494 research outputs found
Consideration on the health risk reduction related to attainment of the new particulate matter standards in Poland:a top-down policy risk assessment
Policies can influence health of a population in various ways. Numerous epidemiological studies supported by toxicological investigations demonstrate a positive association between ambient concentrations of airborne particulate matter and increased adverse cardio-respiratory events, including morbidity and mortality. The aim of this paper was to present the concept of the top-down health policy risk assessment approach model developed to estimate the expected health risk reduction associated with policy aiming at attaining the new particulate matter ≤ 10 μm in diameter (PM10) standards in Poland. The top-down approach guides the analysis of causal chains from the policy to health outcomes. In this case study we tried to estimate the predicted health effects of the policy change over the past 20 years. Since Polish annual standard for PM10 changed from 50 μg/m3 in 1990 to 40 μg/m3 in 2010, we calculated the relative risk associated with decreasing PM10 in diameter to 10 μg/m3 in the annual level of PM10 for 6 adverse health effects. The relative risk slightly decreased for almost all adverse health effects, which means that the relative decrease in the incidence of health effects from the baseline incidence should range from about 0.5–0.6% for heart disease admissions to > 1% for respiratory admissions. The obtained results indicate that implementation of the new ambient air standards could influence improvement of the health status of Polish population. A top-down policy health risk assessment model can be one of the main tools in this process, providing harmonized guidance how to seek evidence-based information, which could serve policy-makers
Public Health Challenges and Priorities for Kazakhstan
The Republic of Kazakhstan is one of the largest and fastest growing post-Soviet economies in Central Asia. Despite recent improvements in health care in response to Kazakhstan 2030 and other state-mandated policy reforms, Kazakhstan still lags behind other members of the Commonwealth of Independent States of the European Region on key indicators of health and economic development. Although cardiovascular diseases are the leading cause of mortality among adults, HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, and blood-borne infectious diseases are of increasing public health concern. Recent data suggest that while Kazakhstan has improved on some measures of population health status, many environmental and public health challenges remain. These include the need to improve public health infrastructure, address the social determinants of health, and implement better health impact assessments to inform health policies and public health practice. In addition, more than three decades after the Declaration of Alma-Ata, which was adopted at the International Conference on Primary Health Care convened in Kazakhstan in 1978, facilitating population-wide lifestyle and behavioral change to reduce risk factors for chronic and communicable diseases, as well as injuries, remains a high priority for emerging health care reforms and the new public health. This paper reviews the current public health challenges in Kazakhstan and describes five priorities for building public health capacity that are now being developed and undertaken at the Kazakhstan School of Public Health to strengthen population health in the country and the Central Asian Region
Analysis of Health in Environmental Assessments:A Literature Review and Survey with a Focus on Denmark
In the European Union, the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) Directive (2014/52/EU) and Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) Directive (2011/92/EU) emphasise the assessment of population and human health. The directives require health to be considered within Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) and Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA). To date, health is mainly considered in connection with negative environmental factors and in terms of risk assessments. The integration of health in EIA as well as SEA has not been investigated in a Danish context, and this study aims to address the missing knowledge. There is a need for a more comprehensive health assessment within EIA and SEA to comply with the EIA and SEA directives. An integration of health into EIA and SEA will ensure a sound examination of health determinants which can improve decision making and thus comprehensively promote and protect health. To establish the status of the inclusion of the assessment of impacts on health into EIA and SEA, a literature review was performed. In addition, a survey addressed to researchers and practitioners was conducted and analysed through a comparative analysis. The survey examined the needs of practitioners and researchers, focusing on the Danish context, regarding the inclusion of health into EIA and SEA. Enhanced intersectoral cooperation of the health and environmental sectors, more specific guidance documents, and underlying this, stronger political support, were identified among needs for more comprehensive health assessments
Introducing Health Impact Assessment:an analysis of political and administrative intersectoral working methods
Obstacles and Opportunities for Diffusion of Integrated Pest Management Strategies Reported by Bolivian Small-Scale Farmers and Agronomists
Integrated pest management (IPM) with an increased used of ecological farming methods and less and safer use of pesticides offers solutions to reduce risks of developing pest resistance, human poisoning, and environmental pollution. Despite being promoted by Food and Agriculture Organization and others, it has not spread readily in low-income countries. This article presents the opinions of Bolivian farmers and agronomists on perceived obstacles and opportunities for a diffusion of IPM. Focus group discussions revealed an increased workload without certainty of higher yields or better prices for products grown with IPM compared with traditional agriculture being hindrances for a spread of IPM. Moreover, IPM requires some new practices not that easy to learn by farmers. In favor of IPM was an increasing awareness of the importance of a healthy and sustainable food production, easiness to try out without expensive investments needed, and a higher quality of the products. A healthy and sustainable agricultural production should be promoted by support to farmers through IPM training, a certification, and better prices. Finding allies to such a promotion is not easy, though, according to both farmers and agronomists
Obstacles and Opportunities for Diffusion of Integrated Pest Management Strategies Reported by Bolivian Small-Scale Farmers and Agronomists
Integrated pest management (IPM) with an increased used of ecological farming methods and less and safer use of pesticides offers solutions to reduce risks of developing pest resistance, human poisoning, and environmental pollution. Despite being promoted by Food and Agriculture Organization and others, it has not spread readily in low-income countries. This article presents the opinions of Bolivian farmers and agronomists on perceived obstacles and opportunities for a diffusion of IPM. Focus group discussions revealed an increased workload without certainty of higher yields or better prices for products grown with IPM compared with traditional agriculture being hindrances for a spread of IPM. Moreover, IPM requires some new practices not that easy to learn by farmers. In favor of IPM was an increasing awareness of the importance of a healthy and sustainable food production, easiness to try out without expensive investments needed, and a higher quality of the products. A healthy and sustainable agricultural production should be promoted by support to farmers through IPM training, a certification, and better prices. Finding allies to such a promotion is not easy, though, according to both farmers and agronomists
Movimente-se: sistema de comunidade virtual para a prática esportiva
Orientador: Alexander Robert KutzkeMonografia (graduação) - Universidade Federal do Paraná, Setor de Educação Profissional e Tecnológica, Curso de Tecnologia em Análise e Desenvolvimento
de Sistema
Environmental Impact Assessment, Human Health and the Sustainable Development Goals
Objectives: Developmental processes influence the determinants of health and, consequently, human health. Yet, assessing human health impacts in impact assessment, with exception of health impact assessment, is still rather vague. Inclusion of Sustainable Development Goal indicators in environmental impact assessment (EIA) is an opportunity to enhance addressing human health in EIA practices. Methods: We reviewed a list of health-related targets and indicators for SDGs as defined by the Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) in Seattle, WA, United States with the aim of identifying those to be suggested as outcome indicators within EIA. Results: Among 42 health-related indicators, we identified 17 indicators which could be relevant for impact assessment procedures and categorized them into three groups: 1) direct health indicators (e.g., under five mortality). 2) complex indicators (e.g., cancer). 3) environmental determinant indicators (e.g., mean PM(2.5)). Conclusion: All 17 indicators can be employed to improve quantification assessing human health impacts and bring SDGs into EIA processes. Though our assessment has been conducted for Denmark and the set of suggested indicators could be different for contexts in other countries, the process of their identification can be generalized
ITS rDNA barcodes clarify molecular diversity of aquatic hyphomycetes
Aquatic hyphomycetes are key microbial decomposers of allochthonous organic matter in freshwater ecosystems. Although their importance in carbon flow and food webs in streams is widely recognized, there are still gaps in our understanding of their molecular diversity and distribution patterns. Our study utilized the growing database of ITS rDNA barcodes of aquatic hyphomycetes (1252 sequences) and aimed to (i) produce new barcodes for some lesser-known taxa; (ii) clarify the taxonomic placement of some taxa at the class or order level, based on molecular data; and (iii) provide insights into the biogeographical origins of some taxa. This study increased the number of aquatic hyphomycete species with available ITS barcodes from 119 (out of ~300 species described) to 136. Phylogenetically, the 136 species were distributed between 2 phyla, 6 classes, and 10 orders of fungi. Future studies should strive to increase the database of ITS sequences, especially focusing on species with unclear phylogenetic relationships (incertae sedis) and with few sequences available. The geographical distribution of species with available ITS sequences included 50 countries from five continents, but 6 countries had more than 20 species associated, showing a bias toward the northern hemisphere, likely due to sampling bias.This work is supported by the project STREAMECO—Biodiversity and ecosystem functioning under climate change: from the gene to the stream: PTDC/CTA-AMB/31245/2017 funded
by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) and by the “Contrato-Programa”
UIDB/04050/2020 funded by national funds through the FCT I.P. Additional support from the
National Science Foundation (NSF DEB-1655797) to V.G. is gratefully acknowledged
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