19th Annual Melhus Symposium: Data Driven Plant Health

The I. E. Melhus Symposium is a prestigious event that takes place as part of the annual meeting of the American Phytopathology Society. The 19th symposium highlights some of the best and brightest graduate students in epidemiology on the theme Data Driven Plant Health. Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the entire meeting was online. Despite the challenges, the awardees successfully presented their research to a live online audience of more than 150 attendees. The five research projects are collected in this issue of Plant Health Progress.

IoT-Based Personal Protective Equipment Monitoring System to Prevent the Risk of Dehydration in Health Workers for COVID-19 Pandemic

The extraordinary case of Covid-19 has made health workers the front line in handling it. To prevent the risk of contracting, health workers must use Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) as protection. PPE that must be worn for at least 5 hours a day and is waterproof makes users experience much sweating. If not prevented, health workers can be exposed to dehydration and even death. Based on the explanation above, PPE has been designed that can cool IoT-based health workers. Also, all activities can be monitored remotely via the WEB, accessible via a smartphone or computer. In addition to WEB, data can be displayed via the LCD. The DHT22 sensor and the airflow sensor will detect the hazmat's temperature, humidity, and airflow. Furthermore, the tool is also equipped with UVC rays that can clean the air from microorganisms. Activity data will be stored in cloud storage, which is helpful as an evaluation material and reference for health workers' health progress. From the tests' results, the tool will function when the temperature and humidity follow the setpoint.

On the design of Remote Health Monitoring System

With improvement in technology and miniaturization of sensors, there have been attempts to utilize the new technology in various areas to improve the quality of human life. One main area of research that has seen adoption of the technology is the healthcare sector. The people in need of healthcare services find it very expensive, this is particularly true in developing countries. With improvement in technology previously expensive hospital equipment have been redesigned using current technology. The developments have seen a trend known as remote healthcare or previously known as Telemedicine. As a result, this paper is an attempt to solve a healthcare problem facing the society. The main objective of the paper is to design a remote healthcare system. It is comprised of three main parts. The first part being detection of a fall, second being detection of electrocardiogram commonly referred to as ECG or EKG( heartbeat detection) and the last part is providing the detected data for remote viewing. Remote viewing of the data enables a doctor or health specialist to monitor a patient’s health progress away from hospital premises.

We Must Fix US Health and Public Health Policy

Despite a history of public health progress and the most expensive health care system in the world, the United States failed in its initial response to COVID-19. Much of this failure resulted from a presidential administration that sidelined, undermined, and maligned public health. But the roots of failure are deeper. Recovering from the pandemic and building health and public health back better will require recognizing the roots of failure and working persistently to achieve the progress that the country needs—especially among the most underserved communities. This must begin with recognizing the shortcomings in the US health system response to the pandemic, but the multiple overlapping failures laid bare by this crisis demonstrate the need for a systemic, multifaceted, sustained approach to reform that goes beyond pandemic preparedness. (Am J Public Health. Published online ahead of print January 28, 2021: e1–e5. https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2020.306125 )

Managing Stubborn Oomycete Plant Pathogens

Diseases caused by oomycete plant pathogens result in devastating losses to agriculture and native forests, despite the significant research efforts that have advanced our understanding of these organisms. Limiting these pathogens has been challenging to plant pathologists and plant health practitioners. In this first focus issue , titled Managing Stubborn Oomycete Plant Pathogens, Plant Health Progress has assembled an array of manuscripts on the biology and management of Phytophthora, Pythium, Pseudoperonospora, Peronospora, and Aphanomyces spp. This focus issue has 28 peer-reviewed papers including three diagnostic guides, three mini-reviews, three briefs, two surveys, and 17 research papers. Of the 28 papers, 20 are on diseases caused by Phytophthora, four on Pythium, three on downy mildews, and one on Aphanomyces. All advance our understanding of these stubborn oomycete pathogens.