"Introduction to Global Health provides a comprehensive examination of the key global health issues today, and unlike other global health texts on the market, aligns with key global health frameworks such as the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and in this fourth edition, the newly approved CUGH learning objectives"--
AbstractEthical concerns are a common reason for the rejection of manuscripts submitted to biomedical research journals. Professional organizations and journals strongly encourage researchers to follow widely accepted research protocols and to report on what ethics‐related methods they employ in their research projects. At least three issues should be addressed by all reports on human subjects research: the review and approval of the protocol by an ethics committee, the acquisition of informed consent from all participants, and the disclosure of all potential conflicts of interest. Authors must also adhere to publication rules that forbid plagiarism, duplicate submission, and redundant publication.
Global health degree programs are now offered by institutions of higher education in most world regions. Based on our review of the curricula for many of these programs, we identified five domains that are central to current global health education. "Parity" emphasizes health equity as the ultimate goal of global health. "People" comprises the social, economic, cultural, and political contributors to health and access to medical care for individuals and communities. "Planet" encompasses various aspects of globalization and environmental health that affect population health. "Priorities" and "practices" include the values, data, and tools used to design, implement, and evaluate partnerships, policies, programs, and other global health interventions in countries of all income levels. The pandemic is likely to increase student demand for global health education from the undergraduate through the graduate and professional levels. Our "5 Ps model of global health education" provides a comprehensive framework for the core student learning objectives for global health today. Knowledge of each of these domains is essential for preparing students for meaningful experiential learning and skilled professional practice in global health.
Global health degree programs are now offered by institutions of higher education in most world regions. Based on our review of the curricula for many of these programs, we identified five domains that are central to current global health education. "Parity" emphasizes health equity as the ultimate goal of global health. "People" comprises the social, economic, cultural, and political contributors to health and access to medical care for individuals and communities. "Planet" encompasses various aspects of globalization and environmental health that affect population health. "Priorities" and "practices" include the values, data, and tools used to design, implement, and evaluate partnerships, policies, programs, and other global health interventions in countries of all income levels. The pandemic is likely to increase student demand for global health education from the undergraduate through the graduate and professional levels. Our "5 Ps model of global health education" provides a comprehensive framework for the core student learning objectives for global health today. Knowledge of each of these domains is essential for preparing students for meaningful experiential learning and skilled professional practice in global health.
Many jurisdictions enacted stay‐at‐home orders (also called shelter‐in‐place orders, safer‐at‐home orders, or lockdowns) when SARS‐CoV‐2 began spreading in the United States. Based on Google mobility data, every state had substantially fewer visits to transit stations, retail and recreation facilities, workplaces, grocery stores, and pharmacies by the end of March 2020 than in the previous two months. The mean decrease in visitation rates across destination categories was about 30 percent in states without stay‐at‐home orders and 40 percent in states with stay‐at‐home orders. Similarly, there were fewer routing requests received by Apple in large cities for public transportation, walking, and driving, with a 10 percentage point greater mean reduction in metropolitan areas under statewide stay‐at‐home orders. The pandemic led to large decreases in mobility even in states without legal restrictions on travel, but statewide orders were effective public health policy tools for reducing human movement below the level achieved through voluntary behavior change.
An emerging infectious disease event like the coronavirus (COVID‐19) pandemic demands careful communication of public health messages to diverse audiences. However, misinformation is easily generated and amplified when a rapidly evolving epidemiological situation is coupled with gaps in scientific knowledge about a novel pathogen. Groups involved in health policy research, advocacy, implementation, and enforcement must be aware of three key challenges as they develop and apply communication strategies during emergencies: (i) information overload, (ii) information uncertainty, and (iii) misinformation. These challenges can be countered by accurately communicating core messages to specific audiences, being transparent about the evidence base for recommendations and open about the likelihood that guidelines may change as scientific discoveries are made, and identifying which myths and conspiracy theories circulating on social media are so harmful that they must be directly countered. Data analytics can assist with the process of monitoring and evaluating the impact of organizational communications.
The goal of this study was to identify the prevalence and correlates of suicidal thinking among Palestinian middle school students by using complex samples analysis to explore data about suicidal ideation and suicidal planning in the past year from 14,303 students in grades 7, 8, and 9 (roughly ages 13–15 years) who participated in the Global School-based Student Health Survey (GSHS) in 2010 in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT) and United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) refugee camps. We also analyzed data from the seven other GSHS-participating countries from the Eastern Mediterranean region: Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Morocco, Tunisia, and the United Arab Emirates. The overall prevalence of suicidal ideation and/or planning was 25.6%. Males were more likely than females to report suicidal thinking. The health behaviors and exposures most strongly associated with suicidal thinking were marijuana use, having no close friends, tobacco use, loneliness, worry-induced insomnia, food insecurity, and being the victim of a bully. Being involved in physical fights and attacks, skipping school, and perceptions of limited parental support were also associated with suicidal thinking. The prevalence of suicidal thinking among Palestinian adolescents was higher than the rates in the other GSHS-participating countries, pointing toward a need for improved access to adolescent mental health services.
We evaluated current knowledge and attitudes about type 2 diabetes among female students pursuing nursing degrees at one university in Saudi Arabia in 2018–19. The majority of the 87 respondents were aware of risk factors for type 2 diabetes, such as obesity (95 percent) and age (93 percent). Most participants were also aware that diabetes can cause complications such as blindness (88 percent), kidney disease (77 percent), and heart disease (67 percent). However, only about half believed that type 2 diabetes is a very serious disease (47 percent), and many believed that people with diabetes who do not use insulin have mild disease (61 percent) and do not need to worry about long‐term complications (36 percent). Addressing these misperceptions, perhaps with education that combines the cognitive and affective domains, will prepare these rising professionals to provide better patient care in the coming years as Saudi Arabia seeks to reduce its epidemiological and economic burden from diabetes.
Geographic information systems (GIS) are underused as a tool for health policy analysis. We present a case study that (i) identifies sociodemographic, environmental, and health variables for which spatial data are available for Melbourne, Australia; (ii) reviews the literature about the traffic‐related parameters that are risk factors for asthma emergencies; (iii) applies this information within a GIS to identify populations living in proximity to harmful exposures; and then (iv) maps the most at‐risk neighborhoods. The case study identifies the locations of residential districts with high asthma incidence rates that are located near highways. These places would likely be priority communities for public health asthma control interventions. Spatial analysis can be a valuable tool for design, implementation, and evaluation of cost‐effective policies. We recommend integrating more spatial epidemiology into evidence‐based policy, planning, and resource allocation decisions.
Background: The emergence of social media is providing an alternative avenue for information exchange and opinion formation on health-related issues. Collective discourse in such media leads to the formation of a complex narrative, conveying public views and perceptions. Objective: This paper presents a study of Twitter narrative regarding vaccination in the aftermath of the 2015 measles outbreak, both in terms of its cyber and physical characteristics. We aimed to contribute to the analysis of the data, as well as presenting a quantitative interdisciplinary approach to analyze such open-source data in the context of health narratives. Methods: We collected 669,136 tweets referring to vaccination from February 1 to March 9, 2015. These tweets were analyzed to identify key terms, connections among such terms, retweet patterns, the structure of the narrative, and connections to the geographical space. Results: The data analysis captures the anatomy of the themes and relations that make up the discussion about vaccination in Twitter. The results highlight the higher impact of stories contributed by news organizations compared to direct tweets by health organizations in communicating health-related information. They also capture the structure of the antivaccination narrative and its terms of reference. Analysis also revealed the relationship between community engagement in Twitter and state policies regarding child vaccination. Residents of Vermont and Oregon, the two states with the highest rates of non-medical exemption from school-entry vaccines nationwide, are leading the social media discussion in terms of participation. Conclusions: The interdisciplinary study of health-related debates in social media across the cyber-physical debate nexus leads to a greater understanding of public concerns, views, and responses to health-related issues. Further coalescing such capabilities shows promise towards advancing health communication, thus supporting the design of more effective strategies that take into account the complex and evolving public views of health issues.