When numbers eclipse narratives: a cultural-political critique of the ‘ethical’ impacts of short-term experiences in global health in Dominican Republic bateyes

With the rising demand for short-term experiences in global health (STEGH) is an ever-increasing volume of literature that focuses attention on ethics and ethical concerns, such as the effects of STEGH on host populations. Such concerns have driven the development of ethical principles and guidelines, with discussions and debates largely centred around normative questions of positive/negative and benefit/harm for us/them. Using a critical medical humanities lens, this paper blurs these dichotomous framings and offers a more complex understanding of the effects and effectiveness of STEGH on hosts. I explore STEGH that send volunteers from North American universities to the Dominican Republic to participate in service-learning activities aimed at improving the lives of impoverished Haitian migrants living in bateyes. I address the following questions: What perspectives about the impacts of interventions on host communities manifest through STEGH? What tensions emerge through interactions among diverse stakeholders related to those perspectives, and with what effects? Drawing together critical theory and ethnography, I examined the perspectives of three stakeholder groups: student and faculty volunteers, host organisation staff, and hosts in batey communities. Data collected from observations and interviews were counterposed; I analysed interactions and interplay between stakeholders. My findings revealed conflicts around an emergent theme: counting efforts, or volunteers’ proclivity for numerical evidence of impactful STEGH for hosts. With attention on power relations, I argue that a preoccupation with quantifiable evidence eclipsed and erased the lived realities of hosts, thereby blocking a fully ethical engagement. These sociopolitical effects, often overlooked in conventional ethics assessments, are no less harmful and may reinforce rather than reduce inequalities that the global health movement seeks to eliminate. My study offers a compelling case for how the critical medical humanities lend critical insights in the name of improving global health.

Air Pollution and Medical Insurance: From a Health-Based Perspective

Using the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS), this paper quantifies the causal effects of air pollution on the demand for medical insurance. Results suggest that the rise in air pollution is associated with an increased probability of purchasing medical insurance. Furthermore, residents are more inclined to have basic medical and commercial insurance, rather than critical illness insurance. In addition, the evidence of two possible channels through which air pollution is related to purchasing insurance are found, including causing chronic diseases and depression. This study provides empirical evidence for China and other developing countries to improve the medical security system and promote the national health movement.

The Spirit of the ’70s

This chapter explores how in the 1970s, freedom of therapeutic choice advocacy, previously the domain of right-wing extremists, became bipartisan and mainstream. It examines how various cultural trends contributed to this trend, including a loss of trust in orthodox medicine, government, and other establishment institutions; a “rights revolution” (including the rise of patients’ rights); and the emergence of the women’s health movement. The chapter shows how Americans’ use of alternative remedies surged during this period and discusses in detail two 1970s social movements in favor of alternative treatments: a successful rebellion against the FDA’s attempt to regulate vitamin and mineral supplements more stringently and a campaign to resist the FDA’s ban on Laetrile, an alternative cancer treatment derived from apricot pits. The chapter also describes how American courts briefly seemed prepared to elaborate the holding of Roe v. Wade into a generalized right to freedom of therapeutic choice.

Semantics and motivation of the concept of health in Russian dialects

The article focuses on two motivational patterns involved in the axiological concept of health in Russian dialects. These are “health← firmness, strength, power>> and “health ← movement, location in a place>>. It is claimed that recurrent motivation patterns consolidate a large variety of expressions that convey the axiological concept health to a limited number of patterns. This becomes evident when not only word-formational motivation (the so-called “near>> motivation) but also the inner form of a word (the so-called “distant>> motivation) is considered. At the same time, popular consciousness within the boundaries of one pattern can reveal ambivalent views of reality.

Seeing and inviting participation in autistic interactions

What does it take to see how autistic people participate in social interactions? And what does it take to support and invite more participation? Western medicine and cognitive science tend to think of autism mainly in terms of social and communicative deficits. But research shows that autistic people can interact with a skill and sophistication that are hard to see when starting from a deficit idea. Research also shows that not only autistic people, but also their non-autistic interaction partners, can have difficulties interacting with each other. To do justice to these findings, we need a different approach to autistic interactions—one that helps everyone see, invite, and support better participation. I introduce such an approach, based on the enactive theory of participatory sense-making and supported by insights from indigenous epistemologies. This approach helps counteract the homogenizing tendencies of the “global mental health” movement, which attempts to erase rather than recognize difference, and often precludes respectful engagements. Based in the lived experiences of people in their socio-cultural-material and interactive contexts, I put forward an engaged—even engag ing—epistemology for understanding how we interact across difference. From this perspective, we see participatory sense-making at work across the scientific, diagnostic, therapeutic, and everyday interactions of autistic and non-autistic people, and how everyone can invite and support more of it.

PENERAPAN PERILAKU HIDUP BERSIH DAN SEHAT RUMAH TANGGA DIPATANPANUA DI MASA PANDEMI COVID-19

Clean and healthy living behavior in the household is an effort to empower household members to know, be willing, and practice clean and healthy living behaviors and play an active role in the health movement in the community. Coronavirus (covid-19) is an infectious disease caused by Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Corona virus-2 (SARS COV-2). The first case began in December 2019 in Wuhan, Hubei Province. On March 12, 2020, WHO has announced that Covid-19 is a pandemic case until April 5, 2020; WHO stated that this disease has spread to more than 200 countries/regions/regions. ) during the covid-19 pandemic in Patanpanua Village, Matakali District, Polewali Mandar Regency The research method used was a qualitative method with interviews with informants to explore information, knowledge, and application of informants in clean and healthy living behavior in Patanpanua during the covid19 pandemic, using eight informants consisting of 2 key informants, five primary informants, and one additional informant. The study results found that the implementation of clean and healthy living behavior (PHBS) in Dipatanpanua during the covid-19 pandemic had been carried out but was not maximized. Knowledge and application of PHBS during the Covid-19 period are pretty good, but some informants and indicators of PHBS have not been met. This study concludes that public knowledge about the implementation of PHBS during the pandemic is quite good but not optimal and needs to be increased again to achieve health status. Therefore, it is necessary to increase the implementation of PHBS, especially during the pandemic, which is still ongoing now.

Tendons and ligaments of the Rangifer tarandus metapodial and hoof

Rangifer tarandus, the northern species including both reindeer and caribou, is a pillar of northern ecosystems and the lives of northern peoples. As the only domestic cervid, reindeer are important not only to the herders and hunters who presently interact with them, but also to zooarchaeologists and palaeontologists tracing their histories. Unfortunately, limited anatomical information on Rangifer tarandus muscles is available beyond descriptions of the large muscle groups. The lower limb and hoof in particular is poorly documented. This is problematic, as this important body part has the potential to be informative in zooarchaeological analyses of habitual activity, especially in regards to historical animal health, movement, and habitual activity. Better understanding of the hoof can additionally be useful to herders and veterinarians seeking to provide veterinary care for living animals. This study has used dissections and comparisons of the reindeer hoof with other domestic ungulates to document both the common and unique structures in Rangifer tarandus hooves, including the presence and attachment points of these structures. As these structures have proved unique, especially in regards to the dewclaw, it is important that other ungulates not be used exclusively in the analysis of Rangifer tarandus remains.