Zimbabwe’s Emergency Management System: A Promising Development

Zimbabwe’s encounter with droughts, in particular, combined with economic and political challenges, has denigrated the country’s former status as the “breadbasket of Southern Africa” (Hunter-Gault 2006; Maphosa 1994; Swarns 2002). Zimbabwe is particularly prone to a number of natural and man-made hazards such as droughts, floods, veld fires, storms (PreventionWeb 2012), and HIV/AIDS (United Nations Development Programme 2010) among other epidemics. Between 1980 and 2010, PreventionWeb (2012) documented 35 natural disaster events, which resulted in 6,448 deaths, averaging 208 deaths from disasters annually. Of the 35 natural disasters, 6 were drought occurrences, 7 were floods, 2 were storms, and 20 were epidemic occurrences. Chikoto (2004) 1 also counted the number of public transportation disasters that plagued Zimbabwe between 1982 and 2003, which claimed over 700 lives and injured over 400 people. To mitigate and prepare for these and other hazards facing Zimbabwe, the Government of Zimbabwe (GoZ) created the Department of Civil Protection and charged it with the onus of coordinating and managing disasters and reducing hazards. This chapter traces the history of Zimbabwe’s emergency management system, with a focus on the factors contributing to the nation’s vulnerability to disasters and hazards. In addition to tracing the impact of past disasters, the chapter also discusses some of the opportunities and challenges confronting the country’s emergency management system. The chapter concludes with recommendations for improving this system

User interface design for mobile-based sexual health interventions for young people: Design recommendations from a qualitative study on an online Chlamydia clinical care pathway

Background: The increasing pervasiveness of mobile technologies has given potential to transform healthcare by facilitating clinical management using software applications. These technologies may provide valuable tools in sexual health care and potentially overcome existing practical and cultural barriers to routine testing for sexually transmitted infections. In order to inform the design of a mobile health application for STIs that supports self-testing and self-management by linking diagnosis with online care pathways, we aimed to identify the dimensions and range of preferences for user interface design features among young people. Methods: Nine focus group discussions were conducted (n=49) with two age-stratified samples (16 to 18 and 19 to 24 year olds) of young people from Further Education colleges and Higher Education establishments. Discussions explored young people's views with regard to: the software interface; the presentation of information; and the ordering of interaction steps. Discussions were audio recorded and transcribed verbatim. Interview transcripts were analysed using thematic analysis. Results: Four over-arching themes emerged: privacy and security; credibility; user journey support; and the task-technology-context fit. From these themes, 20 user interface design recommendations for mobile health applications are proposed. For participants, although privacy was a major concern, security was not perceived as a major potential barrier as participants were generally unaware of potential security threats and inherently trusted new technology. Customisation also emerged as a key design preference to increase attractiveness and acceptability. Conclusions: Considerable effort should be focused on designing healthcare applications from the patient's perspective to maximise acceptability. The design recommendations proposed in this paper provide a valuable point of reference for the health design community to inform development of mobile-based health interventions for the diagnosis and treatment of a number of other conditions for this target group, while stimulating conversation across multidisciplinary communities

Disaster Mitigation and Preparedness: Comparisons of Nonprofit, Public, and Private Organizations

Few studies have compared the mitigation and preparedness activities adopted by nonprofit, private, and public organizations. This study contributes to this important literature by comparing the adoption of mitigation and preparedness activities by nonprofit, private, and public organizations in Memphis, Tennessee. The findings show that although nonprofit organizations may be more resource-constrained compared with private corporations, they adopt more mitigation and preparedness activities than private corporations. In addition, public organizations adopt more mitigation and preparedness activities than private organizations. The results are inconclusive on the comparison between nonprofits and public agencies

Can remote STI/HIV testing and eClinical Care be compatible with robust public health surveillance?

In this paper we outline the current data capture systems for human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and sexually transmitted infection (STI) surveillance used by Public Health England (PHE), and how these will be affected by the introduction of novel testing platforms and changing patient pathways. We outline the Chlamydia Online Clinical Care Pathway (COCCP), developed as part of the Electronic Self-Testing for Sexually Transmitted Infections (eSTI(2)) Consortium, which ensures that surveillance data continue to be routinely collected and transmitted to PHE. We conclude that both novel diagnostic testing platforms and established data capture systems must be adaptable to ensure continued robust public health surveillance

Coherent states for polynomial su(1,1) algebra and a conditionally solvable system

In a previous paper [{\it J. Phys. A: Math. Theor.} {\bf 40} (2007) 11105], we constructed a class of coherent states for a polynomially deformed $su(2)$ algebra. In this paper, we first prepare the discrete representations of the nonlinearly deformed $su(1,1)$ algebra. Then we extend the previous procedure to construct a discrete class of coherent states for a polynomial su(1,1) algebra which contains the Barut-Girardello set and the Perelomov set of the SU(1,1) coherent states as special cases. We also construct coherent states for the cubic algebra related to the conditionally solvable radial oscillator problem.Comment: 2 figure