Barriers to primary care responsiveness to poverty as a risk factor for health

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Poverty is widely recognized as a major determinant of poor health, and this link has been extensively studied and verified. Despite the strong evidentiary link, little work has been done to determine what primary care health providers can do to address their patients' income as a risk to their health. This qualitative study explores the barriers to primary care responsiveness to poverty as a health issue in a well-resourced jurisdiction with near-universal health care insurance coverage.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>One to one interviews were conducted with twelve experts on poverty and health in primary care in Ontario, Canada. Participants included family physicians, specialist physicians, nurse practitioners, community workers, advocates, policy experts and researchers. The interviews were analysed for anticipated and emergent themes.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>This study reveals provider- and patient-centred structural, attitudinal, and knowledge-based barriers to addressing poverty as a risk to health. While many of its findings reinforce previous work in this area, this study's findings point to a number of areas front line primary care providers could target to address their patients' poverty. These include a lack of provider understanding of the lived reality of poverty, leading to a failure to collect adequate data about patients' social circumstances, and to the development of inappropriate care plans. Participants also pointed to prejudicial attitudes among providers, a failure of primary care disciplines to incorporate approaches to poverty as a standard of care, and a lack of knowledge of concrete steps providers can take to address patients' poverty.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>While this study reinforces, in a well-resourced jurisdiction such as Ontario, the previously reported existence of significant barriers to addressing income as a health issue within primary care, the findings point to the possibility of front line primary care providers taking direct steps to address the health risks posed by poverty. The consistent direction and replicability of these findings point to a refocusing of the research agenda toward an examination of interventions to decrease the health impacts of poverty.</p

Steigende Umweltbelastung trotz sinkender Ressourcennutzung? : Einfluss fallender Ore Grades auf den Energiekonsum im Kupferbergbau

Raphael AsadaZusammenfassung in englischer SpracheAlpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt, Magisterarbeit, 2015(VLID)241529

Substitution impacts of wood use at the market level : a systematic review

There is strong evidence that wood-based products are typically associated with lower fossil-based emissions over their lifecycle than functionally equivalent products made from other materials. However, the potential impact of large-scale material substitution at the market level remains challenging to quantify and is subject to assumptions and system boundary considerations. This paper presents a systematic review covering 44 peer-reviewed studies that quantify the substitution impacts of wood use at the level of a region or sector, to assess the commonalities and differences in scopes, system boundaries and key assumptions. We estimated the average and range of market-level substitution impacts and identify the caveats and knowledge gaps for such assessments. The results indicate an average substitution factor of 0.55 tonnes of fossil C avoided per tonne of C contained in wood harvested, with a range of 0.27-1.16 tC/tC for baseline scenarios covering all wood flows. This value depicts the average efficiency of avoided fossil emissions per unit of wood used for a certain wood use structure based on published studies but is of limited practical use as it is strictly context specific. A direct comparison between studies is complicated because a notable proportion of the studies provided insufficient information to estimate substitution factors or were not transparent in their assumptions, such as specifying which wood product is assumed to substitute for which non-wood product. A growing number of studies focus on policy-relevant analyses of the climate change mitigation potential associated with marginal changes in wood use, but market dynamics are generally considered to a limited extent. To further support decision-making, future studies could focus on changes in those end uses where increased substitution impacts could realistically be expected, while considering the various market dynamics and uncertainties.Peer reviewe

Life cycle assessment of Austrian and Slovenian raw wood production

Forestry will play an increasingly important role as a raw material contributor since climate change mitigation requires a shift from fossil-based materials to renewable, bio-based materials. Consequently, an increase in wood demand is expected. Slovenia has a forest coverage of 59% while almost half of Austria is covered by forest (43 %). In these countries, the forest-based sector has an important role. We look at the environmental impact of forestry in Slovenia and Austria under an increase in wood demand. This contribution has a twofold purpose: 1) to describe the environmental impact of Slovenian and Austrian forestry and forest products with a focus on sawlogs, and 2) to provide life cycle inventory data for Slovenian and Austrian forestry and importing countries for other LCA needs, for example, LCAs in the construction or biorefinery sectors and for benchmarking purposes. This contribution explores the use of the European Life Cycle Inventory of Forestry Operations (EFO-LCI) database [1]. The life cycle impact assessment applies the 16 impact categories as recommended by the European Commissions for LCA/Environmental Footprint in Europe [2] and provides additional indicators important for bio-based materials

Resilient forest-based value chains? : Econometric analysis of roundwood prices in five European countries in the era of natural disturbances

Climate change poses a growing threat to European forests due to the increasing frequency and severity of storms, insect outbreaks, and other natural disturbances. Natural disturbances affect both the volume and the quality of harvested wood and increase the tendency of increased salvage loggings, reducing roundwood prices over the short-term. The increase of unexpected inflow of wood resources prompted by disturbance-induced salvage logging can undermine the stability of forest-based value chains. In addition to supply shocks, rebuilding can increase the demand for wood products in regions affected by storms. This study assesses the impact of supply and demand shocks on roundwood prices. An econometric analysis was performed focusing on five forest-rich European countries (Austria, Czechia, Germany, Finland, and Sweden), applying the theory of price transmission and using a set of candidate resilience predictors that were expected to moderate shock impacts. We used annual time series data in differenced form on salvage logging, forest products production and trade, and roundwood prices. We found that disturbances tend to increase the domestic prices of sawlogs, suggesting a shortage effect on high-quality wood. The effect is less pronounced when country-level sawlog exports are high, implying that mainly high-quality sawlogs are exported in the cases in question. For pulpwood, supply shocks tend to decrease pulpwood prices. Strategic logging management and international trade are possible resilience predictors, but their potential is limited and should not be overestimated. Since it is difficult to assess the magnitude by which the changing climate will affect the already increasing disturbance regimes, the results only allow indirect projections to be made about future and larger magnitude events.Peer reviewe