New Public Health Measures Essays

New Public Health Measures Essays New Public Health Measures Paper New Public Health Measures Paper Introduction All of us here today are public health enthusiasts. If we weren’t we would be somehwere else, maybe helping sick people to get better. That is a worthy calling and thank goodness for all the people who do it. But so too is prevention, so too is keeping society healthy, so too is protecting the environment, so too is keeping food and water safe, so too is attending to immunization and child health. When we talk about public health these latter things, that focus on the whole community, or groups within society and the things that determine their health, are what we are talking about. This is big picture stuff. This is about asking why some communities are healthy and some are ill. Why do some communities have such high rates of diabetes, like the Pacific Islands, while other countries have no diabetes but lots of HIV and TB? These are the kind of interests and enthusiasms that have led people into public health as a career for as long as it has been around. These are the kind of questions that were asked ages ago and which are still appropriate to be asked now. So what is this thing called the ‘new’ public health? How has it come about and does it have added value? In brief, the new public health has come about because of growing interest in the subtle interaction of the environment with people living in affluent societies. The old public health remains the public health that most of the world needs, quite frankly, because communicable disease, malnutrition and other scourges are still the major killers worldwide. These are more or less the same as those that led people in the fifteenth century to look at how things such as the plague and cholera could be controlled through sanitation, clean water and quarantine. The new public health But the new public health is much more concerned with the interplay between affluence, social well being, education and health, social capital and health. These are not hard and fast things, like having no system for waste water disposal or using contaminated drinking water. They are more subtle, but in societies like ours where the basic public health engineering and  immunization and food safety are well in place and require surveillance but not reinvention, these new factors – the social, economic and community quality factors – are rising in importance as determinants of health and causes of illness. 1 For example, Michael Marmot has done studies with Geoffrey Rose and others in the UK examining coronary disease rates among civil servants, known as the Whitehall studies. They found that things like a sense of social control and cohesiveness were important determinants of whether people develop coronary disease. Money wasn’t everything. In the Whitehall II study, Marmot (Director of the International Centre for Health and Society at the University College London) and his colleagues examined the psychological characteristic of work termed â€Å"low control† – meaning that an individual worker had little control over his or her daily activities in the workplace. The results showed that it was an important predictor of the risk of cardiovascular disease and that it had an important role in accounting for the social gradient in coronary disease. 1 The origins of the new public health. The Canadians have been very active over many years in promoting our understanding about the interplay between society and social environmental factors and health. This started in 1974 when Marc Lalonde, who was then the Canadian health minister, commissioned a report on the health of Canadians which proposed four sets of factors that were important to keep in mind when thinking about the health of the public. The Lalonde Report2 refers to these four factors collectively as â€Å"The Health Field Concept†. The four elements are human biology, environment, lifestyle and health care organization. The human biology element includes all those aspects of health, both physical and mental, which are developed within the human body as a consequence of the basic biology of man and the organic make-up of the individual. The environment category includes all those matters related to health which are external to the human body and over which the individual has little or no control (for example, foods, water supply, etc). The lifestyle category consists of the aggregation of decisions by individuals which affect their health and over which they more or less have control. The fourth category in the concept is health care organisation, which consists of the quantity, quality, arrangement, nature and relationships of people and resources in the provision of health care the health care system. The Lalonde Report was ground breaking in its day and provoked widespread international interest. Implementation proved to be far harder than was expected and the resilience of the health-care system to drain resources away from the first three fields was spectacular. Nevertheless, Canada has had a more lively interest in the contribution of the first three fields to health and has preserved a degree of control over health care, including rigid enforcement of a restriction on numbers of doctors trained and practicing, ever since. Although perhaps not a direct consequence of the Lalonde Report, Canada has also 2 played a leading role in the evolution of health promotion as a discipline. Several of the leaders in the field, now nearly 30 years on from the Report, are Canadians. They have had a special sensitivity to the potential for health gain by examining not only what can be done to encourage and sustain changes in individual human behaviour that will contribute to better health, but also those changes that can be effected in the natural and built environment that can assist in achieving this goal. Health promotion and the new public health In Australia, the new public health has been reflected in the steady rise of health promotion, expressed such ways as the formation of the Australian Health Promotion Association. The Association’s major objectives include providing opportunities for members’ professional development, increasing public and professional awareness of the roles and functions of health promotion practitioners, and contributing to discussion, debate and decision making on health promotion policy and programs. Since its incorporation in 1990, the Health Promotion Association has grown and developed such that it now has an established function and a central place in Australia’s health promotion landscape. Health promotion is an active form of public health in which an agenda is set with communities and individuals to affirm positively the value of health and push towards high levels of health, seeing it rather as the WHO does as a positive state of well being and not simply the absence of illness. Health promotion uses a range of tactics and methods to achieve its ends, including community participation, development and skill strengthening, advocacy (where health professionals and others lobby for health to be taken seriously at political and commercial levels), and education. Something of a contrast has come to be drawn between the activist promotion end and the formal epidemiological end of the public health spectrum, the former hoeing in boots and all to effect change and the latter taking careful steps, using rigorous studies and statistics, to establish cause and effect relationships before acting. Both groups tend to drive one another nuts. This is a lively tension and not one that is likely to go away. Professor Fran Baum who is head of the Department of Public Health at Flinders University in Adelaide has written a book entitled The new public health: an Australian perspective, that I commend to you. In it the idea of the new public health is given extensive coverage. 3 Source: Baume, F (1988) The new public health: an Australian perspective The new public health overlaps and interacts with other health movements of the past decade – particularly health promotion, primary health care, community health, women’s health, Aboriginal health, workers’ health and health education. 3 History of the new public health The new public health started to develop in the 1980s. It was in the mid-1980s that there was a significant shift in public health when the WHO’s first international conference on health promotion was held in Ottawa, Canada. There were two driving forces behind the Ottawa Charter. It was clear that the Health for All by the Year 2000 strategy was not being adopted by industrialised countries, and the limitations of the lifestyle and behavioural approaches were increasingly being seen as requiring a new conceptualization for health promotion. Also the time was opportune for a more health promotion statement. The Ottawa Charter managed to integrate many of the different perspectives of health promotion. While being seen as the foundation of the new public health, it did not reject behavioural and lifestyle approaches, but saw them as part of the acquisition of personal skills for health. The Charter is based on the belief that health requires peace, shelter, education, food, income, a stable ecosystem, social justice and equity as prerequisites. 4 Box 3. 1: The Ottawa Charter for Health Promotion, 1986. The Development of healthy public policy, which recognises that most of the private and public sector policies that affect health lie outside the conventional concerns of health agencies. Rather they are in policies such as environmental protection legislation, progressive taxation, welfare, occupational health and safety legislation and enforcement, land rights legislation and control of the sale and distribution of substances such as alcohol and tobacco. Health becomes, therefore, a concern and responsibility of each sector of government. The creation of supportive environments in which people can realise their full potential as healthy individuals. The Charter recognises the importance of social, economic and physical environmental factors in shaping people’s experiences of health. Strengthening community action refers to those activities that increase the ability of communities to achieve change in their physical environmental factors in shaping people’s experience of health. The development of personal skills acknowledges the role that behaviour and lifestyles plays in promoting health. The skills called for are those that enable people to make healthy choices. It also extends the skills base for health to those associated with community organisation, lobbying and advocacy, and the ability to analyse individual problems within a structural framework. Reorientation of health services is a call for health systems to shift their emphasis from (in most industrialised countries) an almost total concentration on hospital-based care and extensive technological diagnostic and intervention to a system that is community-based, more user-friendly and controlled, which focuses on health. The Ottawa Charter stresses the importance of, and recommends: Advocacy for health Enabling people to achieve their full health potential Mediation between different interests in society for the pursuit of health Source: Baume, F (1988). The new public health: an Australian perspective Following in the spirit of the Ottawa Charter, in 1986 the Better Health Commission (BHC), a group established by the then Commonwealth Minister for Health, Neal Blewett, published Looking Forward to Better Health. Its brief was to recommend ways in which health in Australia might be promoted, especially though ways that were 5  unconventional for the medical and public health professions. It was part of Australia’s response to the World Health Organization’s commitment to achieve equitable levels of health for all people, according tot the political and economic possibilities of each country, by 2000. This report contained proposals for achieving greater equity in health in Australia together with strategies to address several major preventable contributors to death and disease. Task forces established goals and targets for three priority health topics: cardiovascular disease, nutrition and injury. 4 In making these choices the Commission was concerned to identify not only big problems, but also problems potentially amenable to prevention. Heart disease, the principal cause of death, was also chosen because of its multiple modifiable causes (e. g. diet, smoking an sedentary living), nutrition because of its multiple consequences (e. g. diabetes, heart disease and cancer) and injury because it cannot be dealt with preventively by efforts confined to health care but must involve industry, transport, law enforcement and industrial relations. These three major health problems in contemporary Australian society are priorities for health promotion by virtually any criterion. The work of the BHC was taken further in the National Better Health Program and led to the formulation of national health goals and then national health priorities which remain in place today. By the end of the 1980s, despite success, there was some Australian scepticism about the new directions in public health. Some questioned whether the new public health was really ‘new’ or simply old ideas in new clothing. This criticism is somewhat harsh as one of the features of the Ottawa Charter is that it does not ignore public health history but rather builds on it. The Ottawa Charter reflected numerous social and health movements of the previous 120 or so years. Its claims to be ‘new’ derives from how it pulled together numerous and diverse movements to present a package which gave public health a more radical and cohesive direction than had been the case for some time. Today, public health is alive and well and confronting in this country the challenges that it can assist ameliorate. We are an astonishingly healthy nation – on average. We have the second longest healthy life expectancy of all nations, a fraction behind Japan. But within our country we have communities including those of some of our Indigenous people where these privileged are far from being available. It is here that a combination of old and new public health measures is required. Good work is being done and more is needed. This is the mission of public health. 6 References 1. Marmot, M ‘Inequalities in Health’, The New England Journal of Medicine 2001;345(2):134-136 2. Lalonde, M (1974) A New Perspective on the Health of Canadians. Ottawa: National Ministry of Health and Welfare 3. Baume, F (1998) The new public health: an Australian perspective Publisher: Oxford University Press 4. Leeder S R (1999) Healthy Medicine, Challenges facing Australia’s health services Publisher: Allen Unwin 7

Negotiation & Conflict Resolution Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Negotiation & Conflict Resolution - Essay Example I was negotiating with him to lower the rent. My tangible goal was to lower the rent, while my intangible goal was to negotiate in a manner so as not to spoil my amicable relationship with my landlord. My landlord’s tangible goal was to fix the rent according to his desire, whereas his intangible goal was to get hold of a new tenant if I could not meet his terms. My position was to negotiate till I could reduce the rental amount. However, my landlord’s position was not revealed during the negotiation. My interest was in the fact that too high rent will be unaffordable for me and my landlord’s interest was to increase the rent to cover the increasing rate of inflation. I could not have paid the rent if it exceeded ten per cent of my salary. My landlord’s resistance point was not revealed during the negotiation. Any negotiation is incomplete if the involved parties do not consider and evaluate their BATNA. The BATNA not only acts as an alternate action plan, but also places the person in a stronger position with respect to the opponent in negotiation. For this reason, it is advisable that one works on discovering and strengthening his BATNA and also showcases it to the other party. However, one must keep in mind that he should reveal his BATNA only and only if he feels it is strong enough to give him an upper hand in the negotiation. A weak BATNA should better not be revealed as it may backfire by working against the person. My BATNA was strong because there were two similar apartments in my neighbourhood with similar amenities, landlords carrying a good reputation and rent well within my budget. However, at that point of time, the landlord of one of those buildings was also involved in serious rent negotiation with his tenants and moreover, a few other persons were interested in taking up my apartment on rent, in case I vacated it. For this reason, my landlord’s BATNA was also strong. I strengthened my BATNA by studying landlor ds are charging for similar accommodation in my locality, and whether houses with reasonable amenities are available at lower prices. I did my homework by seeing nearby places, checking their rents and making a note of details such as square footage, furnishings, appliances, amenities and proximity to workplace, gym and marketplace. Then I played them off against each other and made sure that there are many alternative accommodations available in the area. My landlord had revealed that his interest was to cover the growing inflation by raising the rent. He had therefore prepared his BATNA by considering some new prospects for filling up the vacancy in case I quit. Before entering into a verbal discussion process with my landlord, I had clearly outlined the purpose of our discussion as an attempt to reach a collaborative decision by finalizing a rent amount that suited both of us and helped in keeping our cordial ties intact. Having thus developed the agenda, we started off a brainst orming session in order to evaluate all the possible alternatives available to us. Various ideas were generated from both parties as an alternative to the rent hike. My landlord suggested options such as longer lease period, advance payment of multiple months’ rent or longer notice period in the lease termination agreement. On the other hand, I offered to give up the parking space and made a deal for referrals for his other apartment that he was planning

Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (1993) Assignment

Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (1993) - Assignment Example Regarding this issue, was the court’s mandate in determining the general standard for the admittance of expert scientific testimony, in the case of a federal trial. As the petitioners, Jason Daubert and Eric Schuller were minors born with serious birth defects. Their parents on behalf of the two, sued the respondent, alleging the cause of the defects to be attributable to their mother’s ingestion of Bendectin. As a prescription anti-nausea drug, marketed by the respondent, they were of the view that the entity was liable for criminal neglect amongst other irregularities. This necessitated research studies which eventually led to the lack of direct linkage between the drug and birth defects in human beings. The respondent showcased an affidavit, from a renowned leading expert on various risks associated to exposure to different chemical substances. He was of the view that the drug was not associated with any form of defects, with no study having found it is having the characteristics of a human teratogen. Consequently, he viewed maternal utility of the drug, during the first pregnancy trimester, as not showing any risk factors for human birth defects. The petitioners, not contesting the aforementioned published details, instead respond to the motion by way of utilizing the testimony of eight experts, working for the firm. They did earlier on come to the conclusion that the drug can cause birth defects. Basing their conclusions on both ‘in vivo’ (live) and ‘in vitro’ (test tube) animal studies, a link was found, between the drug and resultant malformations. In addition, was the aspect that pharmacological studies, in regard to the drug’s chemical structure; purported to show similarities to that of other substances that were known to cause birth defects. Last, was the fact that ‘reanalysis’ of previously published epidemiological (human statistical) studies, further portrayed the lack of conclusiveness; in regard to matters pertaining chemical

Performance Evaluation Task Essay Example for Free

Performance Evaluation Task Essay All employees want a fair and accurate performance evaluation. It’s it important that an evaluation reflect each employee’s job duties and how well they have performed. In this scenario, the engineer’s first performance review ended with him being angry over the way in which he was being evaluated. There were three main issues with the engineer’s evaluation. The engineer felt that no one in the company, including the plant manager was qualified to complete his annual review. He felt this way because he is the only trained engineer in the company. As a result, the engineer had little confidence in the way that he was being evaluated and was upset that most of his review was based on relationships with other co-workers and his own personal characteristics. For the second annual review the plant manager is exploring other options when it comes to evaluating the engineer. The three most commonly-used sets of evaluation criteria which should be used in evaluations are individual task outcomes, behaviors, and traits. In this scenario, the engineer could be judged on what he was able to accomplish. For example, the changes that the engineer suggested resulted in considerable savings on manufacturing energy cost and eliminated a significant safety hazard that had been previously overlooked. Behavior refers to not only how the employee works with others but also organizational performance, promptness, and suggestions for improvements. In the scenario, the engineer clashes with other employees and has a poor attitude towards co-workers. However, the engineer’s suggestions have led to positive changes with the company. Traits are referring to the engineer’s attitude, showing confidence, and being dependable. In this scenario, the engineer demonstrates a poor attitude towards co-workers and does not pay close attention when the manager is speaking. When you compare the most commonly used sets of criteria of claim evaluation the manager needs to determine the importance or weight of each category. Is what the employee achieved as important as how the tasks were done or that they got along with the other members of the team? What the engineer achieved is something that can be measured though the completion of tasks.  Behaviors and traits can be more subjective. It could be the engineer’s personality to be standoffish or he doesn’t socialize well with others. This doesn’t necessarily mean the engineer is not a successful employee. In the annual review, the manager should consider the outcome of his tasks as the highest priority. Behaviors should be the next factor, and finally traits. In an effort to get more buy in of the performance evaluation process, the plant manager can include the opinions of supervisors, peers, and subordinates. This is an example of a full 360-degree program. There are advantages and disadvantages to this process. The advantages include the hope to give everyone more of a sense of participation in the review process and gain more accurate readings on employee performance. The use of multiple sources is more likely to capture a variety of behavior more accurately. It also provides employees with a wider perspective of their performance. Some of the disadvantages of the 360 degree evaluation are that it has the potential to be misused. Some corporations allow employees to choose the people who evaluate them which can provide some inaccurate feedback. There can also be issues in handling disagreements and contradictions between those who complete the evaluations. (E-textbook) The plant manager will also need to consider how the engineer would be evaluated. There are several options when considering how to evaluate an employee. The first method that can be considered is a written essay. This is a written narrative describing an employee’s strengths, weaknesses, potential, performance, and suggestions for improvement. The success of this method can be determined as much by the evaluator’s writing ability as by the employee’s level of performance. Another method of evaluation is critical incidents. In this type of evaluation, the evaluator focuses on the behaviors that make the difference between performing a job effectively or ineffectively. It provides an example of what behaviors are wanted and those that are opportunity areas. The third and one of the most popular methods of evaluation is the use of graphic rating scales. In this evaluation method, a set of performance factors such has quality of work; cooperation, attendance, and initiative are noted. The evaluator rates each of the factors on incremental scales. One of the advantages to this method is that  they are less time consuming to complete. They also provide for easy analysis. However, evaluation methods can be biased and have as much to do with the evaluator as with the employee being evaluated. For example, the evaluator unintentionally can inflate an evaluation or even undervalue the evaluation. The evaluator can also be influenced by the assessment of one characteristic. Some evaluations can be biased by the evaluator favoring employees who have similar qualities to their own. Or in some cases, the evaluator can see the process as an opportunity to reward or punish employees. While the evaluation process at times is not perfect there are ways that it can be improved. In the scenario, the engineer feels that no one is qualified to complete his evaluation including the plant manager. He has little confidence in the evaluation process and that the rating themselves focus on personal characteristics and relationships with co-workers. One way to improve the evaluation process is to train evaluators. If no one is qualified then the company needs to make a qualified evaluator. Training someone to be an evaluator can make for more accurate ratings of an employee. This can help to build confidence that the evaluations are accurate and fair. Another alternative is to use multiple evaluators such as in the 360-degree method. This provides an opportunity to achieve more accurate evaluations. The evaluators can review different areas of job performance such as evaluating suggestions for improvements and personal characteristics. A third option is to evaluate selectively. In the scenario, the evaluation would only be done by someone who has some expertise in the area in which they are evaluating. This again can help the engineer have confidence in the evaluations that are being completed. In conclusion, the engineer wants a fair and accurate evaluation. He wants to have confidence in the people who are completing that evaluation and that he is being evaluated on criteria such as improvements to company and how timely and effectively his tasks are completed.

Graduation Speech -- Graduation Speech, Commencement Address

Years ago there was a traveler who came upon an old-fashioned pump from which he would have to pump the handle in order to retrieve the water. Beside the pump there was a pitcher full of water, and on the pump there was a sign. The sign instructions were to prime the pump with the water in the pitcher, pump the water for use, and then refill the pitcher. The thirsty man looked at the pitcher, the pump and the sign. He thought to himself, "If I pour this water down the pump, and it doesn't work, I will have no water to drink and it will be wasted. But, if I drink the water, I will be satisfied, but the next traveler will have nothing. We as graduates are like this traveler and we have decisions to make. We have the potential to be contributing members of society -- we are the doctors, nurses, farmers, servicemen and pastors of tomorrow. We can use the water in the pitcher that is like the education and resources this country has given us, and we can prime the pump for others, providing them with the opportunities that we have already been given. We can give back to society with our...

Buyer Power of Coffee Industry Essay

Buyer bargaining power refers to the pressure consumers can place on the industry, influencing companies to provide better products, service, and lower prices. One determinant of bargaining power is the number of buyer available. For the US coffee and snack industry, the large number of buyers is a big advantage. According to National Coffee Association, 54% of American adults drink coffee. Another key driver that gives buyers leverage is if they can do without the product for long durations. If so, the seller incurs losses when customers discontinue use of the product over long periods. However, coffee drinkers are high frequency buyers, purchasing the drink multiple times throughout the week, if not more often. To these people, coffee has become an integral part of their everyday lives. Because they cannot do without coffee, coffee shops can depend on repeat customers. Switching costs are another element to consider when gauging buyer bargaining. If switching costs are high, buyers are least likely to change over to a competing product. Unfortunately for the US coffee and snack industries, there are absolutely zero costs associated with changing to a different product. Similarly, no cost is incurring when switching to another company. Thus, this makes coffee shops have to constantly improve their product lines, drive down costs, improve service, and other aspects to keep customers choosing their shops over someone else’s. The buyer’s per capita consumption also players a role in determining attractiveness of an industry. During recessions, disposable income generally becomes lower and spending of consumption is cut. When consumer spending is lower, people are less likely to spend on snacks and coffee. Overall, due to the high number of users and the high volume of purchases, from the buyer perspective the coffee and snack industry can be considered attractive.

advabtages and disadvantages of electronic media - 829 Words

ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES OF ELECTRONIC MEDIA: Electronic Media is a rich resource of services, supplies, creative and innovative solutions to everyday domestic and professional demands. We are living in the era of electronic media. None can avoid and escape from it. It is prevailing profound effects on advertisement, education, information, politics and other social activities. If we look around us what is there that is impossible to? It is none other than this electronic media that has made our life far more comfortable and luxurious. Obviously this enhancement in technology would have its banes and boons as well. As far as the advantages of this advancement is concerned so they are outnumbered. Electronic media has granted†¦show more content†¦This social network is also one of a great source of electronic media it not only connects us to several peoples but also helps in advertising or much social and political news are also conveyed to us. The international politics are greatly influenced by the electronic media. Nothing in this world is ideal or perfect therefore when this bestowment of science has provided us with its advantages it surely has several disadvantages in it as well. No doubt it’s a source of entertainment but people are rather waisting a lot of their precious time through this. Internet the greatest help of us today is also a good help to huge number of frauds and theft on internet. One’s personal account can be hacked and their personal details can be viewed which is obviously dangerous and ofcourse no one would want that to happen with them. Research evidence has accumulated over the past half-century that exposure to violence on television, movies, and most recently in video games increases the risk of violent behavior on the viewer’s part just as growing up in an environment filled with real violence increases the risk of violent behavior. Furthermore there is huge amount of contents of vulgarity either in form of such vulgar games or in form of such s oftware, CD’s or websites which can lead to crimes and bad mentality of