Media actors' perceptions of their roles in reporting food incidents

Background: Previous research has shown that the media can play a role in shaping consumer perceptions during a public health crisis. In order for public health professionals to communicate well-informed health information to the media, it is important that they understand how media view their role in transmitting public health information to consumers and decide what information to present. This paper reports the perceptions of media actors from three countries about their role in reporting information during a food incident. This information is used to present ideas and suggestions for public health professionals working with media during food incidents. Methods: Thirty three semi-structured interviews with media actors from Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom were conducted and analysed thematically. Media actors were recruited via purposive sampling using a sampling strategy, from a variety of formats including newspaper, television, radio and online. Results: Media actors said that during a food incident, they play two roles. First, they play a role in communicating information to consumers by acting as a conduit for information between the public and the relevant authorities. Second, they play a role as investigators by acting as a public watchdog. Conclusion: Media actors are an important source of consumer information during food incidents. Public health professionals can work with media by actively approaching them with information about food incidents; promoting to media that as public health professionals, they are best placed to provide the facts about food incidents; and by providing angles for further investigation and directing media to relevant and correct information to inform such investigations. Public health professionals who adapt how they work with media are more likely to influence media to portray messages that fit what they would like the public to know and that are in line with public health recommendations and enable consumers to engage in safe and health promoting behaviours in response to food incidents

Sleep and Motion Disorders of Physicians and Nurses Working in Hospitals Facing the Pandemic of COVID 19

Introduction: Several research studies have started to investigate the health conditions of medical doctors and nurses in order to find a relationship if any between their work environment, their usually heavy duties and the result of these two parametric on patients' health. Aim: The present research study is an effort to investigate the relationship between the physical activity and sleep disorders among health care professionals, particularly among medical doctors and nurses. Methods: Participants of the study were asked to fill a questionnaire which was a mixture of other internationally accredited questionnaires regarding physical activity level as well as sleeping functions. Data were collected among 204 physicians and nurses. The statistical analysis revealed a correlation between physical activity and some aspects of sleep disorders. Results: A total number of 204 questionnaires have been distributed to medical doctors and nurses working in public hospitals in Athens Greece from the middle of February until the middle of April 2020. The hospitals were assigned by the health authorities to the fight of the pandemic of COVID 19. The majority of the participants were women 71,3% and 28,7% were men. From a total of 204 half of them were medical doctors and half of them were nurses. 43% were married, 49% were single and 8% were divorced and there were no widows. Regarding the participant nurses, 43% had a university degree and 38,4% had a technological education degree. The results of the statistical analysis showed that there are positive correlations between the level of physical activity during the daily work and the free time of the participants with parameters that are related to sleep disorders. Conclusion: The sample of the study was not a large one but nevertheless a stressful situation such as is the epidemic of COVID19 can provide useful information in order to better understand the relationship between physical activity and sleeping disorders in such working conditions. © 2020 Marianna Diomidous

Health and health determinants

This chapter aims at providing the student with a general overview of the Health and Health Determinantsbasic concepts. More precisely, this chapter provides a definition and explanation of health and health determinants and presents an overview of measures in epidemiology. © 2020 The authors and IOS Press. All rights reserved

An Epidemiological Analysis for H1N1 Infection

During the last years the dependence of inflections have been increased, especially the infection H1N1, in Europe as well as in Greece. Especially the last 2 years (2017-2018) the percentage of spreading is still significant. For the analysis of the impact's diseases in population during these periods, epidemiological indexes have been introduced. © 2019 The authors and IOS Press. All rights reserved

2D Anatomical Structure for COVID-19 Medical Images

For many clinical goals like surgical planning and radiotherapy treatment planning is necessary to understand the anatomical structures of the organ that is targeted. At the same time the 2D/3D shape of the organ is important to be reconstructed for the benefit of the doctors. For that reason, accurate segmentation techniques must be proposed to overcome the big data medical image storage problem. The main purpose of this work is to apply segmentation techniques for the definition of 3D organs (anatomical structures) when big data information has been stored and must be organized by the doctors for medical diagnosis. The processes would be implemented in the CT images from patients with COVID-19. © 2022 The authors and IOS Press

Integration of data analysis methods in syndromic surveillance systems

Syndromic surveillance systems perform real-time analysis of health data to enable early identification of potential public health threats, evaluating whether distributional parameters have been increased beyond a threshold. This paper presents the applied data analysis methods in five non-industrial surveillance systems. Four time series and spatial cluster analysis methods were found to be implemented: SMART, EWMA, CuSum and WSARE. Combined use both spatial and time series methods is found in the presented surveillance applications. Data analysis methods for syndromic surveillance are a constantly emerging field, while new statistical methods and algorithms are implemented into surveillance systems. © 2012 European Federation for Medical Informatics and IOS Press. All rights reserved

Survival Models in Computer Virus

During the communication between various computer system parts under a basic unit various threats can appear causing different damages into the system. The spreading of the computer virus into the system must be investigated under modeling analysis and simulations must be applied. In this work survival analysis models have been introduced to overcome the problem with the computer virus. During that process of spreading two main considerations analyzed: (1) the epidemiological models of the spreading and (2) the survival of the computer virus inside the system under mathematical modeling. © 2018 The authors and IOS Press. All rights reserved

Implementation and Evaluation of the MSc Course in Health Informatics in Greece

Summary Objectives: Health informatics is a well established and important multi-disciplinary and inter-disciplinary field that not only involves informatics but also medicine, nursing, engineering, biology and other-related subjects. The program has been organized on the basis of an inter-university approach with the participation of five Greek universities. The paper aims at providing a current description of the academic program and a preliminary evaluation of the implementation phase. Methods: The paper presents a case study of a curriculum implementation from the phase of curriculum development to the phase of implementation and evaluation. Due to the interdisciplinary character of the course appropriate procedures were undertaken to ensure that mixed backgrounds can assimilate the broad spectrum of the teaching material taught. In the first stages of the implementation international students mainly from Europe attended the course. In addition, local graduates provided an extra dimension to the multi-layered difficulties and challenges of such a course implementation. Results: The students registered in the course were from different backgrounds and disciplines. They were mainly from health sciences and engineering schools. The interdisciplinary arrangement of the course facilitated the proper exchange of thoughts, skills, and knowledge among and between students and teachers. Conclusions: The postgraduate course in health informatics at the University of Athens has now been running for more than fifteen consecutive years and is one of the first and longest standing courses in Europe. Continuous evaluation and adaptation is required to fit within the changing and evolving amazing field of biomedical and health informatics.</jats:p

A decision support system platform for spatial epidemiology

A wide range of health care systems have been implemented, to support medical opinions, which are defined as Decision Support Systems. In this work a pilot information system was developed based on patients health records data combined with Geographical Information Systems (GIS) technology, which could be used as an advisor in cases where epidemiological diseases are taking place. © 2015 The authors and IOS Press. All rights reserved