Open Access

Brief Report

Article ID: 1757

Report on the South Eastern New South Wales Primary Health Network

by Alan Silburn

Environment and Public Health Research, Vol.2, No.1, 2024; 0 Views, 0 PDF Downloads

In response to the evolving healthcare challenges in South Eastern New South Wales, this report outlines a strategic framework for enhancing the region’s health services. Established under Australia’s Primary Health Networks, the South Eastern New South Wales Primary Health Networks aims to address significant health concerns and issues identified including high rates of potentially preventable hospitalisations, increasing chronic conditions, mental health crises, rising substance abuse, and inadequate culturally tailored health services. This report proposes four evidence-based recommendations: shifting chronic condition management to pre-hospital settings, enhancing emergency departments with 24-h mental health coverage, implementing a universal substance use screening tool, and redesigning culturally appropriate services. These recommendations are evaluated based on Duckett and Willcox’s criteria for an ideal health system, aiming to improve service efficiency, equity, quality, and acceptability.

Open Access

Review

Article ID: 1766

Reconciling patent rights and the human right to access to essential medicines: A critical review

by Bhavna Mahadew

Environment and Public Health Research, Vol.2, No.1, 2024; 5 Views, 0 PDF Downloads

Over 80% of the world’s population lives in developing nations, with limited access to medicines like AIDS and malaria. Competition between patented and generic medications can improve access and lower prices, but counterfeit medicines should be avoided. The Doha Declaration, released at the World Trade Organisation Ministerial Conference in 2001, aims to support nations’ rights to safeguard public health and encourage access to medicines. It aims to influence the interpretation and application of the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS Agreement) in a manner that is health-friendly, considering the responsibility of nations to uphold health rights under international law. The Declaration calls for developed nations to encourage practical solutions for poor people in developing countries, emphasizing that trade agreements should be secondary to defending human rights and achieving the best quality of health for all. International human rights treaties protect the universal human right to health, but rigid trade agreements on patents can hinder affordable medication for low-income populations in developing nations. TRIPS, a treaty that protects intellectual property rights and promotes technological innovation, aims to provide inexpensive medications for HIV/AIDS patients through exclusions from patent admissibility, exceptions, parallel importing, and compulsory licensing.

Open Access

Article

Article ID: 1525

Joking relationships and humor among the Yorùbá of southwestern Nigeria in the twenty-first century

by Enoch Olujide Gbadegesin

Environment and Public Health Research, Vol.2, No.1, 2024; 226 Views, 138 PDF Downloads

I argue that compromises are reached, and interpersonal relationships are negotiated and maintained among the Yorùbá people through joking relationships. I raise questions on how and when joking relationships can lead to interpersonal, interethnic or intra-ethnic conflict, inclusion or exclusion and the socio-cultural and legal consequences that these could generate. I use the hermeneutic and phenomenological methods to determine the impact of joking relationships on the violent crises that have characterized the twenty-first century Nigerian society. I conclude that whereas joking relationships are still socially acceptable Yoruba patterns of behaviour which have served the people well, the freedom that this practice enjoyed in the ancient times may now be coming under social and legal pressure in the socially and religiously sensitive modern Yorùbá and pan-Nigerian societies. However, the vacuum that may be created if joking relationship were to disappear may be filled by socially dysfunctional outcomes including depression and suicide.

Open Access

Article

Article ID: 1280

Dealing with extreme weather events in India—A vulnerability assessment study, current status and way forward

by Vaishali Jaiswal, Deepshikha Deepshikha, V. K. Tiwari

Environment and Public Health Research, Vol.1, No.1, 2024; 110 Views, 57 PDF Downloads

Introduction: Climate change has increased the frequency and intensity of daily weather extremes. Extreme weather events (EWE) can result in damage to health. As climate-related events become more frequent and intense, the implications for healthcare systems and access to medical services become even more pronounced. The study aims to estimate the vulnerability of India and its states towards the EWE by calculating a vulnerability index by identifying the specific extreme weather conditions in India. It also explores ways to make the healthcare system resilient to climate change. Methodology: The study combines quantitative data analysis and qualitative content analysis to assess vulnerability, analyze the current healthcare system, and propose recommendations for managing the impact of EWE on healthcare. Secondary data on historical climate and weather from IMD was collected to identify patterns and trends in EWE in India. Healthcare data on healthcare infrastructure, admissions rates related to EWE, and disease outbreaks was collected from reports. Policy documents, reports, and research articles related to healthcare system preparedness for EWE were analyzed quantitatively to identify vulnerability indicators and previous disaster experiences. The vulnerability index was calculated by combining selected indicators using appropriate weighting and normalization techniques to quantify the vulnerability of the healthcare system to EWE. After the calculation of sensitivity, exposure, and adaptive capacity separately, the vulnerability index was calculated using the following formula: Vulnerability is equal to exposure plus sensitivity minus adaptive capacity. Results: The association between daily variation in meteorological conditions and mortality has been found to be significant, as reported from previous studies on a wide range of populations in India. The ten most vulnerable states to EWE due to climate change, according to the estimations on the vulnerability index, are Meghalaya at the topmost followed by Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Gujarat, West Bengal, Assam, Karnataka, Odisha, Tripura, and Uttar Pradesh. Conclusion: The study shows that linkages between climate change and human health are complex and multi-layered, and predictions of future health impacts of climate change are still uncertain.

Open Access

Article

Article ID: 1534

Swings and slippery slopes: Reflecting on processes of higher education curriculum in the space of globalization and a pandemic

by Rob Townsend, Gerald Doyle, Sharon Sperling

Environment and Public Health Research, Vol.2, No.1, 2024; 167 Views, 91 PDF Downloads

The Asia-Pacific is the most expansive region for social services and health care, ranging from New Zealand in the south to the border of the Russian Federation in the north. Professional education in human services, social work, and allied health is rapidly expanding in this region and globally as the power and influence around these professions ‘swings’ between different countries in the region. The globalization of social and health care issues is challenging professional higher education and accreditation processes to adjust to producing education graduates who are global professionals, multi-lingual, culturally responsive, and able to work in diverse community contexts and within the ‘slippery slopes’ of social and economic change. This article explores the development of a new social work curriculum and course for an international higher education provider that was implemented in 2022 and aims to meet the challenges of intercultural learning and skills development in the new plural-lingual and fragmented global contexts. The ethnographic study reveals that education organizations and educators can advocate for and develop globalized, internationalized social work and social care curricula in this unsteady context when supported to do so by regulatory authorities.

Open Access

Review

Article ID: 490

SARS-CoV-2: Mapping its features that made it as a unique virus

by Amro Abd Al Fattah Amara

Environment and Public Health Research, Vol.1, No.1, 2023; 114 Views, 43 PDF Downloads

SARS-CoV-2 has attracted the attention of nearly the whole world during the last four years. It is a Corona virus that is responsible for the deaths of millions. It is responsible for economic corruption in many countries. As a response, excessive vaccination programs were installed everywhere. But many variants are elevated, and the virus proves its ability to escape from the immune system because of different mutations. The progress in different scientific domains—instrumentation, bioinformatics, and the like—makes fast vaccine development easier. As a response, new strategies were introduced, including new vaccine production and administration strategies, genomic surveillance, immunopeptidome, gene sequencing, and the like, to enable the vaccine to cover all the targeted populations at the correct time and to install an early alarm system against any elevated new variants. This review contains more information about some important stations in the history of vaccine development and the strategies invented by scientists to control different viruses and other microbes. Some important issues that might influence the type of vaccine used for SARS-CoV-2 are addressed. They include their symptoms, the virus evasion of the innate immune system, the response of adaptive immunity, and the like. Although the world still needs to better understand the SARS-CoV-2 behavior to win the war against it, previous historical successful vaccine productions, important examples, and stations during the human struggle against the viruses are described and discussed.