China
Africa
Explore chapters and articles related to this topic
Public Health and Viruses
Published in Patricia G. Melloy, Viruses and Society, 2023
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, there are ten essential services performed by those in public health, which can be grouped into the categories of “assessment,” “policy development,” and “assurance,” with “equity” at the center (CDC 2022a). Public health officials need to look at the overall health of the population and pursue health issues when they arise by gathering epidemiological data. Effective communication with the public on these matters is essential. Then, public health officials need to work with local leaders to better the health of people in the community. This may involve making new public health policies and/or using existing policies, even if this means using legal means to do so. To improve and maintain public health, public health officials need to work to facilitate the right healthcare infrastructure for all the members of the community as well (CDC 2022a).
Health Professionals and Modern Human Research Ethics
Published in Howard Winet, Ethics for Bioengineering Scientists, 2021
This chapter explores the ethical consequences of physicians becoming part of the human research equation. The transition became significant after World War II (WWII). It changed the patient–physician relationship from mostly paternal to fiduciary. In cases where the patient was also a research subject, there was a potential conflict of interest. Clinical research became an arena for lawyers, government-regulating agencies, and industry, as partners and adversaries to a greater degree than ever before. The most scientifically important disclosure in the chapter is the contribution of epidemiologist Bradford Hill to clinical science. It established the relevancy of epidemiological data for application to public health policy. We begin by examining the stimuli for physician transition from health provider to member of a research team. Crucial seeds were actually planted by the development of the drug industry.
Industrial Agricultural Environments
Published in Kezia Barker, Robert A. Francis, Routledge Handbook of Biosecurity and Invasive Species, 2021
Robert G. Wallace, Alex Liebman, David Weisberger, Tammi Jonas, Luke Bergmann, Richard Kock, Rodrick Wallace
The new order extends beyond scientific practice at the level of the investigator. The epidemiological commons we need to protect ourselves from pathogens and pests are being sold off as just another series in proprietary inputs. The rawest of epidemiological data – outbreak locales, premise identification numbers, shipping records, pathogen genetics and transgenic histologies – are being wrapped in a confidentiality that is taking precedence over public health as a basic domain of intervention (Lezaun and Porter, 2015; Wallace, 2016f; Borkenhagen et al., 2019; Gorsich et al., 2019; Okamoto et al., 2019). Scientists are increasingly unable to assess even where outbreaks are exactly happening.
Epidemiology of free-living amoebae infections in Africa: a review
Published in Pathogens and Global Health, 2023
Giovanni D. Milanez, Karlo B. Carlos, Mary Erika Adao, Bernadette B Ayson, Ariela V. Dicon, Rhonette Anne M. Gahol, Sharmaine Kaye S. Lacre, Franchesca Pauline E. Marquez, April Jane M. Perez, Panagiotis Karanis
Regardless of the disease, epidemiological data are essential for implementing public health programs to safeguard the population’s health and safety. The continent of Africa, along with the countries within it, are considered hotspots for development not only economically but also in the aspect of health. Although several government-led initiatives have been implemented to mitigate a plethora of parasitic diseases, the case of FLA-related infections should become a subject of investigations. As indicated in this review, managing fatal FLA-related conditions in the continent has been unsuccessful, considering the three deaths from the human cases reported. In the case of AK infections, the growing number of NCLW cases reflects hygiene and potential contamination of water sources used for daily use. Finally, the non/human cases of FLA infection open a new door of opportunities to investigate further the potential negative health impacts of FLA in livestock in several countries in Africa and around the world.
Using Bayesian networks to clarify interpretation of exposure–response regression coefficients: blood lead–mortality association as an example
Published in Critical Reviews in Toxicology, 2020
These variables are intended to provide a simple but realistic example of epidemiological data for purposes of illustrating important methodological points and comparing different methods for quantifying dependence relations among variables. Although the NHANES III data set is carefully designed for use with weights to allow extrapolation to the US population, we do not use these weights or make such extrapolations here, but use the collected data (which deliberately oversampled Black and Hispanic subpopulations relative to the US population) to quantify relations among the variables. In addition, we only use records with values recorded for lead (BLL) (including the imputed value supplied in NHANES III for lead exposures below the detection limit, namely, the detection limit divided by the square root of 2). NHANES III handles missing data for many variables by providing five possible imputed values for each missing value, but the accuracy and bias of the imputed values is uncertain. Using measured values only, and dropping cases with missing BLL values, suffices for our illustrative purposes and avoids model uncertainties due to imputation. Since data are not necessarily missing at random, we again do not extrapolate beyond the specific data set analyzed.
First-line endocrine therapy for advanced breast cancer. A real-world study at a Latin American university health institution
Published in Current Medical Research and Opinion, 2020
Benjamin Walbaum, Francisco Acevedo, Lidia Medina, M. Loreto Bravo, Tomas Merino, Mauricio Camus, Francisco Dominguez, Sebastian Mondaca, Hector Galindo, Bruno Nervi, Carolina Ibañez, Jorge Madrid, Jose Peña, Erica Koch, Marcelo Garrido, Mauricio P. Pinto, César Sánchez
We retrieved clinical and epidemiological data from medical records. Our study included all patients at our institution diagnosed with invasive BC over the 1997–2019 period. HR status was inferred from pathology reports. Hence, patients that displayed ≥1% of positivity on nuclear staining for estrogen (ER) or progesterone receptor (PgR) in tumor cells were considered HR+. Patients with tumors that over-expressed HER2 were excluded. Given that our study lacks a tumor molecular analysis we used Histological Grade (HG) as a substitute to discriminate between high or low proliferation tumors, thereby HG served to classify cases as either low grade2, based on HG: 1 or 2 and HG3 for those with high proliferation. Our study included advanced HR + HER2-BC patients with de novo systemic disease (stage IV) and patients with metastatic recurrent disease (progression after an initial diagnosis and treatment of early BC). First-line treatment was defined as the first treatment received for advanced BC at diagnosis or after first recurrence. We quantified the number of patients that received ET (i.e., tamoxifen, aromatase inhibitors or fulvestrant), combined ET (ET plus cyclin-dependent kinase inhibitors (CDKi) or everolimus), or CT and grouped them by 5-year periods in order to observe changes over time. Also, we assessed site of first metastases (visceral or non-visceral), overall (OS) and disease-specific survival (DSS). Finally, for patients that started on ET we describe the second-line treatment following first progression.