BMC Proceedings最新文献

Background: Precision public health is an emergent field that requires transdisciplinary collaborations and leverages innovative approaches to improve population health. These opportunities have inspired a new generation of precision public health researchers. Despite burgeoning interest in precision public health, there are limited opportunities for researchers to convene and continue the momentum of this field.

Methods: The Transdisciplinary Conference for Future Leaders in Precision Public Health was the among the first events to bring together international researchers and practitioners to learn, network, and agenda set for the future of the field. The conference took place virtually on October 14 and 15, 2021.

Results: The conference spanned two days and featured a keynote address, speakers from public health disciplines who are international leaders in precision-based research, networking opportunities, a poster session, and research agenda setting activities.

Conclusion: The conference was a critical first step to creating a shared international conversation about precision public health, especially among early-stage investigators. This allowed attendees to continue building their individual skills and international collaborations to support the growth of the field of precision public health.

Patient navigation (PN) represents a branch of service delivery traditionally aimed at coordinating disjointed care services for patients with particular health conditions (e.g., cancer, HIV, diabetes). Over time, this approach has been extended to various social and health contexts, including most recently to children with neurodisability and their families. In this context, PN involves the provision of information, advice, education, and emotional support, coordination of services both within and across sectors, and the work is guided by person- and family-centred principles of practice. This manuscript documents the proceedings of the BC Summit on Navigation for Children and Youth with Neurodevelopmental Differences, Disabilities, and Special Needs, which took place on January 18 and 19, 2021 and was developed in collaboration with a Provincial Advisory Group. Our Summit brought together over 120 individuals, including researchers, government personnel, service providers, educators, healthcare workers, and family advocates. As part of the event, attendees learned from families with lived experience navigating the British Columbian (BC) service system, from BC Children's Hospital Research Institute investigators, and from exemplar providers who deliver navigation services in various contexts (e.g., locally, regionally, and provincially). Attendees also participated in various engagement opportunities, and collaboratively identified directions for developing a future community of navigation and related services in BC.

Several biologic treatments are available in addition to intravenous also in subcutaneous form for treatment of chronic diseases. Benefits of the subcutaneous application of drugs include self-administration by the patient, shorter time of application process with less infusion related adverse events and consequently lower healthcare costs. With appropriate education and support patients are able to administer their treatments at home. This leads to improvement of quality of life, reduction of time needed to travel to the healthcare institution and consequently also reduces costs also for the patient.Over one million residents in the USA and 2.5 million in Europe are estimated to have inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), with substantial costs for health care. These estimates do not factor in the 'real' price of IBD, which can impede career aspirations, instil social stigma and impair quality of life in patients.The Virtual Community Meeting, which offered an exchange of experience and opinions from healthcare professionals who are active in treating IBD, and patients with this chronic disease, revealed in-depth arguments and answers to some essential questions: which patients prefer subcutaneous over intravenous dosing; which patients continue to favour intravenous infusions; what are the limitations regarding both applications; what is the patient's role in therapeutical decision-making and how does IBD affect the patient's work, finances and quality of life? The aim of this article is to discuss the differences between subcutaneous and intravenous dosing from the health-economic, scientific, and personal perspectives.The meeting offered strong confirmation that most of the patients and healthcare professionals prefer subcutaneous over intravenous drug administration but emphasise the management of risks associated with treatment compliance. Patient education provided by the IBD team in this regard is mandatory. Quality of life of patients is poorer during active disease, but the findings that it can improve over time, including as a result of home- or self-administration of biologics, may be encouraging for individuals with this chronic disease.

Background: Individuals experiencing chronic illnesses face many physical, emotional, and social strains as a result of their illnesses, all the while trying to navigate unfamiliar territory in the healthcare system. Navigation is a strategy that can help people facing complex care needs and barriers to care in finding and accessing needed supports in the health care system. Navigators provide a patient-centred service, guiding individuals through their care plans and overcoming barriers to care. Navigation supports for individuals experiencing complex care needs have shown significant promise and have been gaining traction across Canada.

Methods: The Canadian Healthcare Navigation Conference was the first event of its kind in Canada to bring together navigation researchers, service providers, students, decision makers, and individuals with lived experience to share lessons learned, promising practices, and research findings. This event was co-hosted by the Family Navigation Project at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre and NaviCare/SoinsNavi at the University of New Brunswick, and took place virtually on April 15-16, 2021.

Results: This event spanned two days, which both began with a keynote address, one from a researcher and medical professional in navigation, and another from an individual with lived experience involved in advocacy in Canadian healthcare. Concurrent oral presentations by a variety of presenters were held following each keynote presentation. A poster session was held at the end of the first day, and a panel presentation rounded out the second day. Concurrent and poster presentations covered a range of topics pertaining to approaches to navigation, navigator roles, evaluation and quality improvement, lived experience in navigation, and navigation in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. The panel presentation focused on identifying how the navigation field has progressed in Canada and identifying crucial next steps in navigation. These next steps were determined to be: 1) agreement on navigation-related definitions, 2) regulation and training, 3) equity, diversity, inclusion, and accessibility, 4) integrating lived experience, and 5) regional coordination.

Conclusion: This conference was an important first step to creating a shared national conversation about navigation services so that we can continue to develop, implement, and share best evidence and practices in the field.

Background: Artificial Intelligence (AI) platforms, increasingly deployed in public health, utilize robust data systems as a critical component for health emergency preparedness. Yet, Africa faces numerous challenges in the availability, analyses, and use of data to inform health decision-making. Countries have limited access to their population data. Those with access, struggle to utilize these data for program improvements. Owing to the rapid growth of mobile phone ownership and use in the region, Africa is poised to leverage AI technologies to increase the adoption, access and use of data for health. To discuss and propose solutions for responsible development and adoption of innovations like AI in Africa, a virtual workshop was organized from the 21st to 24th June, 2021. This report highlights critical policy dimensions of strengthening digital health ecosystems by high-level policymakers, technical experts, academia, public and private sector partners.

Method: The four days' workshop focused on nine sessions, with each session focusing on three themes. Discussions during the sessions concentrated on public and private sectors, the academia and multilateral organizations' deployment of AI. These discussions expanded participants' understanding of AI, the opportunities and challenges that exist during adoption, including the future of AI for health in the African region. Approximately 250 participants attended the workshop, including countries representatives from ministries of Health, Information and Technology, Developmental Organizations, Private Sector, Academia and Research Institutions among others.

Results: The workshop resolved that governments and relevant stakeholders should collaborate to ensure that AI and digital health receive critical attention. Government ownership and leadership were identified as critical for sustainable financing and effective scale-up of AI-enabled applications in Africa. Thus, government is to ensure that key recommendations from the workshop are implemented to improve health sector development in Africa.

Conclusions: The AI workshop was a good forum to deliberate important issues regarding AI for health in the African context. It was concluded that there is a need to focus on vital priorities in deploying AI in Africa: Data protection, privacy and sharing protocols; training and creating platforms for researchers; funding and business models; developing frameworks for assessing and implementing AI; organizing forums and conferences on AI; and instituting regulations, governance and ethical guidelines for AI. There is a need to adopt a health systems approach in planning for AI to reduce inefficiencies, redundancies while increasing effectiveness in the use of AI. Thus, robust collaborations and partnerships among governments and various stakeholders were identified as key.

Climate change shapes human migration through the interaction of environmental changes with political, social, economic, and demographic drivers of mobility. Low-and middle-income countries bear the brunt of the health impacts of climate change and migration, despite their overall low contribution to greenhouse gas emissions. The CIH^LMU Symposium 2021 aimed to explore the complex interconnections between climate change, migration and health from diverse global perspectives. A number of themes, such as the relationship between climate and trade, the role of technology, and the issue of responsibility were tackled. The speakers also highlighted the need for climate resilient health-systems, gender mainstreaming in climate strategies, collaboration between the Global North and South and urgently defining the 'climate refugee'. It is crucial that the narrative around climate change moves from an environmental framing to encompass human health and migration within climate discussions and strategies.