Beyond the Volcanoes: A Community Partnership for Health in Rural Nicaragua

Background: Health inequities related to gender, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, and geography exist in rural Nicaragua due in part to lack of access to health services. The purpose of this ongoing project is to improve health equity in rural Nicaragua through social transformation using community-based participatory action research. Bronfenbrenner’s ecological model of human development, school health, and primary health care theories provided the framework for this research. Methods: Community-based participatory action research involves six phases: partnership, assessment, planning, implementation, evaluation, and dissemination. In the implementation phase, community residents were randomly selected to participate in the cookstove intervention. Survey data were collected on demographic variables, cooking methods, layout of the homes, and health. During the evaluation phase, survey data were collected on the same parameters at follow-up. Results: Compared with the initial survey, responses from the post-survey one year after stove installation showed statistically significant differences in the improvement of health factors related to cough, shortness of breath, eye irritation, and headaches among the women who received a stove. Conclusions: The results show that installing improved cookstoves with chimneys has decreased many symptoms previously experienced by residents of homes in which cooking had been over open fires in the past

Beyond the Volcanoes: A Community Partnership for Health in Rural Nicaragua

Background: Health inequities related to gender, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, and geography exist in rural Nicaragua due in part to lack of access to health services. The purpose of this ongoing project is to improve health equity in rural Nicaragua through social transformation using community-based participatory action research. Bronfenbrenner’s ecological model of human development, school health, and primary health care theories provided the framework for this research. Methods: Community-based participatory action research involves six phases: partnership, assessment, planning, implementation, evaluation, and dissemination. In the implementation phase, community residents were randomly selected to participate in the cookstove intervention. Survey data were collected on demographic variables, cooking methods, layout of the homes, and health. During the evaluation phase, survey data were collected on the same parameters at follow-up. Results: Compared with the initial survey, responses from the post-survey one year after stove installation showed statistically significant differences in the improvement of health factors related to cough, shortness of breath, eye irritation, and headaches among the women who received a stove. Conclusions: The results show that installing improved cookstoves with chimneys has decreased many symptoms previously experienced by residents of homes in which cooking had been over open fires in the past

Beyond the Volcanoes: A Community Partnership for Health in Rural Nicaragua

Background: Health inequities related to gender, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, and geography exist in rural Nicaragua. The purpose of this ongoing project is to improve health equity in rural Nicaragua through social transformation using community-based participatory action research. Bronfenbrenner\u27s ecological model of human development, school health, and primary health care theories provided the framework for this research. Methods: Community-based participatory action research involves six phases: partnership, assessment, planning, implementation, evaluation, and dissemination. In the evaluation phase, the goal was to use the data obtained during the assessment, planning, and implementation phases to evaluate the cookstove intervention in its ability to reach the community\u27s health-related goals. Pre- and post-test surveys were used to assess indoor air pollution including: kitchen layout, stove type, fuel usage, and women and children\u27s health. Results: Forty-eight community members participated in the cookstove evaluation. Pre-test surveys indicated that the community members used open fire stoves in closed kitchen spaces with wood being the primary fuel source. Women reported suffering from headaches, eye irritation, and chronic coughing. One year following the implementation phase, post-test surveys indicated a sustainable, significant improvement in women\u27s health (p=.05) but no significant change in the amount of wood used for cooking. Conclusion: Results from the cookstove evaluation were used by community members to guide the re-engineering of the cookstoves\u27 firebox to decrease wood consumption and improve deforestation. Partnership in community health research provides a mechanism to engage community members in social justice through working toward a common goal – sustainable health for all

Compte-rendu de la journée d’étude « Qualité de vie et cohésion au travail »

Les élèves conservatrices et conservateurs promus DCB30 proposent un retour sur la journée d’étude consacrée à la qualité de vie et cohésion au travail qu’ils ont organisée le 21 mai 2021. Cette journée s’est déclinée autour de deux conférences introductives sur le thème de la qualité de vie au travail, des ateliers pour permettre à de futurs cadres de réfléchir et de mettre en place des actions relatives à ces thèmes et enfin des retours d’expériences

Stereospecific effects of ketamine enantiomers on canine tracheal smooth muscle

1. Ketamine is a potent bronchodilator which relaxes airway smooth muscle (ASM). Clinically, ketamine is used as a 1:1 racemic mixture of enantiomers that differ in their analgesic and anaesthetic effects. The aim of this study was to determine whether there was a difference between the enantiomers in their ability to relax isolated ASM and to explore mechanisms responsible for any observed differences. 2. Canine tracheal smooth muscle strips were loaded with fura-2 and mounted in a photometric system to measure simultaneously force and [Ca(2+)](i). Calcium influx was estimated by use of a manganese quenching technique. 3. In strips stimulated with 0.1 μM ACh (EC(50)) R(−)-ketamine (1–100 μM) caused a significantly greater concentration-dependent decrease in force (P<0.0001) and [Ca(2+)](i) than S(+)-ketamine (1–100 μM) (P<0.0005). In contrast, there was no significant difference between the enantiomers in their ability to inhibit calcium influx (45% decrease in influx rate for R(−)-ketamine and 44% for S(+)-ketamine, P=0.782). In strips contracted with 24 mM isotonic KCl (which activates voltage-operated calcium channels), the enantiomers modestly decreased force and [Ca(2+)](i); there was no significant difference between the enantiomers in their effects on force (P=0.425) or [Ca(2+)](i) (P=0.604). 4. The R(−)-enantiomer of ketamine is a more potent relaxant of ACh-induced ASM contraction than the S(+)-enantiomer. This difference appears to be caused by differential actions on receptor-operated calcium channels