCD’s) and multimorbidity has risen importantly. Nowadays, NCD’s are the major causes of preventable death and have an important impact on the quality of life, especially in the elderly. As most of these NCD’s are known to be preventable through a healthy lifestyle in a healthy environment, health promotion has gained attention and has become an increasing important element of preventive healthcare during the past 2 decennia. This article addresses the challenges, organization and leading principles of the PHC in Flanders and provides insights in the opportunities recent evolutions in PHC may hold to strengthen people’s general health.

Learn to Intervene: An Adaptive Learning Policy for Restless Bandits in Application to Preventive Healthcare

In many public health settings, it is important for patients to adhere to health programs, such as taking medications and periodic health checks. Unfortunately, beneficiaries may gradually disengage from such programs, which is detrimental to their health. A concrete example of gradual disengagement has been observed by an organization that carries out a free automated call-based program for spreading preventive care information among pregnant women. Many women stop picking up calls after being enrolled for a few months. To avoid such disengagements, it is important to provide timely interventions. Such interventions are often expensive and can be provided to only a small fraction of the beneficiaries. We model this scenario as a restless multi-armed bandit (RMAB) problem, where each beneficiary is assumed to transition from one state to another depending on the intervention. Moreover, since the transition probabilities are unknown a priori, we propose a Whittle index based Q-Learning mechanism and show that it converges to the optimal solution. Our method improves over existing learning-based methods for RMABs on multiple benchmarks from literature and also on the maternal healthcare dataset.

Study on the Not-for-Profit Hospital Model in India

The “Not-for-Profit” Hospital Sector has the reputation of providing affordable and accessible healthcare for many years. This sector has done yeoman service over the years with some institutions from even before Independence. Although various institutions have been established for different purposes, this sector provides not only curative healthcare, but also preventive healthcare, and links healthcare with social reform, community engagement, and education. They utilize the resources and grants provided to them by the Government to provide cost effective healthcare to the population without being overly concerned about profits. However, this sector remains largely understudied, with a lack of awareness about its services in the public domain.