Assessment of primary health care: health professionals’ perspective

Objective To assess primary health care attributes of access to a first contact, comprehensiveness, coordination, continuity, family guidance and community orientation. Method An evaluative, quantitative and cross-sectional study with 35 professional teams in the Family Health Program of the Alfenas region, Minas Gerais, Brazil. Data collection was done with the Primary Care Assessment Tool - Brazil, professional version. Results Results revealed a low percentage of medical experts among the participants who evaluated the attributes with high scores, with the exception of access to a first contact. Data analysis revealed needs for improvement: hours of service; forms of communication between clients and healthcare services and between clients and professionals; the mechanism of counter-referral. Conclusion It was concluded that there is a mismatch between the provision of services and the needs of the population, which compromises the quality of primary health care

Nearshore Sediment Transport in a Changing Climate

The impact of changing wave climate on the most important nearshore process, longshore sediment transport (LST), along the central west coast of India is investigated. The main purpose of this study is to provide a better understanding of the meteo-marine climate of the central west coast of India, which is highly influenced by the Arabian Sea and the Indian Ocean. To understand the contemporary evolution of the coastline, hindcast wave climate from ERA-Interim wave data (1979–2016) is used. The annual average significant wave height (Hs), wave period (Tp) and wave direction (α0) are obtained and used to estimate annual LST. This region receives oblique waves from the W-SW direction which induces a huge gross northerly transport. It experiences two types of waves, swell waves (remotely generated waves that travel thousands of kilometres before hitting the coastline) and wind waves (also known as seas, which are locally generated), both of which are responsible for coastal sediment transport. The swell waves are the major component of a total wave system. It has more strength than the locally generated wind waves and dictates the wave direction and significant wave height at any given point of time. Therefore, the swell wave-induced LST is an order of magnitude higher than the wind wave-induced LST. It was observed that the sediment transport has a seasonal nature due to the influence of monsoonal winds in this region. The total LST in the central west coast of India shows a decreasing trend due to the reduced swell generation in the lower latitudes of the Arabian Sea and the Indian Ocean