Building a Methodological Foundation for Impactful Urban Planetary Health Science

Anthropogenic environmental change will heavily impact cities, yet associated health risks will depend significantly on decisions made by urban leaders across a wide range of non-health sectors, including transport, energy, housing, basic urban services, and others. A subset of planetary health researchers focus on understanding the urban health impacts of global environmental change, and how these vary globally and within cities. Such researchers increasingly adopt collaborative transdisciplinary approaches to engage policy-makers, private citizens, and other actors in identifying and evaluating potential policy solutions that will reduce environmental impacts in ways that simultaneously promote health, equity, and/or local economies—in other words, maximising ‘co-benefits’. This report presents observations from a participatory workshop focused on challenges and opportunities for urban planetary health research. The workshop, held at the 16th International Conference on Urban Health (ICUH) in Xiamen, China, in November 2019, brought together 49 participants and covered topics related to collaboration, data, and research impact. It featured research projects funded by the Wellcome Trust’s Our Planet Our Health (OPOH) programme. This report aims to concisely summarise and disseminate participants’ collective contributions to current methodological practice in urban planetary health research.     

Loops and Building Blocks: a Knowledge co-Production Framework for Equitable Urban Health

This paper sets out a structured process for the co-production of knowledge between researchers and societal partners and illustrates its application in an urban health equity project in Accra, Ghana. The main insight of this approach is that research and knowledge co-production is always partial, both in the sense of being incomplete, as well as being circumscribed by the interests of participating researchers and societal partners. A second insight is that project-bound societal engagement takes place in a broader context of public and policy debate. The approach to co-production described here is formed of three recursive processes: co-designing, co-analysing, and co-creating knowledge. These ‘co-production loops’ are themselves iterative, each representing a stage of knowledge production. Each loop is operationalized through a series of research and engagement practices, which we call building blocks. Building blocks are activities and interaction-based methods aimed at bringing together a range of participants involved in joint knowledge production. In practice, recursive iterations within loops may be limited due of constraints on time, resources, or attention. We suggest that co-production loops and building blocks are deployed flexibly.     

Stakeholder experiences of using online spatial data visualisation tools for local public health decision support: A qualitative study

The distribution of food outlets within towns and cities and the provision of active travel infrastructure have been associated with health behaviours that can contribute to obesity risk. Decision-makers describe a lack of local data and research evidence as a barrier to policy adoption to improve the public's health. Online spatial data visualisation tools created by researchers can help to bridge this gap. We explored stakeholder experiences of using such tools for decision-support, with a focus on facilitators and barriers to use. We conducted 16 qualitative interviews with Public Health, Planning and Transport Planning professionals, who had used two recently-developed tools. Participants described the importance of tools being open access; their use in “story-telling”, particularly to non-experts; and more broadly their use even when imperfect. They expressed that ‘robustness’ of underpinning data was important, however this was not easily defined. Participants employed personal heuristics, principally based on endorsement and developer credibility, to determine suitability for use. We present key learning points for future developers to maximise engagement and impact.     

Health promotion policies for elderly—Some comparisons across Germany,Italy, the Netherlands and Poland

ObjectiveThe aim of this study is to compare health promotion policies (HPP) for older adults in four European countries: Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Poland. We focus on the design, regulations and implementation of policies in these countries.MethodAs policy relevant information is mostly available in national languages we have approached experts in each country. They filled in a specially designed questionnaire on the design, regulation and implementation of health promotion policies. To analyze the data collected via questionnaires, we use framework analyses. For each subject we define several themes.ResultsRegarding regulations, Poland and Italy have a top-down regulation system for health promotion policy. Germany and Netherlands have a mixed system of regulation. Regarding the scope of the policy, in all four countries both health promotion and prevention are included. Activities include promotion of a healthy life style and social inclusion measures. In Poland and Italy the implementation plans for policy measures are not clearly defined. Clear implementation plans and budgeting are available in Germany and the NetherlandsConclusionsIn all four countries there is no document that exclusively addresses health promotion policies for older adults. We also found that HPP for older adults appears to be gradually disappearing from the national agenda in all four countries.     

Examining how changes in provincial policy on vape marketing impacted the distribution of vaping advertisements near secondary schools in London,Ontario

ObjectivesOn January 1, 2020, the Government of Ontario passed a regulation banning vaping advertisements by retailers, apart from specialty shops. A motivation for this ban was to limit youth exposure to vaping advertisements. The primary goal of this research was to evaluate the impact of this ban on the number and density of vaping advertisements surrounding secondary schools. Additionally, we examined whether the number of vaping advertisements varied by school socio-demographic characteristics.MethodsThis study used a pre-post design. Audits were conducted December 2019 (pre-ban) and again January to February 2020 (post-ban), to identify vaping advertisements within 800 m surrounding secondary schools (n = 18) in London, Ontario.ResultsPrior to the ban, there were 266 vaping advertisements within 800 m of secondary schools. After the ban, this was reduced to 58, a 78.2% reduction. The mean number of vaping advertisements surrounding schools significantly decreased from 18.1 before the ban to 3.6 after the ban (p < 0.001). A significant positive correlation was found, prior to the ban, between the number of vaping advertisements surrounding schools and school-level residential instability (r = 0.42, p = 0.02). After the ban, no significant correlations were found between the number of vaping advertisements and school socio-demographic characteristics.ConclusionThe provincial ban of vaping advertisements in select retail settings significantly reduced the number of vaping advertisements in the areas surrounding secondary schools in London, Ontario. The ban also reduced socio-demographic inequities in youths’ potential exposure to marketing of vaping products. Continued monitoring of the geographic accessibility and promotion of vaping products is warranted.     

A global agenda for older adult immunization in the COVID-19 era: A roadmap for action

Given our global interconnectedness, the COVID-19 pandemic highlights the urgency of building a global system that can support both routine and pandemic/epidemic adult immunization. As such, a framework to recommend vaccines and build robust platforms to deliver them to protect the rapidly expanding demographic of older adults is needed. Adult immunization as a strategy has the broad potential to preserve and improve medical, social, and economic outcomes, including maintaining functional ability that benefits older adults, their families, communities, and countries. While we will soon have multiple vaccines against COVID-19, we must recognize that we already have a variety of vaccines against other pathogens that can keep adults healthier. They can prevent simultaneous co-infection with COVID-19, and may favorably impact- the outcome of a COVID-19 illness. Further, administering a vaccine against COVID-19 requires planning now to determine delivery strategies impacting how older adults will be immunized in a timely manner. A group of international experts with various backgrounds from health and aging disciplines met to discuss the evidence case for adult immunization and crucial knowledge gaps that must be filled in order to implement effective policies and programs for older adult immunization. This group, coming together as the International Council on Adult Immunization (ICAI), outlined a high-level roadmap to catalyze action, provide policy guidance, and envision a global adult immunization platform that can be adapted by countries to fit their local contexts. Further meetings centered around the value of adult immunization, particularly in the context of COVID-19. There was agreement that programs to deliver existing influenza, pneumococcal, herpes zoster vaccines, and future COVID-19 vaccines to over a billion older adults who are at substantially higher risk of death and disability due to vaccine-preventable diseases are more urgent than ever before. Here we present a proposed framework for delivering routine and pandemic vaccines. We call upon the global community and governments to prioritize action for integrating robust adult immunization programs into the public health agenda.     

自然界中华按蚊种群研究工具及其在生命表制作中的应用

目的：为了能在自然界大型水体和旷野中对中华按蚊种群进行研究。方法：研制出适合于稻田浅水定量研究的实验简,适合于深水的实验网和接近自然状态的大实验笼。应用这些工具进行了自然界中华按蚊种群生命表的研究。结果：利用系列研究工具定量研究出1988年第8代中华按蚊自然种群生命表。求出各发育历期的死亡数和死亡因素,死亡率,存活率和死亡因素k值,分析出各发育阶段的关键死亡因素,计算下代预计产卵量为8288粒,种群趋势指数I为6．3027。结论：系列研究工具使中华按蚊自然种群的定量研究成为可能。郑州中华按蚊第9代种群数量还趋于增加之中。     

探讨传统客户／服务器应用和Web的结合方法

提出了传统客户／服务器应用和Ｗｅｂ结合的五种模型,对每种模型的优缺点和适用性进行了讨论,且介绍了一个基于Ｗｅｂ技术的新一代客户／服务器应用快速开发工具。     

对我国卫生资源配置和使用几个深层次问题的思索

我国卫生资源既贫稼又浪费已成为内人士的共识,但又是一个我国卫生事业发展的实际而又紧迫的问题,这个问题不好,就会人为地降低我国卫生事业的公益性和福利性的“含金量”。作者认为,要使我国有限的卫生资源能充分而合理地使用好,就要立足于我国的基本国情,在确保市场的微观调节的前提下,必须运用政府的宏观调控行为和政策指导手段,尽可能为管理体制的改革扫除障碍和给予法制上的保障。     

Bright Futures Ahead

Bright Futures will be an essential component in assuring quality in the implementation of Title XXI of the Social Security Act, the new State Child Health Insurance Program (SCHIP). With this federal announcement and with nationwide acceptance of Bright Futures: Guidelines for Health Supervision of Infants, Children and Adolescents, the Maternal and Child Health Bureau is supporting the National Center for Education in Maternal and Child Health (NCEMCH) in a multiyear implementation phase: Building Bright Futures. The publication Bright Futures in Practice: Oral Health is the first volume in the second generation of Bright Future's publications. Utilizing its successful methodology of collaborating with many partners, NCEMCH has formed multidisciplinary panels of experts to prepare population-specific publications and provide implementation tools and training to broaden the movement for a series of guidelines and materials that respond to current and emerging needs of children and adolescents.