Healthy Kindergartens

Pre-school period is extremely important in adopting individual health behaviour. Consecutively it is very important how to present health and healthy behaviour to the child. The project is directed to create conditions for children’s well-being and health, education for a healthy behaviour, and support of social and professional partners. At the beginning of the nineties, a project entitled »Healthy Schools« was launched by the World Health Organization to stimulate schools for incorporation of health promotion in their curricula and everyday life. Since this project was relating to primary schools only, similar project entitled »Healthy Kindergarten« was developed in some European countries. Two case studies are presented to illustrate the development, aim, and goals of healthy kindergartens, and as an example how the project concepts could be implemented as a routine. The first case study is presenting the development of the »Healthy Kindergarten« project in Slovenia, and the »Health in the Kindergartens« programme, the successor of the project, implemented as a routine. The second case is presenting an intervention tool in Hong Kong where children’s health status was found to be poor

Healthy Cities Project: Phase IV

Healthy Cities is a dynamic concept/approach, which seeks to put health high on the political and social agenda of cities and to build a strong movement for public health at the local level. The WHO European Healthy Cities Network consists of a network of cities from around Europe that are committed to a comprehensive implementation of the Healthy Cities concept. Based on the criteria that are renewed every five years, the cities are designated to the WHO Network. Each five-year phase focuses on a number of core priority themes, which are launched with a political declaration and a set of strategic aims. Phase IV (2003–2008) has three core themes being, healthy urban planning, health impact assessment, and healthy ageing, with additional core theme and encourages action to tackle obesity and promote physical activity and active living. In Slovenia, Celje with its around 50.000 inhabitants become one of the 50 cities, included in basic WHO Healthy Cities Network in the Phase IV of the project. It is presented as an example to illustrate this phase of the project

''Health Needs'' Concept

The concept of ''health needs'' is one of key concepts in public health. From the public health standpoint, the most important perspective on this concept is the perspective of a population, or an individual respectively. But along this perspective there exist several other perspectives, which can be to the certain extent similar, but also could be also very different. All this enters an enormous confusion in its understanding, and consecutively this concept seems rather elusive. This confusion originates from the fact that the concept of “health needs” is very difficult to define exactly, like it is also very difficult to define exactly the concept of “health itself”, since both concepts are extremely complex entities. The module is trying to enlighten some problems concerning the “health needs” concept”

Reorientation of Health Services

Health promotion is from one point of vision defined in terms of the several action areas among others comprising re-orientation of health services toward health promotion. According to this concept, health services were encouraged to move increasingly from predominantly curative approach to more preventive approach. The idea of comprehensive primary health care was launched. The paper is presenting problems related to application of comprehensive primary health care in practice in the period after adoption of Alma Ata Declaration. The case of Slovenia health care system and characteristics of its transition is presented as an example. Presented are current situation as well as broader context and possible solution in the future

Health Education in Practice a Bit Differently Than Usual

Health education is becoming more and more important approach to control various public health problems, epecially in the populations with high percent of older age groups. At the first sight this approach seems to be very easy to practice but to plan and to practice properly this approach in various target groups it is necessary to have certain knowledge and skills. On one hand there exist different target groups in the process of health education with different needs and with different level and capacity of accepting the information on health. Practice of health education in old age groups differs substantially from the practice in adolescents or preschool children. On the other hand health professionals with different undergraduate background could be involved in the process of health education among them also physicians. In Slovenia, physicians of different speciality, especially general practitioners and family medicine specialists could be involved in health education on different occasions. Getting certain skills in health education could be of enormous importance for them

Healthy Cities Project: Phase IV

Healthy Cities is a dynamic concept/approach, which seeks to put health high on the political and social agenda of cities and to build a strong movement for public health at the local level. The WHO European Healthy Cities Network consists of a network of cities from around Europe that are committed to a comprehensive implementation of the Healthy Cities concept. Based on the criteria that are renewed every five years, the cities are designated to the WHO Network. Each five-year phase focuses on a number of core priority themes, which are launched with a political declaration and a set of strategic aims. Phase IV (2003–2008) has three core themes being, healthy urban planning, health impact assessment, and healthy ageing, with additional core theme and encourages action to tackle obesity and promote physical activity and active living. In Slovenia, Celje with its around 50.000 inhabitants become one of the 50 cities, included in basic WHO Healthy Cities Network in the Phase IV of the project. It is presented as an example to illustrate this phase of the project

Healthy Kindergartens

Pre-school period is extremely important in adopting individual health behaviour. Consecutively it is very important how to present health and healthy behaviour to the child. The project is directed to create conditions for children’s well-being and health, education for a healthy behaviour, and support of social and professional partners. At the beginning of the nineties, a project entitled »Healthy Schools« was launched by the World Health Organization to stimulate schools for incorporation of health promotion in their curricula and everyday life. Since this project was relating to primary schools only, similar project entitled »Healthy Kindergarten« was developed in some European countries. Two case studies are presented to illustrate the development, aim, and goals of healthy kindergartens, and as an example how the project concepts could be implemented as a routine. The first case study is presenting the development of the »Healthy Kindergarten« project in Slovenia, and the »Health in the Kindergartens« programme, the successor of the project, implemented as a routine. The second case is presenting an intervention tool in Hong Kong where children’s health status was found to be poor

Healthy Kindergartens

Pre-school period is extremely important in adopting individual health behaviour. Consecutively it is very important how to present health and healthy behaviour to the child. The project is directed to create conditions for children’s well-being and health, education for a healthy behaviour, and support of social and professional partners. At the beginning of the nineties, a project entitled »Healthy Schools« was launched by the World Health Organization to stimulate schools for incorporation of health promotion in their curricula and everyday life. Since this project was relating to primary schools only, similar project entitled »Healthy Kindergarten« was developed in some European countries. Two case studies are presented to illustrate the development, aim, and goals of healthy kindergartens, and as an example how the project concepts could be implemented as a routine. The first case study is presenting the development of the »Healthy Kindergarten« project in Slovenia, and the »Health in the Kindergartens« programme, the successor of the project, implemented as a routine. The second case is presenting an intervention tool in Hong Kong where children’s health status was found to be poor

Quantification of thioacetamide-induced liver necrosis using fractal analysis

Introduction: The liver is particularly susceptible to the toxicity from numerous chemical agents, because of its central role in the detoxification. Thioacetamide-induced liver injury is used as an animal model of acute hepatic failure. Fractal analysis is a mathematical method used to measure the complexity of natural objects and can be represented solely using one parameter - the fractal dimension. Aim: The aim of this study was to investigate whether fractal analysis could be used to determine and quantify the hepatotoxic effect of thioacetamide on rat liver. Material and methods: Adult male Wistar rats were randomized into two groups: experimental group undergoing treatment with thioacetamide (600 mg/kg i.p.) and control group undergoing treatment with saline. Tissue samples were stained with hematoxylin & eosin (H&E) and Masson's trichrome protocol. Graphic processing and fractal analysis were performed using the ImageJ software. Two fractal dimensions were calculated: the fractal dimension of liver parenchyma (Dpar) and the fractal dimension of liver sinusoids (Dsin). Results: Dpar value was significantly lower in the experimental group, as compared to the control, both samples stained with H&E and Masson's trichrome (p < 0.0001). Dsin value was significantly higher in the experimental group, in tissue samples stained with H/E (p < 0.0001). Additionally, we calculated the Dpar/Dsin ratio, which was significantly lower in the experimental group, in tissue samples stained with both H&E and Masson's trichrome protocol. Conclusion: These results show that fractal analysis could prove as a useful, easy and low-cost method in the detection and quantification of thioacetamide-induced liver necrosis

Reorientation of Health Services

Health promotion is from one point of vision defined in terms of the several action areas among others comprising re-orientation of health services toward health promotion. According to this concept, health services were encouraged to move increasingly from predominantly curative approach to more preventive approach. The idea of comprehensive primary health care was launched. The paper is presenting problems related to application of comprehensive primary health care in practice in the period after adoption of Alma Ata Declaration. The case of Slovenia health care system and characteristics of its transition is presented as an example. Presented are current situation as well as broader context and possible solution in the future