Application of Satellite Sensing to Agricultural Research and Development

Overview done by the FAO Remote Sensing Unit for TAC of the state of the art of remote sensing applied to agricultural research and development with emphasis on satellite sensing and potential international cooperative programs to capitalize on the technology. Agenda document presented at TAC's Tenth Meeting, July 1975

Protecting the health of health care workers : a global perspective

"Fundamental elements for the provision, organization, and establishment of occupational health and safety (OHS) services for health care workers in rural/remote areas and developing countries include adequate resources, a strong safety culture, recognition of occupational health professionals, collaborative practice, and capability for communication and local risk analysis. First, however, assessment of existing OHS services is required. Adaptable needs assessment tools designed for use by local health care workers should allow progression from analysis to action. Essential elements of these tools include utility, recognition of the surrounding political, health care, and physical environments, and clear definition of the roles and responsibilities of users to act upon findings and implement solutions. Securing adequate financial, physical, and human resources for occupational health and safety requires critical analysis of topics such as health care culture, political motivation, health care worker migration, and national and international financing. It is necessary to reshape attitudes towards valuing the health of health care workers. This includes acknowledging occupational health professional accreditation and educating health care students about OHS. It is also crucial to create awareness of workers' health among health care managers and administrators and to develop their knowledge and capability to support OHS. Resources such as the Pan American Health Organization's (PAHO) document "Workers' Health and Safety in the Health Sector: A Manual for Managers and Administrators" are valuable assets. Suggestions for collaborative practice include the formation and use of local OHS committees that involve decision makers, administrators, and health care workers. Communication strategies involve the free flow of information between policy makers, educators, employers, research laboratories, and health care workers. Mobile occupational health clinics and portable libraries are two examples of innovative methods of communication and information dissemination. Risk analyses allow occupational health practitioners to target local services to the most needed areas. Point prevalence surveys and workplace audit tools are effective methods to collect this data in remote and resource poor settings. Priorities for prevention of blood-borne and air-borne disease transmission include education and comprehensive protocols and guidelines. Adequate, up-to-date, and ongoing OHS education and training for health care workers is essential. Protocols and guidelines should direct practice and uphold internationally endorsed standards while being responsive to local realities and needs. Protocol and guideline development and implementation must also involve the multiple stakeholder groups such as infection control, public health, funders, administrators, and health care workers. Immunizations and adequate access to post exposure management are vital for secondary prevention. Information such as prevalence and incidence rates of diseases endemic to the local area, transmission patterns and trends, and population projections are necessary to make informed decisions about vaccination priorities. Adequate institutional support for post exposure prophylaxis and follow-up consultations is also vital to ensure the quality of appropriate care following workrelated injuries. " - NIOSHTIC-2Publication authors, contributors, and workshop participants -- Acknowledgements -- Abbreviations -- Workshop overview -- Introduction -- Section One: Organization and provision of occupational health services in health care -- Section Two: Establishing occupational health programs -- Section Three: Primary prevention for blood-borne and air-borne pathogens -- Section Four: Immunizations and post exposure follow-up -- Concluding remarks -- Appendix A: Workshop agendaRebman, R., (Ed.). Rodri\ucc?guez Guzma\ucc?n, J.; Dybka, L.; Watson, R.; Lavoie, M.; Yassi, A.; Gamage, B.; Pugh, S.; Lehtinen, S.; Tennassee, M.; Nophale, L.E. (2008)."This synthesis report stems from a one-day pre-conference workshop, "Occupational Health Services for Health Care Workers in Rural/Remote Areas and Developing Countries." The workshop was part of the International Commission on Occupational Health (ICOH) Conference on Health Care Worker Health / 2007 State-of-the-Art Conference (SOTAC) held from 26 to 28 October 2007 in Vancouver, Canada. For this conference, ICOH and the American College of Occupational and Environmental Medicine (ACOEM) joined together to share research and understanding on protecting the health of health care workers." - p. 1"February 2009."Also available via the World Wide Web as an Acrobat .pdf file (956.69 KB, 58 p.).Includes bibliographical references (p. 47-48)

Remote Health Monitor

The goal of the Remote Health Monitor (RHM) is to collect a patient’s health data and manage them. Patients can be monitored from anywhere there is internet access. The RHM measures parameters such as temperature and pulse, and transmits the information to the database located in the hospital. The database can be accessed through a software application that will be provided along with the purchase of RHM. The application can be logged in to either as a doctor or as a patient, thus allowing the care providers to monitor a patient’s health condition and the patients to review their own medical history.  Our goal in implementing RHM is to provide chronic disease patients with an easy to use device that will help them track health information without going to the hospital, and to allow doctors to review the patient data with a software application that organizes and updates information automatically.&nbsp

A first attempt at testing correlation between MODIS ocean colour data and in situ chlorophyll-a measurements within Maltese coastal waters

The study of spatio-temporal trends for key water quality parameters in the Maltese coastal waters is hindered by the lack of systematic observations spanning over the full domain and for sufficiently long time periods. Satellite data offers an alternative source of information, but requires ground truthing against in situ measurements. The aim of this study is to attempt the statistical comparison of MODIS ocean colour data, for a near-shore marine area off the north-east coastline of Malta, with in situ surface chlorophyll-a measurements, and to extract a twelve-month ocean colour data series for the same marine area. Peaks in surface chlorophyll-a concentration occurred in the January-February period, with lowest values being recorded during the early spring period. Log bias values indicate that the MODIS dataset under-estimates the surface chlorophyll-a values, whilst RMSD and r2 values suggest that the match-up between satellite and in situ values is only partly consistent.peer-reviewe

Economic evaluation alongside a cluster-randomised-controlled trial of intensive management by Indigenous Health Workers of Indigenous people with poorly controlled type 2 diabetes in remote Australia : Was "Getting Better at Chronic Care" cost effective?

This paper reports on two economic evaluations of the GBACC project. The first evaluation completed a cost-consequence analysis, in which the costs of implementing the model are compared with differential changes in a range of health outcome measures of study participants in the intervention and usual care groups. The second economic evaluation looked at hospitalisations related to diabetes, especially those which had been shown in previous reports to be excessive among remote Indigenous adults, mostly acute preventable diabetes-related infections and complicationsThe research reported in this paper is a project of the Australian Primary Health Care Research Institute, which is supported by a grant from the Australian Government Department of Health and Ageing under the Primary Health Care Research, Evaluation and Development Strategy