Exploring the role of GIS during community health assessment problem solving: experiences of public health professionals

Background  

A Community health assessment (CHA) involves the use of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) in conjunction with other software to analyze health and population data and perform numerical-spatial problem solving. There has been little research on identifying how public health professionals integrate this software during typical problem solving scenarios. A better understanding of this is needed to answer the "What" and the "How". The "What" identifies the specific software being used and the "How" explains the way they are integrated together during problem solving steps. This level of understanding will highlight the role of GIS utilization during problem solving and suggest to developers how GIS can be enhanced to better support data analysis during community health assessment.     

EuroQol (EQ-5D) health utility scores for patients with migraine

Purpose  

Previous studies have reported health utilities for migraine patients as generally measured between migraine attacks, but health utility data for within a migraine attack are unavailable. We evaluated within-attack health utilities among acute migraine patients experiencing different grades of headache severity.     

Mental distress in the general population in Zambia: Impact of HIV and social factors

Background  

Population level data on mental health from Africa are limited, but available data indicate mental problems to represent a substantial public health problem. The negative impact of HIV on mental health suggests that this could particularly be the case in high prevalence populations. We examined the prevalence of mental distress, distribution patterns and the ways HIV might influence mental health among men and women in a general population.     

The change in capacity and service delivery at public and private hospitals in Turkey: A closer look at regional differences

Background  

Substantial regional health inequalities have been shown to exist in Turkey for major health indicators. Turkish data on hospitals deserves a closer examination with a special emphasis on the regional differences in the context of the rapid privatization of the secondary or tertiary level health services.     

Health financing in Malawi: Evidence from National Health Accounts

Background  

National health accounts provide useful information to understand the functioning of a health financing system. This article attempts to present a profile of the health system financing in Malawi using data from NHA. It specifically attempts to document the health financing situation in the country and proposes recommendations relevant for developing a comprehensive health financing policy and strategic plan.     

Methods for dealing with discrepant records in linked population health datasets: a cross-sectional study

Background  

Linked population health data are increasingly used in epidemiological studies. If data items are reported on more than one dataset, data linkage can reduce the under-ascertainment associated with many population health datasets. However, this raises the possibility of discrepant case reports from different datasets.     

Applying an extended theoretical framework for data collection mode to health services research

Background  

Over the last 30 years options for collecting self-reported data in health surveys and questionnaires have increased with technological advances. However, mode of data collection such as face-to-face interview or telephone interview can affect how individuals respond to questionnaires. This paper adapts a framework for understanding mode effects on response quality and applies it to a health research context.     

The health workforce crisis in Bangladesh: shortage, inappropriate skill-mix and inequitable distribution

Background  

Bangladesh is identified as one of the countries with severe health worker shortages. However, there is a lack of comprehensive data on human resources for health (HRH) in the formal and informal sectors in Bangladesh. This data is essential for developing an HRH policy and plan to meet the changing health needs of the population. This paper attempts to fill in this knowledge gap by using data from a nationally representative sample survey conducted in 2007.     

Development,implementation, and pilot study of a sentinel network ("The Watchtowers") for monitoring emergency primary health care activity in Norway

Background  

In Norway there is a shortage of valid health activity statistics from the primary care out-of-hours services and the pre-hospital emergency health care system. There is little systematic information available because data registration is lacking or is only recorded periodically, and definitions of variables are not consistent.     

Prioritization of diseases for work-related health monitoring by multidimensional ranking

Aim  

Although working life issues are subject to European health monitoring schemes, not many routine data sources include information on occupations or working conditions. Additional in-depth analysis is therefore necessary for diseases with high public health impact. The aim of this paper is to introduce a multidimensional ranking procedure for priority setting of diseases based on European and national data.     

The development of a new corporate specific health risk measurement instrument, and its use in investigating the relationship between health and well-being and employee productivity

Background  

There is a growing body of evidence linking health and well-being to key business issues. Despite this, corporate uptake of workplace health promotion programmes has been slow outside the USA. One possible reason for this is the lack of a generally available health risk measure that is quick and easy to administer and produces data that is rich enough to inform and direct subsequent employee health promotional interventions.     

What do people include when they self-rate their health? Differential associations according to health status in community-dwelling older adults

Aims  

Self-rated health (SRH) is widely regarded a valid and reliable indicator of health status. The validity of self-rated health has been demonstrated in many studies, for example by predicting mortality over and above medical and epidemiological data. However, the meaning of SRH can differ between individuals, especially in elderly individuals with considerable individual differences in their physical health states. It is thus important to determine whether predictors of self-rated health vary according to physical health status in order to interpret self-rated health data.     

Using Directed Acyclic Graphs to detect limitations of traditional regression in longitudinal studies

Introduction  

Longitudinal data are increasingly available to health researchers; these present challenges not encountered in cross-sectional data, not the least of which is the presence of time-varying confounding variables and intermediate effects.     

Assessment of possible impact of a health promotion program in Korea from health risk trends in a longitudinally observed cohort

Background  

Longitudinally observed cohort data can be utilized to assess the potential for health promotion and healthcare planning by comparing the estimated risk factor trends of non-intervened with that of intervened. The paper seeks (1) to estimate a natural transition (patterns of movement between states) of health risk state from a Korean cohort data using a Markov model, (2) to derive an effective and necessary health promotion strategy for the population, and (3) to project a possible impact of an intervention program on health status.     

Evaluation of sliding baseline methods for spatial estimation for cluster detection in the biosurveillance system

Background  

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC's) BioSense system provides near-real time situational awareness for public health monitoring through analysis of electronic health data. Determination of anomalous spatial and temporal disease clusters is a crucial part of the daily disease monitoring task. Our study focused on finding useful anomalies at manageable alert rates according to available BioSense data history.     

"There's no kind of respect here" A qualitative study of racism and access to maternal health care among Romani women in the Balkans

Introduction  

Roma, the largest minority group in Europe, face widespread racism and health disadvantage. Using qualitative data from Serbia and Macedonia, our objective was to develop a conceptual framework showing how three levels of racism--personal, internalized, and institutional--affect access to maternal health care among Romani women.     

Skin infection,housing and social circumstances in children living in remote Indigenous communities: testing conceptual and methodological approaches

Background  

Poor housing conditions in remote Indigenous communities in Australia are a major underlying factor in poor child health, including high rates of skin infections. The aim of this study is to test approaches to data collection, analysis and feedback for a follow-up study of the impact of housing conditions on child health.     

Measuring the impact of health policies using Internet search patterns: the case of abortion

Background  

Internet search patterns have emerged as a novel data source for monitoring infectious disease trends. We propose that these data can also be used more broadly to study the impact of health policies across different regions in a more efficient and timely manner.