Category: Research

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COVID-19 Pandemic Mental Health Public Health Research

A Clean Bill of Health Newsletter – June 23, 2022

Peek Inside today’s A Clean Bill of Health Newsletter:

– US President Biden approved State of Montana’s request for a major disaster declaration, which sets in motion federal aid for the three counties devastated by severe flooding in Yellowstone Park, per The Washington Post.

– LinkedIn News Top 25 Healthcare companies to grow your career:
1. Kaiser Permanente | 2. Arthrex | 3. Parexel | 4. athenahealth | 5. Teladoc Health | 6. Walgreens Boots Alliance | 7. MicroVention-Terumo | 8. The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine | 9. CVS Health | 10. City of Hope | 11. ZEISS Medical Technology | 12. Hologic, Inc. | 13. Allscripts | 14. UnitedHealth Group | 15. Galderma | 16. Avanos Medical | 17. Curology | 18. UChicago Medicine | 19. Varian | 20. University of Maryland Medical Center | 21. The Janssen Pharmaceutical Companies of Johnson & Johnson | 22. Nevro | 23. Medtronic | 24. Pfizer | 25. Elanco

Which company should I visit this Summer? Help me and tag people in the thread!

– Latest review on the impact by COVID-19 lockdown on the performing and creative artists in the entertainment industry was just published in Elsevier Social Sciences & Humanities Open Journal.

– Next Week Free Webinar on Tuesday, June 28 at 1 PM EDT with researchers and practitioners University of Washington, US Maritime Administration, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and WESTON MEDICAL PUBLISHING, LLC in the mental health area and in the maritime industry

Our newsletter community is growing and thank you for your emails, comments, and messages! We are building a newsletter that constantly empowers and connects all the various ways we strive for a clean bill of health.

Please continue to help me spread the word!

Categories
Crisis Global Health Public Health Research

New Study on Basic Emergency Care education course in Ukraine

BMJ open - BEC course in Ukraine

New paper is out now! The publication is open-access and the web link is https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/12/6/e050871.

Publication Title: Evaluation of change in emergency care knowledge and skills among front-line healthcare providers in Ukraine with the Basic Emergency Care course: a pretest/post-test study

Abstract:
Objective: Evaluate the change in participant emergency care knowledge and skill confidence after implementation of the WHO-International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) Basic Emergency Care (BEC) course.
Design: Pretest/post-test quasi-experimental study.
Setting: Mechnikov Hospital in Dnipro, Ukraine.
Participants: Seventy-nine participants engaged in the course, of whom 50 (63.3%) completed all assessment tools. The course was open to healthcare providers of any level who assess and treat emergency conditions as part of their practice. The most common participant profession was resident physician (24%), followed by health educator (18%) and prehospital provider (14%).
Interventions: The 5-day WHO-ICRC BEC course.
Primary and secondary outcome measures Change in pre-course and post-course knowledge and skill confidence assessments. Open-ended written feedback was collected upon course completion and analysed for common themes.
Results: Participant knowledge assessment scores improved from 19 (IQR 15–20) to 22 (IQR 19–23) on a 25-point scale (p<0.001). Participant skill confidence self-assessment scores improved from 2.5 (IQR 2.1–2.8) to 2.9 (IQR 2.5–3.3) on a 4-point scale (p<0.001). The most common positive feedback themes were high-quality teaching and useful skill sessions. The most common constructive feedback themes were translation challenges & request for additional skill session time.
Conclusions: This first implementation of the WHO-ICRC BEC course for front-line healthcare providers in Ukraine was successful and well received by participants. This is also the first report of a BEC implementation outside of Africa and suggests that the course is also effective in the European context, particularly in humanitarian crisis and conflict settings. Future research should evaluate long-term knowledge retention and the impact on patient outcomes. Further iterations should emphasise local language translation and consider expanding clinical skills sessions.

Categories
Public Health Research

How can we create frictionless experiences to connect the elderly populations to their healthcare teams?

There is an ongoing assumption that elderly communities are averse to technology, but that is not true. Could it be that the digital health companies are just not designing for their needs and/or improving educational outreach efforts to teach new tech advancements?

In past years, colleagues and I have been discussing the practicalities of using emerging technologies to address the growing issue of elderly loneliness and its implications and adaptations to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Technological advancements have offered remarkable opportunities to deliver care and maintain connections despite the need to stay physically separated. These tools can be integrated into crisis communications, public health responses, and healthcare programs to help the elderly communities. However, it must be done strategically and informed by the type of loneliness at play, environmental factors, socioeconomics, and technological literacy (including feedback to improve tech design and function).

What are ways your teams are creating frictionless experiences to connect to the elderly populations?

Categories
Crisis Public Health Research

1 in 6 Americans live in areas with significant wildfire risk – do you know your risk to wildfire?

Fire Risk Projections in US

1 in 6 Americans live in areas with significant wildfire risk – do you know your city’s risk for wildfire?

Latest modeling built by First Street Foundation shows estimates for America in 2052 along with developing a public estimation tool labeled Fire Factor. The First Street Foundation Wildfire Model incorporates information on fuels, wildfire weather, and ignition into a Fire Behavior Model, building upon and updating the 2016 U.S. Forest Service dataset. Last year, First Street Foundation reported about flood risk in the United States to grow exponentially in upcoming years due to climate change.

Did you know that supporting wildfire suppression at the local, state, and federal levels in the United States is among the most expensive wildfire protection efforts?

Currently, it is costing the US government about $2.0 billion annually. These costs are projected to increase, as recently modeling shows an increased risk to more areas, including areas where fire risks were not historically present but now are.

Categories
Mental Health Research

Power of gratitude and happiness

light sign typography lighting
Photo by Gratisography on Pexels.com

What are you grateful for? Do you know how to cultivate gratitude in your life?

With upcoming holidays and end of the year reflection, feeling appreciation and being thankful tend to be on our minds – well at least for me. It has been a long, challenging and roller coaster year, especially with COVID-19 pandemic, and it can be tough to see the ‘good’ over the ‘bad.’

Continue reading “Power of gratitude and happiness”
Categories
Crisis Global Health Research

What role does corruption play in worsening so-called ‘natural disasters’?

What role does corruption play in worsening so-called ‘natural disasters’? (Hint – there are no natural disasters!) With recent “bomb cyclone,” natural hazards could create disasters but in many cases, corruption in development and infrastructure exacerbate the situation with buildings and houses that collapse (which shouldn’t).

Colleagues and I from UNSW, UNSW Arts, Design & Architecture, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, University of Technology Sydney, University of Sydney, Harvard Medical School, & SEEDS explored this question while systematically reviewing the academic literature concerning the degree to which corruption worsens naturally-triggered disasters in the built environment. The early view of our research is now published at Wiley ODI Disasters scientific journal (link).

Continue reading “What role does corruption play in worsening so-called ‘natural disasters’?”
Categories
Crisis Public Health Research

New Report on Flood Risk in US Infrastructure

How informed are you with your flood risk and the flood risk of your community’s essential infrastructure?

New report by First Street Foundation found flood risk in United States to grow exponentially in upcoming years due climate change.

Climate disasters have already caused at least 388 deaths and more than $100 billion in damage this year in the United States (The Wall Street Journal).

Continue reading “New Report on Flood Risk in US Infrastructure”
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Mental Health Research

Reducing the Mental Health Weight on the Next Generation

Unaddressed mental health issues have been weighing on the young generation well before the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdowns. An estimated 13% of 10-19-year-olds live with a diagnosed mental disorder globally.

ONLY 2% of government health budgets are allocated to mental health spending globally, (UNICEF)

Continue reading “Reducing the Mental Health Weight on the Next Generation”
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Mental Health Research

Addressing the Mental Health Burden of the Next Generation

Can technology help to meet the mental health needs of the young (next) generation?

Recent news of $1.7 billion of student loans will be forgiven of US Public Service Workers and Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen providing testimony to US Senate Commerce Committee show an opportunity for better engagement to help the next generation through financial and technological efforts.

Continue reading “Addressing the Mental Health Burden of the Next Generation”
Categories
Mental Health Research

Mental Health Impact – UNICEF’s State of the World’s Children

COVID-19 pandemic has raised concerns about mental health impact among everyone especially children and young adults. As we lead to the World Mental Health Day (Oct 10), let’s discuss latest thought leadership and global mental health reports this week.

Today’s discussion question:
How can healthcare and technology help to meet the mental health needs of the young generation?

Continue reading “Mental Health Impact – UNICEF’s State of the World’s Children”