Journal of Public Health Policy最新文献

We highlight critical public healthcare inadequacies for older adult populations resulting in fatalities after Hurricane Ian. We summarize whether a fatality was a result of the storm directly, indirectly, or not at all. Massive destruction from Ian eliminated critical life-sustaining health care for the week following the hurricane. This disproportionately affected the older adult population, with most elder deaths attributed to a lack of some form of health care. To prevent further unnecessary deaths following a disaster event, we recommend that public health policy practitioners, medical practitioners, and state officials consider how to provide managed opt-in emergency care services, mobile elderly care until restoration of power and services, and revisions to community-based critical care provider building codes to include generators and fuel. We offer this viewpoint to generate discussion among public health and emergency planners.

Neighbourhood environment plays a pivotal role in determining the individual's nutrition through availability and accessibility of healthy food options. This community-based cross-sectional descriptive study examined neighbourhood spatial attributes using Geographical Information System (GIS) and describe perceived nutrition environment among adult residents in urban Puducherry, India. The density of grocery shops, fruits and vegetable shops, food outlets and restaurants were 64.4, 74.8 and 88.7 per km², respectively. Out of 200 participants, 191 (95.5%) and 190 (95%) reported easy accessibility to fruits and vegetables shops and restaurants, respectively, while 192 (96%) agreed on availability of unhealthy food options in shops. Current study provides framework for assessment of objective and perceived neighbourhood nutrition environment in lower-middle-income countries with a user-friendly and easily administrable tool.

We repeated a Portuguese study, 5 months after a first evaluation, to observe any change in the average levels of trust of professional groups during the COVID-19 pandemic. From our sample of the Portuguese population, 1455 completed the questionnaire from June through September 2020, and 1156 during 2 months, February and March 2021. We found a trend toward higher trust of medical doctors, nurses, and researchers. Analysis of changes between the two pandemic periods (first and second lockdown) showed a statistically significant increase in trust in nurses (t =  - 2.01; p = 0.04) and researchers (t =  - 2.40; p = 0.02), and the opposite trend for journalists and politicians. This study shows a trend in increasing trust of the Portuguese people toward science-based activities during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Using a cross-sectional online survey we investigated knowledge, attitudes, and risk perception about COVID-19 vaccination and identified factors influencing vaccine uptake among Australian health professional students from October 2021 to January 2022. We analysed data from 1114 health professional students from 17 Australian universities. Most participants were enrolled in nursing programs (n = 958, 86.8%), and 91.6% (n = 858) of the participants received COVID-19 vaccination. Approximately 27% believed COVID-19 was no more serious than seasonal influenza and that they had a low risk of acquiring COVID-19. Nearly 20% disagreed that COVID-19 vaccines in Australia were safe and perceived they were at higher-risk of acquiring COVID infection than the general population. Higher-risk perception viewing vaccination as their professional responsibility, and vaccine mandate strongly predicted vaccination behaviour. Participants consider COVID-19 information from health professionals, government websites, and World Health Organization as the most trusted information sources. The findings highlight that healthcare decision-makers and university administrators need to monitor students' hesitancy with vaccination to improve students' promotion of the vaccination to the general population.

The study assessed the utilization of participatory monitoring and evaluation approaches (PM&E) and their influence on decision-making in maternal and newborn health programs (MNH) in Mombasa County, Kenya. We conducted a cross-sectional study with a sample of 390 participants and used a structured questionnaire, modified Quality of Decision-Making Orientation Scheme, and an interview guide to collect data. We analyzed quantitative responses using descriptive statistics and binary logistic regression (at significance level of 0.05) and qualitative responses using content analysis. The study established that quality decision-making was more likely to occur in MNH programs in Mombasa County that used PM&E approaches at the initiation (OR 1.728, p < 0.05), design and planning (OR 2.977, p < 0.05), and implementation (OR 5.665, p < 0.05) phases of MNH programs than in those that did not use the PM&E approaches. This study shapes a persuasive case for improving the provision of maternal and newborn health services.

Since the nuclear bomb attack against Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, the world has advanced in nuclear technology. Today, a nuclear bomb could target a large-scale attack, at a longer range, and with much greater destructive force. People are increasingly concerned about the potential destructive humanitarian outcomes. We discuss actual conditions detonation of an atomic bomb would create, radiation injuries, and diseases. We also address concerns about functionality of medical care systems and other systems that support medical systems (i.e., transport, energy, supply chain, etc. systems) following a massive nuclear attack and whether citizens able to survive this.