The Public Health Implications of Trafficking

Trafficking in human beings is a serious and complex human rights issue. Trafficking for the purpose of sexual exploitation has grave public health implications. The vulnerability of women and children increases their risk of becoming victims of trafficking for the purposes of sexual exploitation. Review of the literature on this subject demonstrates a direct link between the trafficking of women and children for sexual exploitation and the prevalence of HIV/AIDS, STIs and Reproductive/Gynecological Issues, Mental Health, Violence, Abuse and Social Issues. This review supports the concept of human trafficking as a serious public health issue and the need for improved resources for victims of trafficking and prevention efforts in communities most affected by this practice. Additionally, this review demonstrates the need for improved and standardized data collection methods related to the health issues associated with human trafficking. These results have important implications for the public health community as a whole as it considers how to address the continued spread of HIV/AIDS, the impact of mental health and social problems on communities and the health concerns of women and children

The impact of a theory-driven flu vaccine compliance communications campaign: a multiyear evaluation

Achieving full participation in a flu vaccination program for health care workers remains a persistent challenge. While previous studies in the literature have looked at the theoretical background surrounding flu vaccination, few studies have looked at the efficacy and effectiveness of flu vaccination communications campaigns that have been used to encourage populations to become vaccinated. Over three years, a novel flu vaccine compliance communications campaign was developed and implemented at two pilot sites, Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic of UPMC (WPIC), and Magee-Womens Hospital of UPMC (Magee). Pilot sites received the intervention as a rolled-out approach, with UPMC Presbyterian Shadyside serving as a control arm for all three years of the intervention. In the third year of the program, a policy mandate was introduced across UPMC. Moderate increases compared to the initial baseline data, and then year-to-year increases within the individual hospital campus, were seen when a risk-based communications campaign was introduced at Magee and WPIC, with no significant changes when a social-norms component was added. In this population, a social-norms-based approach is unlikely to deliver measurable results with employee vaccination. The largest increases came during the final year of the policy mandate, with no significant changes across the three populations. This indicates that policy is the strongest influencer in employee influenza vaccination, but moderate increases can be achieved with the adoption of a risk-based approach to vaccine communications if such a policy is not feasible. Additionally, employees demonstrated greater engagement with communications materials when theory-driven campaigns were introduced, compared to employee response to communications materials used in the control hospital. This communications approach and campaign carries public health significance by shaping future campaigns and programs, and delivering lessons learned regarding application of motivators, related to routine influenza vaccination, and the expansion of vaccination to other HCW and general adult populations. By developing a novel practice that can be applicable toward a range of vaccination practices, this project carries public health significance in filling a gap toward best practices for encouraging vaccination when organizational or other mandates are not available

The Power and the Purse: Aspects of the Genesis and Implementation of the Metropolitan Poor Act 1867

PhdThis thesis examines the genesis and implementation of two provisions of the Metropolitan Poor Act 1867: rate equalisation and the appointment of central government nominees to local poor law bodies. It is contended that while the Act pointed towards the twentieth-century state in that it led to a growth in government and to redistribution of the public spending burden, a new type of gentlemanly safeguard against elected power underpinned these developments. A radical call for redistribution of wealth in the metropolis, coming largely not from the East End but from the west, the south and the City, played a significant part in the genesis of the Act's innovatory restraining step of appointing Poor Law Board nominees to metropolitan bodies. The aim, it is argued, was to dilute the representative base of these bodies as some of their poor law spending came within the compass of the new metropolitan common purse: a step taken in the same year that the representative base for parliament was widened by the passing of the Second Reform Act. The thesis examines the manuscript records of the major metropolitan movement for rate equalisation,analyses decision-making on the Act's largest and longest-running poor law body, the Metropolitan Asylums Board, in its first four years, and presents a census-based socio-economic comparative study of this board's elected and elite nominated managers. The role of central government (ministers and officials) in the state growth that arose out of the Act is also considered. The conclusion reached is that in the metropolis in the 1860s the conscious, planned and more centralised growth of poor law services, and the accompanying partial redistribution of wealth from richer to poorer areas, both arising largely as a result of insistent reformist and radical pressure, took place within a context of gentlemanly ingenuity in finding new ways of retaining influence and power

Plasma properties of driver gas following interplanetary shocks observed by ISEE-3

Plasma fluid parameters calculated from solar wind and magnetic field data obtained on ISEE 3 were studied. The characteristic properties of driver gas following interplanetary shocks was determined. Of 54 shocks observed from August 1978 to February 1980, nine contained a well defined driver gas that was clearly identifiable by a discontinuous decrease in the average proton temperature across a tangential discontinuity. While helium enhancements were present in all of nine of these events, only about half of them contained simultaneous changes in the two quantities. Often the He/H ratio changed over a period of minutes. Simultaneous with the drop in proton temperature the helium and electron temperature decreased abruptly. In some cases the proton temperature depression was accompanied by a moderate increase in magnetic field magnitude with an unusually low variance and by an increase in the ratio of parallel to perpendicular temperature. The drive gas usually displayed a bidirectional flow of suprathermal solar wind electrons at higher energies

Inference for plant-capture

When investigating the dynamics of an animal population, a primary objective is to obtain reasonable estimates of abundance or population size. This thesis concentrates on the problem of obtaining point estimates of abundance from capture-recapture data and on how such estimation can be improved by using the method of plant-capture. Plant-capture constitutes a natural generalisation of capture-recapture. In a plant-capture study a pre-marked population of known size is added to the target population of unknown size. The capture-recapture experiment is then carried out on the augmented population. Chapter 1 considers the addition of planted individuals to target populations which behave according to the standard capture-recapture model M₀. Chapter 2 investigates an analogous model based on sampling in continuous time. In each of these chapters, distributional results are derived under the assumption that the behaviour of the plants is indistinguishable from that of members of the target population. Maximum likelihood estimators and other new estimators are proposed for each model. The results suggest that the use of plants is beneficial, and furthermore that the new estimators perform more satisfactorily than the maximum likelihood estimators. Chapter 3 introduces, initially in the absence of plants, a new class of estimators, described as coverage adjusted estimators, for the standard capture-recapture model M[sub]h. These new estimators are shown, through simulation and real life data, to compare favourably with estimators that have previously been proposed. Plant-capture versions of these new estimators are then derived and the usefulness of the plants is demonstrated through simulation. Chapter 4 describes how the approach taken in chapter 3 can be modified to produce a new estimator for the analogous continuous time model. This estimator is then shown through simulation to be preferable to estimators that have previously been proposed

Validation of two-dimensional vertebral body parameters in estimating patient height in elderly patients

Objectives: Standardised comparison of abdominal muscle and adipose tissue is often utilised in morphometric clinical research. Whilst measurements are traditionally standardised against the patient’s height, this may not be always practically feasible. The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between measurements of the vertebral body and patient height. Methods: We analysed cross-sectional CT scans. Measurements of the vertebral body area (VBA), anteroposterior vertebral body diameter (APVBD) and lateral vertebral body diameter (LVBD) were made by two independent investigators by manual tracing. Patients were randomly divided into two groups: Group 1 standardisation and Group 2 validation. We compared height and vertebral body parameters from patients in Group 1 and mathematically modelled this relationship. We then utilised the model to predict the height of patients in Group 2 and compared this with their actual height. Observer variability was assessed using Bland–Altman plots and t-tests of differences. Results: CT scans from 382 patients were analysed. No significant intraobserver or interobserver differences were apparent when measuring vertebral body parameters. We describe models which enable the prediction of the patients’ height using the measured VBA, APVBD and LVBD. No significant differences were observed between the patients predicted and actual heights in the validation group. Conclusions: We demonstrate an important relationship between measurements of the patient’s height and the vertebral body. This can be utilised in future research when the patient’s height has not been measured. Advances in knowledge: In the absence of the patient’s height, we demonstrate that two-dimensional vertebral body parameters may be reliably used to standardise morphometric measurements

MASC 2022: What challenges and opportunities do supramolecular chemists face in coming years?

Supramolecular chemistry has gone from strength to strength in recent decades, with its impact felt from catalysis to materials science to chemical biology. This Voices article, published to coincide with the 2022 Macrocyclic and Supramolecular Chemistry Group meeting at the University of Nottingham, UK, asks speakers from the meeting: what are the major challenges and opportunities facing the field in coming years