Age-friendly initiatives - GHANA

The global increase in the population of older persons has profound inter-sectoral implications, necessitating the development of age-friendly initiatives at the global and national levels. While progress has been relatively slower across Sub-Saharan African countries, highlighting existing commendable initiatives is essential to identify the current gaps and promote the development of strategies and interventions to promote age-friendly societies. This mini-review highlights some of the key initiatives in Ghana in the areas of policy, healthcare, finance, social services, education and research and in promoting dementia-friendly communities.

Recommendations for successful involvement of patient partners in complex intervention research: a collaborative learning process

BACKGROUND

Patient and public involvement in health-related research is a new discipline in Denmark. In 2021, a national conference titled 'Patient and Public Involvement in Complex Intervention Research' provided a forum for discussion between patient partners, researchers and clinicians on involving patients as partners in complex intervention research.

METHODS

We aimed to describe specific challenges to and initiatives for patient partner involvement in order to develop recommendations for creating successful partnerships in complex intervention research. Through a collaborative learning process, 140 researchers identified the most important challenges for them in patient partner involvement and potential initiatives to improve such involvement. At a subsequent workshop, four patient partners identified the challenges and initiatives from their perspective as patient partners. They also gave feedback on the challenges and initiatives suggested by the researchers and helped shape three recommendations for practice. Three of the patient partners were involved in writing this paper.

RESULTS

The five most important challenges identified by researchers were time, recruitment, ethics, power and inequality. Between four and seven initiatives to overcome these challenges were suggested. The three most important challenges identified by patient partners were communication, when you get information that is hard to handle and recruitment. They suggested three to four initiatives for improvement. Patient partners confirmed the importance of all the researcher identified challenges when presented with them, they also provided additional comments on the researchers' initiatives. This led to the formation of recommendations for involving patient partners.

CONCLUSIONS

A collaborative learning process was shown to be a suitable method for patient partner involvement. Consistency was seen between the challenges and initiatives identified by researchers and patient partners. Based on these observations, three recommendations were developed: (1) create specific programmes that aim to involve all kind of patients (including but limited to vulnerable patients) as patient partners, (2) produce ethical guidelines for the involvement of patient partners, and (3) develop a national strategy for patient partner involvement. To build on these recommendations, a joint workshop with both researchers and patient partners is needed.

Age-friendly initiatives: Mexico

While the implementation of these initiatives varies globally and continues to face low uptake in the global south, it is crucial to underscore key ongoing efforts, particularly in developing nations. This allows us to have knowledge about progress and identify areas that require more effective strategies to advance the cause of global healthy aging. The aim of this mini-review was to describe some of the key age-friendly initiatives made in Mexico through Governmental and Non-Governmental entities to promote healthy aging, at different levels of health and social institutions, covering the healthcare systems, community, and education.

Social values and sustainable development: community experiences

BACKGROUND

This paper presents a review of the literature and trends related to social values and sustainable development and describes a set of case studies from a variety of community-based projects which illustrate the advantages that social values bring about as part of efforts to promote sustainability. Three approaches were used to develop this study: a bibliometric analysis of the topic "social values and sustainable development", an analysis of case studies that concretely present community projects addressing social values and sustainability, and the development of a framework linking up bibliometric clusters and the cases studies.

RESULTS

While the bibliometric analysis revealed clusters where social values are strongly connected with sustainable development, the case studies indicated the lack of a common terminology and understanding of the relation between social values, sustainable development, and community-based projects.

CONCLUSIONS

The study concludes by suggesting a set of measures that could be deployed to better take social values into account when planning policies or making decisions related to community projects.

Establishing a corporate social responsibility implementation model for promoting sustainability in the food sector: a hybrid approach of expert mining and ISM-MICMAC

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is significantly related to food companies due to its prominent impact and greater dependency on the environment, economy, and society (triple bottom line - TBL). The CSR-related threats and opportunities' scale are shifting from single companies to networks and supply chains of the food sector. In this regard, this study empirically evaluates CSR initiatives by using Interpretive Structural Modeling (ISM) and Matrice d'Impacts Croisés Multiplication Appliqués à un Classement (MICMAC) methodology. So to develop an ISM-MICMAC-based framework, at first, CSR initiatives were chosen from existing literature with experts' advice. Later, MICMAC analysis results showed that "employee trainings and workshops" and "employee welfare and empowerment" are significant CSR initiatives that could help CSR's integration in the food sector of Pakistan, whereas CSR initiatives "community betterment" and "contribution towards economic development" proved least significant in the model. This study recommends that food sector firms should promote employee-based strategies in the firms. Moreover, the empirical findings of this study help to better understand CSR initiatives and their role in the implementation of CSR in the food sector of developing countries.

One health collaboration for a resilient health system in India: Learnings from global initiatives

Inter-sectoral collaborations are now recognized as key importance for health system strengthening and health system integration, globally; however, its application in the domain of One Health remains unclear. Over time, as the complexity of the health system has increased within the domain of One Health approach, there is an urgent need for developing collaboration for successful implementation of the One Health. This review focuses on the global One Health collaboration strategies and discusses which type of collaboration might work for the health system of India. We conducted a review in the following three steps: identification of key One Health Collaboration strategies, documentation of the global initiatives and scoping into the initiatives of India in the domain of One Health.

We found three major types of collaborations discussed in the One Health literature: level-based collaboration (individual, population or research), solution-based collaboration, and third-party-based collaboration. Twenty-five key global and six Indian One Health initiatives or collaboration strategies are documented in the present review. Although, many initiatives are being undertaken globally for disease prevention and control from the viewpoint of One Health; however, in India, solution-based approaches during emergencies and outbreaks and some sort of level-based collaborations are in place. It is high time to develop a sustainable level-based collaboration integrated with third-party based collaboration within the larger domain of One Health for a resilient health system.

NATIONAL FRAMEWORK FOR THE SUSTAINABILITY OF HEALTH KNOWLEDGE TRANSLATION INITIATIVES IN UGANDA

OBJECTIVES

The aim of this study was to provide evidence about the design and implementation of policies for advancing the sustainability of knowledge translation (KT) initiatives and policies in Uganda's health system.

METHODS

We searched for and reviewed evidence about KT sustainability issues in Uganda, the impacts of options, barriers to implementing these options, and implementation strategies to address such barriers. In instances where the systematic reviews provided limited evidence, these were supplemented with relevant primary studies. Documents such as the government reports and unpublished literature were also included in the search. Key informant interviews and a policy dialogue were conducted, and an expert working group guided the study.

RESULTS

The KT sustainability issues identified were: the absence of a specific unit within the health sector to coordinate and synthesize research; health worker not familiar with KT activities and not often used. Furthermore, Uganda lacks a mechanism to sustain its current national health frameworks or platforms, and does not have a system to ensure the sustained coordination of existing national health KT platforms. The policy options proposed include: (i) the identification of a KT champion; (ii) the establishment of an operational KT framework; (iii) KT capacity building for researchers and research users, as well as policy and decision makers.

CONCLUSIONS

The sustainability of KT will be influenced by the prevailing context and concerns within healthcare both in Uganda and internationally. Furthermore, the availability of resources for KT advocacy, communication, and program design will impact on the sustainability of Uganda's KT activities.

Environments favorable to healthy lifestyles: A systematic review of initiatives in Canada

BACKGROUND

In recent years, a number of initiatives aimed at promoting healthy lifestyles in health-friendly environments have been implemented. The purpose of this review is to synthesize initiatives conducted in Canada and documented in publications for the period 1995-2015 in order to gain a better understanding of their objectives and impacts.

METHODS

A systematic review of Canadian initiatives published over the past 20 years was conducted from multiple databases (i.e., Scopus, SPORTDiscus, PubMed, Academic search complete, Reseausante.com, Cairn, and Erudit). In total, 264 publications were identified and retained for the final analysis based on 5 criteria: (1) publication between 1995 and 2015, (2) online availability, (3) research conducted in Canada, (4) main topic related to environments favorable to healthy lifestyles (EFHL), and (5) publication in French or English.

RESULTS

A sharp increase in the number of studies on EFHL was observed between 2010 and 2015 (57%). Two major lifestyle components-physical activity and nutrition-and 2 environmental aspects-neighborhood and built environment-were the elements most frequently examined regarding adults (48%), young people (34%), and seniors (9%), using quantitative (60%) and qualitative (18%) methods. Furthermore, the analysis reveals a greater focus on the municipal (53%) than the national or provincial levels (31%).

CONCLUSION

This work is a first map of Canadian studies related to EFHL. It clarifies the definition of EFHL and classifies its components. As well, it documents the issues raised, the research methods employed, and the role of stakeholders, while outlining a new research agenda that includes dimensions of EFHL formerly neglected by researchers, namely, political and sociocultural spheres of action.

Undiagnosed Diseases: Italy-US Collaboration and International Efforts to Tackle Rare and Common Diseases Lacking a Diagnosis

Rare diseases (RD), according to European Union criteria, affect 5 per 10,000 persons, or 30 million people, in the EU; in the USA, RD are defined as conditions that affect fewer than 200,000 individuals in the population (320 million). Most known rare disorders are severe and chronic, with many being degenerative and life threatening. There are roughly 5000-8000 rare diseases (European Commission, DG Health and Food Safety, Public Health, Rare Diseases, Policy.http://ec.europa.eu/health/rare_diseases/policy/index_en.htm. Accessed 19 December 2016; NORD-The National Organization for Rare Diseases: https://rarediseases.org/). Patient populations for individual RD are small and scattered; international collaborations are crucial to pool resources fragmented across individual countries for better diagnosis and treatment. Undiagnosed RD (URD) are conditions that elude diagnosis; some patients wait years for a definitive diagnosis. URD may include groups of unnamed disorders with common characteristics, phenotypically well described diseases, diseases with an unknown molecular basis, or those due to unknown, non-genetic factors.The US NIH Undiagnosed Diseases Program arose in 2008 to provide a diagnosis for individuals who had long sought one without success; in 2013 a nationwide Undiagnosed Diseases Network was established in the United States. In 2015, the Undiagnosed Disease Network International (UDNI) was established and includes US, Australia, Canada, Japan, Italy and other European countries. Other national initiatives have also been undertaken and are in progress all over the world.

Street vended food in developing world: hazard analyses

Street food vending has become an important public health issue and a great concern to everybody. This is due to widespread food borne diseases, due to the mushrooming of wayside food vendors who lack an adequate understanding of the basic food safety issues. Major sources contributing to microbial contamination are the place of preparation, utensils for cooking and serving, raw materials, time and temperature abuse of cooked foods and the personal hygiene of vendors. Various studies have identified the sources of food safety issues involved in street foods to be microorganism belonging to the genus Bacillus, Staphylococcus, Clostridium, Vibrio, Campylobacter, Listeria, Salmonella. Application of sound risk analysis policies is being advocated to provide a scientific base to the host of risk management option which India may need to explore to ensure public health and safety.