Bridging the communication gap: What do primary healthcare practitioners in New Zealand know about health literacy? What are their attitudes towards it, and how do they implement any internationally developed health literacy tools?

<p>Health Literacy has been identified internationally as an important component of health equity. As a health consumer, being health literate includes having the ability to make an informed choice about health. As a healthcare provider or health educator, being health literate is having the ability to enable the consumer to become fully informed, even if there are barriers that complicate or hamper this ability. Many health literacy tools have been developed to support clinicians, including those in primary care, in communicating effectively with their patients. When properly utilised, these tools have the potential to improve the health outcomes of their patients and also to reduce health system costs. The literature produced about health literacy has seen exponential growth, especially over the last eight years, due to increased recognition of its contribution to better healthcare outcomes. This research examined whether General Practitioners (GPs) in New Zealand were aware of health literacy concepts and the specific tools that have been developed, and whether they were utilising them. Although some health literacy tools and strategies are being implemented by GPs, they are not necessarily realising this, as their concept of health literacy seems to be focused on the general literacy level of their patients. Health literacy tools identified tended to be in the form of print and online health education materials.</p>

Bridging the communication gap: What do primary healthcare practitioners in New Zealand know about health literacy? What are their attitudes towards it, and how do they implement any internationally developed health literacy tools?

<p>Health Literacy has been identified internationally as an important component of health equity. As a health consumer, being health literate includes having the ability to make an informed choice about health. As a healthcare provider or health educator, being health literate is having the ability to enable the consumer to become fully informed, even if there are barriers that complicate or hamper this ability. Many health literacy tools have been developed to support clinicians, including those in primary care, in communicating effectively with their patients. When properly utilised, these tools have the potential to improve the health outcomes of their patients and also to reduce health system costs. The literature produced about health literacy has seen exponential growth, especially over the last eight years, due to increased recognition of its contribution to better healthcare outcomes. This research examined whether General Practitioners (GPs) in New Zealand were aware of health literacy concepts and the specific tools that have been developed, and whether they were utilising them. Although some health literacy tools and strategies are being implemented by GPs, they are not necessarily realising this, as their concept of health literacy seems to be focused on the general literacy level of their patients. Health literacy tools identified tended to be in the form of print and online health education materials.</p>

Rise of Biobanking in the EU: Evidence from the Framework Programmes

he topic of biobanking has been anchoring in the world and Europe as well. The biobanking field today is characterised by heterogeneous entities that could be classified according to many different categories. This article aims to outline the process of the gradual embedding of the field of biobanking in the European Union (EU) from the point of view of the number of high-quality international research projects related to biobanking or biobanks as such. To identify these research projects, data from the European Commission's (EC's) database on research and innovation projects financed from Framework Programmes (FPs) of the European Union and the Horizon programme were used. It was found that the number of research and innovation projects in which biobanks played an important role more than doubled between 1994 and 2021. The highest increase in the number of biobank-related research and innovation projects occurred between 2002 – 2006 and 2007 – 2013. Several leading countries, in terms of the number of biobank related research projects, emerged during the whole period. The main actors were all countries of western Europe, characterised mostly by above-average performance in indicators such as GDP per capita, Human Development Index (HDI) or Euro Health Consumer Index (EHCI).

In Search of Embodied Conversational and Explainable Agents for Health Behaviour Change and Adherence

Conversational agents offer promise to provide an alternative to costly and scarce access to human health providers. Particularly in the context of adherence to treatment advice and health behavior change, they can provide an ongoing coaching role to motivate and keep the health consumer on track. Due to the recognized importance of face-to-face communication and establishment of a therapist-patient working alliance as the biggest single predictor of adherence, our review focuses on embodied conversational agents (ECAs) and their use in health and well-being interventions. The article also introduces ECAs who provide explanations of their recommendations, known as explainable agents (XAs), as a way to build trust and enhance the working alliance towards improved behavior change. Of particular promise, is work in which XAs are able to engage in conversation to learn about their user and personalize their recommendations based on their knowledge of the user and then tailor their explanations to the beliefs and goals of the user to increase relevancy and motivation and address possible barriers to increase intention to perform the healthy behavior.

Are There Any Parameters Missing in the Mathematical Models Applied in the Process of Spreading COVID-19?

On 11 March 2020, coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) was declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization (WHO). As of 12.44 GMT on 15 January 2021, it has produced 93,640,296 cases and 2,004,984 deaths. The use of mathematical modelling was applied in Italy, Spain, and UK to help in the prediction of this pandemic. We used equations from general and reduced logistic models to describe the epidemic development phenomenon and the trend over time. We extracted this information from the Italian Ministry of Health, the Spanish Ministry of Health, Consumer Affairs, and Social Welfare, and the UK Statistics Authority from 3 February to 30 April 2020. We estimated that, from the seriousness of the phenomenon, the consequent pathology, and the lethal outcomes, the COVID-19 trend relate to the same classic laws that govern epidemics and their evolution. The curve d(t) helps to obtain information on the duration of the epidemic phenomenon, as its evolution is related to the efficiency and timeliness of the system, control, diagnosis, and treatment. In fact, the analysis of this curve, after acquiring the data of the first three weeks, also favors the advantage to formulate forecast hypotheses on the progress of the epidemic.

Could be efficient management a solution for the success against Covid-19

Globally, the last 15 months have put health systems under unprecedented pressure during the last century, facing significant challenges in the management of organizations, patient care and the protection of medical staff, and the time to respond to the needs of communities. The context created by the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic shows us how important the functionality of a health system is, how manages could prevent the spread of the virus, how the number of tests or vaccinations could stop the spread of the virus. It is also important to provide access to health services for as many patients as possible, especially for those in vulnerable categories, but also to succeed in ensuring maximum safety conditions for specialized personnel (doctors, nurses, paramedics, ambulance drivers, pharmacists etc.). The authors considered that the essential features of each health system, in the analysis of how they responded to the challenges of the SARSCoV-2 (or COVID-19) pandemic, must be analyzed from the perspective of the medical act, its financing, and also from the use of modern technologies and resilience. Synthesis was made between the results of the 4 official studies presented by the Commonwealth Fund, Health Consumer Powerhouse, Bloomberg and U.S. This information, put by the authors in a comparative analysis with the updated data of the World Health Organization, constantly highlighted several health systems that had an effective management in the fight against the Covid-19 pandemic.