Institute of Health Care - Faculty of Health Sciences (1987-2013) : a celebration

The Institute of Health Care embarked on its mission of training health care professionals at the University of Malta in 1987. A degree programme in Nursing Studies was the first course offered by the Institute of Health Care. By expanding steadily to provide training opportunities in a variety of allied health professions, the Institute of Health Care attracted increasing numbers of students over its 25 years of existence. This paper provides a brief historical account of the developments that led to the founding of the Institute of Health Care and to its subsequent upgrade to the Faculty of Health Sciences in August 2010. It also traces the advancement of the Institute of Health Care’s individual professional divisions as they grew into faculty departments and expanded their teaching and research portfolios. A key contributor to the Institute of Health Care’s success was the dedication and commitment of its teaching staff, a factor which continues to support the Faculty of Health Sciences in its ongoing mission.peer-reviewe

The Competitive Effects of Drug Withdrawals

In September 1997, the anti-obesity drugs Pondimin and Redux, ingredients in the popular drug combination fen-phen, were withdrawn from the market for causing potentially fatal side effects. That event provides an opportunity for studying how consumers respond to drug withdrawals. In theory, remaining drugs in the therapeutic class could enjoy competitive benefits, or suffer negative spillovers, from the withdrawal of a competing drug. Our findings suggest that, while the withdrawal of a rival drug may impose negative spillovers in the form of higher patient quit rates, on the whole non-withdrawn drugs in the same therapeutic class enjoy competitive benefits in the form of higher utilization.

The Other Side of the Trade Imbalance: What Will Japan Do?

With the mounting U.S. trade deficit, much attention has centered on the role of U.S. macroeconomic policy and economic structure as contributing factors. This paper contends that the economic structure and policies of Japan have also done much to contribute to the trade imbalance. Institutional features of Japan's macroeconomy and industrial structure which have promoted her large trade surplus are discussed and industrial policies evaluated. Given the nature and magnitude of the role played by Japan in causing the bilateral trade imbalance, the next question the paper addresses is how Japan might best act to alleviate this imbalance. This section of the paper examines fiscal, monetary and other policy initiatives Japan might take to reduce the trade imbalance. The evidence stresses the desirability of expanding Japan's services industries, particularly leisure-related services.

Health, Mental Health and Labor Productivity: The Role of Self-Reporting Bias

This paper relates physical and mental health status to labor force participation and compares these relationships among self-report and proxy respondents. Previous research has conjectured that self-reports of health status may lead to an upward bias in the estimated effect of health on labor productivity because subjects who are out of the labor force may be more likely to understate their health status so as to justify their lack of employment. Also, we integrate mental health into our study by using two alternative approaches-logistic regression analysis and propensity scoring methods. We find that among the cohort of self-reporters, physical health has a substantially stronger impact on labor productivity than mental health; precisely the opposite patterns were obtained when physical and mental health status were reported by proxy respondents. These results suggest the self-reports may lead to a bias in estimating labor productivity costs of physical versus mental health on labor force participation by overestimating the importance of good physical health and underestimating the role of good mental health. This in turn suggests that the benefits of more generous mental health insurance benefits may have been underappreciated in the medical policy debates.

Brucellosis : The Malta Experience - A Celebration 1905-2005

Professor Rizzo Naudi provides a short description of what can be found in his book Brucellosis : The Malta Experience - A Celebration 1905 - 2005. He describes in some chronological order the progress made in the study of this worldwide disease of animals that also affects humans. Most of the important discoveries regarding this disease were made by English and Maltese investigators working in Malta during the nineteenth and twentieth century. In the words of Dr Kennedy one of the members of the Mediterranean Fever Commission, "The History of Malta Fever (Brucellosis) is practically the history of its study in the Mediterranean and more especially in Malta". This Book is an account of these important discoveries and the subsequent efforts to control and eradicate this disease in Malta, which are very interesting from a historical and social point of view.peer-reviewe

Respiratory failure and oxygen therapy

Respiratory failure may be defined as the state due to disordered function of the lungs in which there is a substantial decrease of the partial pressure of oxygen in the arterial blood with or without a substantial increase of the partial pressure of carbon dioxide. The physiological basis and rationale of oxygen therapy in respiratory failure is explained. Furthermore, the importance of controlled oxygen administration in patients who have anoxia combined with hypercapnia has been emphasized and the dangers of uncontrolled oxygen therapy stressed. The different features and advantages of the various apparata suitable for oxygen administration are described. Essentially, the management of respiratory failure is highly dependable on physiological principles.peer-reviewe

Female Employment and Fertility in Rural China

Data on 2,288 married women from the 2006 China Health and Nutrition Survey are deployed to study how off-farm female employment affects fertility. Such employment reduces a married woman's actual number of children by 0.64, her preferred number by 0.48, and her probability of having more than one child by 54.8 percent. Causality flows in both directions; hence, we use well validated instrumental variables to estimate employment status. China has deep concerns with both female employment and population size. Moreover, female employment is growing quickly. Hence, its implications for fertility must be understood. Ramifications for China's one-child policy are discussed.

A study of heart disease in children in Malta

This is a paper read at the 12th Clinical Annual Meeting of the British Medical Association held in Malta. This paper is based on a study of 352 children referred to the Paediatric Cardiology Unit, St. Luke's Hospital Malta, since its inception in January 1966, until 16th September 1968. All children were examined by at least two physicians. The usual clinical diagnostic criteria and methods, including radiology and electrocardiography, were used in assessing the cases. In some the clinical diagnosis has been confirmed at operation or during catheterisation and angiocardiography carried out at St. Mary's Hospital, London. This Unit receives the vast majority of heart cases in children in Malta, and these cases may be taken as a fair representation of heart disease in Maltese children. The purpose of this study is to compare the incidence of the various cardiac anomalies, congenital or acquired, in a small island like Malta with that of other countries, while a study has also been made of the presenting symptoms and other relevant clinical features.peer-reviewe

Precision Electroweak Data and the Mixed Radion-Higgs Sector of Warped Extra Dimensions

We derive the Lagrangian and Feynman rules up to bilinear scalar fields for the mixed Higgs-radion eigenstates interacting with Standard Model particles confined to a 3-brane in Randall-Sundrum warped geometry. We use the results to compute precision electroweak observables and compare theory predictions with experiment. We characterize the interesting regions of parameter space that simultaneously enable a very heavy Higgs mass and a very heavy radion mass, both masses being well above the putative Higgs boson mass limit in the Standard Model derived from the constraints of precision electroweak observables. For parameters consistent with the precision constraints the Higgs boson physical eigenstate is typically detectable, but its properties may be difficult to study at the Large Hadron Collider. In contrast, masses and couplings are allowed for the physical radion eigenstate that make it unobservable at the LHC. A Linear Collider will significantly improve our ability to study the Higgs eigenstate, and will typically allow detection of the radion eigenstate if it is within the machine's kinematical reach.Comment: 14 pages, 5 figures; revisions: typo correction for Feynman rules and 1 reference adde