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Messages - Dr Alauddin Chowdhury

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Environmental Health / Ten threats to global health in 2019
« on: February 03, 2019, 05:17:28 PM »
Ten threats to global health in 2019
The world is facing multiple health challenges. These range from outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases like measles and diphtheria, increasing reports of drug-resistant pathogens, growing rates of obesity and physical inactivity to the health impacts of environmental pollution and climate change and multiple humanitarian crises. Here are 10 of the many issues that will demand attention from World Health Organisation (WHO) and health partners in 2019.

1. Air pollution and climate change[/b]
Microscopic pollutants in the air can penetrate respiratory and circulatory systems, damaging the lungs, heart and brain, killing 7 million people prematurely every year from diseases such as cancer, stroke, heart and lung disease. Around 90% of these deaths are in low- and middle-income countries, with high volumes of emissions from industry, transport and agriculture, as well as dirty cookstoves and fuels in homes.

2. Non-communicable diseases[/b]
Non-communicable diseases, such as diabetes, cancer and heart disease, are collectively responsible for over 70% of all deaths worldwide, or 41 million people. The rise of these diseases has been driven by five major risk factors: tobacco use, physical inactivity, the harmful use of alcohol, unhealthy diets and air pollution.

3. Global influenza pandemic
The world will face another influenza pandemic – the only thing we do not know is when it will hit and how severe it will be. Global defences are only as effective as the weakest link in any country's health emergency preparedness and response system.

4. Fragile and vulnerable settings
More than 1.6 billion people live in places where protracted crises (through a combination of challenges such as drought, famine, conflict, and population displacement) and weak health services leave them without access to basic care. Fragile settings exist in almost all regions of the world, and these are where half of the key targets in the sustainable development goals, including on child and maternal health, remains unmet.

5. Antimicrobial resistance
Antimicrobial resistance – the ability of bacteria, parasites, viruses and fungi to resist medicines – threatens to send us back to a time when we were unable to easily treat infections such as pneumonia, tuberculosis, gonorrhoea, and salmonellosis. Drug resistance is driven by the overuse of antimicrobials in people, but also in animals, especially those used for food production, as well as in the environment.

6. Ebola and other high-threat pathogens
In 2018, the Democratic Republic of the Congo saw two separate Ebola outbreaks, both of which spread to cities of more than 1 million people.This shows that
the context in which an epidemic of a high-threat pathogen like Ebola erupts is critical.

7. Weak primary health care
Primary health care is usually the first point of contact people have with their health care system, and ideally should provide comprehensive, affordable, community-based care throughout life. Yet many countries do not have adequate primary health care facilities. This neglect may be a lack of resources in low- or middle-income countries, but possibly also a focus in the past few decades on single disease programmes.

8. Vaccine hesitancy
Vaccine hesitancy – the reluctance or refusal to vaccinate despite the availability of vaccines – threatens to reverse progress made in tackling vaccine-preventable diseases. Vaccination is one of the most cost-effective ways of avoiding disease – it currently prevents 2-3 million deaths a year, and a further 1.5 million could be avoided if global coverage of vaccinations improved.

9. Dengue
Dengue, a mosquito-borne disease that causes flu-like symptoms and can be lethal and kill up to 20% of those with severe dengue, has been a growing threat for decades. Now, its season in these countries is lengthening significantly (in 2018, Bangladesh saw the highest number of deaths in almost two decades), and the disease is spreading to less tropical and more temperate countries such as Nepal, that have not traditionally seen the disease.

10. HIV
The progress made against HIV has been enormous in terms of getting people tested, providing them with antiretrovirals, and providing access to preventive measures such as a pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP, which is when people at risk of HIV take antiretrovirals to prevent infection). Since the beginning of the epidemic about 35 million people have died.
Source: https://www.thedailystar.net/health/news/ten-threats-global-health-2019-1693402
https://www.who.int/emergencies/ten-threats-to-global-health-in-2019


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informative

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Mental health utterly neglected by the health system in Bangladesh.

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Thanks for sharing

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GOOD POST!

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Social Medicine / Social Pathology as a Medical Science
« on: August 13, 2018, 03:20:38 PM »
THE CONCEPT OF SOCIAL pathology and social medicine has more and more focused general attention on the foundations of public health and preventive medicine in modern society. The subject of social medicine and its teaching has recently been widely discussed both in England and the United States; in the French and German language areas such developments had taken place some decades earlier. It is worth while to dwell for a moment on a more precise definition of the science of social pathology to avoid all further confusion. By the term “Social Pathology” is meant in this essay the systematic doctrine demonstrating, as far as possible by quantitative means, the interrelationship between genuine pathological conditions of man, i.e., human diseases in the clinical–medical sense and social conditions of the human environment. A short definition may be formulated as follows:

The relation between disease and social conditions is the content of social pathology; its method is necessarily a sociological description of this relationship which, for simplicity’s sake, is mostly based on a statistical analysis of the quantitative findings. Its goal is the generalization of hygienic culture among all members of the community and their descendents through medical care, health education, protective legislation, and other means of social policy… .

From the angle of social medicine it is the frequency of a disease and its social–pathological type which makes it a social problem; it is not necessarily a disease hard to diagnose… .

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informative

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Socioeconomic status (SES) is known to influence children’s health-related quality of life. Many SES indicators assess distinct dimensions of a family’s position rather than measuring the same underlying construct. Many researchers, however, see SES indicators as interchangeable. The primary aim of this study was to determine which measure of SES had the strongest impact on health-related quality of life.
Source:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3691729/

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Genetic & Biotechnology / Re: জ্বর কেন হয়?
« on: August 12, 2018, 02:16:57 PM »
informative

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Compliance Level of Tobacco Control Law in Public Transportation: Realizing Ways to Overcome
Dr. ABM Alauddin Chowdhury
Assistant Professor, Department of Public Health, DIU

Proposal Abstract
Bangladesh enacted smoking and tobacco products usage control act in 2005 after being partner of WHO FCTC and amended the act in 2013. The act prohibited smoking in public transports and provided some guideline to keep the transports smoke free. However, experts identified some challenges regarding implementation of the law such as sensitizing people to comply with law, establishing and strengthening support service to quit tobacco products (contrary to WHO FCTC) etc. Prior studies indicate that tobacco control law and policy helps to reduce indoor and outdoor smoking. Hence the study aims to explore the compliance level of tobacco control law in public transports (bus, passenger vessels and train) in Bangladesh using a survey among 405 passenger’s respondents of the mentioned transports. The study will be conducted in mixed method approach using observational (12 observations) and interview protocol (12 key informants’ interviews) as data collection tools. A triangulation method in both of study design and data presentation will be used. Study findings will be presented in thematic, tabular and graphical arrangement along with descriptive and inferential statistical analysis. Nowadays, the Government of Bangladesh is concerned about the consequences of tobacco smoking related problems on society and trying to fight against such an acute problem in our country. The study findings will have potentials scopes and uses of its significant outcomes for tobacco smoking control as well as reducing smoking related immature death in Bangladesh.
 

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The  Behavior  Change  Communication  (BCC)  is  a  process  of  implementing  communication  strategies  for  the welfare  of  individual  or  communities  to  encourage  them  to  adopt  positive  behaviors  suitable  to  the  local  problem and the settings. Successful implementation of BCC essentially needs extensive research and meticulous planning based on the level of knowledge and attitude of the target population. Although BCC has shown a significant impact in   heterogeneous   conditions,   but   for   its   successful   implementation   in   different   health   problems,   the   cost-effectiveness for the same should be estimated in different local settings. In addition, eventual outcome of the BCC strategy depends upon the knowledge level of the community health worker and their efficacy to share knowledge with  the  target  population.  To  conclude,  Behavior  Change  Communication  is  a  research-based,  client-centered, benefit-oriented,  service-linked  and  professionally  developed  strategy  with  significant  potential  that  can  influence and eventually modify the bad practices in order to maintain a healthy state both of individual and the society.

Source: https://www.omicsonline.org/open-access/a-communitytargeted-and-scientifically-formulated-approach-to-remould-health-behaviour-behaviour-change-communication-2167-1079.1000e112.pdf

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