WHO Guidance Global Discussion Forum 26 July - 6th August, 2010

Announcement:

Please pass this invitation onto to your networks and colleagues and encourage them to join this virtual discussion forum.

The World Health Organization (WHO) and the WHO Guidance forum invite you to join the

WHO would like you to join a 2 week virtual discussion forum designed to provide an opportunity for people to share their ideas, experience and opinions about the type of evidence-based guidance WHO should produce to support the reduction of maternal and perinatal mortality and morbidity. We want to make this guidance more accessible and focused on addressing technical and health systems challenges and meeting the information needs of people working in this field.

Your contribution to this discussion will help us to identify priority policy or practice issues in which it would be helpful to have either a policy brief, guideline or other type of resource materials produced.

REGISTER NOW! http://my.ibpinitiative.org/whoguidance

During this two-week forum you will receive one-two emails per day: one email to introduce the day’s questions, and one daily digest of the contributions. Five questions will be addressed, and each discussed over two consecutive days. All contributions received will be acknowledged.

Once you have registered you can participate in the forum simply by responding to the daily e-mails or sending a message to:

whoguidance at my.ibpinitiative.org

For any questions on this Virtual Global Discussion Forum please contact the forum facilitator: Cordelia Coltart at: coltartc at who.int

Many thanks and we look forward to hearing your views during this exciting venture.

Cordelia Coltart
Intern WHO
MBBS MPH MRCP BSc DTM&H
Reproductive Health and Research
E-mail: coltartc at who.int

World Health Organization
20, avenue Appia
CH-1211 Geneva 27
visit WHO at: www.who.int

My source:
Sandra Land, GANM (Global Alliance for Nursing and Midwifery) ganm at ibp.wa-research.ch

Born HIV Free campaign announces 11 million views for "Baby in the Sky" creative film

Dear Writer and Blogger,

In our series of news related to the 6-month Born HIV Free campaign, we are delighted to send you a press release focussing on the specially created film "Baby in the Sky" created by Les Bonzoms for this campaign.

The film has attracted a great deal of attention through YouTube and other broadcasts, helping to make people aware about the campaign.

Thanks as ever for your support,

Brendan
Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide France, Paris

“Baby in the sky”: a stunning new film made by Les Bonzoms specially for the Born HIV Free campaign attracts more than 11 million viewers on dedicated YouTube channel

Geneva, 6 July 2010 – The YouTube channel dedicated to The Global Fund’s Born HIV Free campaign which was launched seven weeks ago, has already been seen by more than 11 million viewers. The channel features an exceptional animation film called “Baby in the Sky”, created by the design team Les Bonzoms and with music of Amy Winehouse. Euronews, the international news channel, joins the campaign by also featuring the video until October.

“The purpose of the Born HIV Free campaign is to encourage millions of people to support The Global Fund so we can finally put an end to the tragedy of 430,000 babies being born HIV-positive every year, when we have the means and the expertise to prevent this.” says Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, Global Ambassador for the protection of mothers and children against AIDS. “Hopefully this beautiful film will reach a wide audience because of its creative ingenuity, and inspire millions of people to support The Global Fund so we can finally put an end to this terrible injustice.”

“Baby in the Sky” is a highly creative and imaginative animated film that conveys the beauty of life ahead for an unborn child. The film artistically portrays an imaginary journey in a world full of adventurous landscapes and fantastic creatures. It ends with a call from Carla Bruni-Sarkozy for an HIV-free generation in which she says “Life is a beautiful journey. Don’t let AIDS kill it.”

The film owes its powerful soundtrack to multi-award winning and singer/songwriter artist Amy Winehouse, who offered the pro-bono use of her “Back to Black” song for the film.

“It was a question of finding a true resonance with the images in the film created by Bonzoms”, says musician / producer Julien Civange, who conceived the Born HIV Free campaign, about the use of Winehouse’s music. “We wanted to find a piece that was modern but also well known, something that carried the same sensibility as the film. The magic came with the soundtrack by Amy Winehouse, an artist that Carla considers one of the greatest and most talented of her generation and who was generous enough to participate in the campaign.”

The animation can be viewed on the Born HIV Free YouTube channel and will also be distributed through various social and mass media platforms during the course of the campaign.

Since June 20, Euronews, the international news channel, has been broadcasting “Baby in the Sky” on its network in 155 countries. The film is shown in 90-second slots an average of three times a day for the first month and then once a day thereafter. Broadcasting of the film will continue until 5 October 2010.

"All of us at Euronews are very proud to be associated with this initiative, which is supported by an incredible positive animated film" said Philippe Cayla, Chairman of the Executive Board of Euronews. "We are glad to open Euronews' influential and far-reaching network to such professionals and experts fighting to eradicate HIV transmission during pregnancy. We are mobilized to make a success of this campaign and we strongly believe that Euronews' viewers will be deeply moved and will want to participate in the Born HIV Free campaign," Mr Cayla added.

CNBC has also been broadcasting the video on its network in Europe, Middle East and Africa since the launch of the campaign.

Speaking about the distinctive nature of the “Baby in the Sky” project, Jack-Antoine Charlot, a designer from Les Bonzoms said: “It was necessary to stop playing with the notion of guilt as an incentive for people to act and instead to reinforce a sense of wanting to share and take part in something. In the case of mother-to-child HIV transmission, the medications already exist to stop it. The problem is one of mobilization.”

After the film, viewers are invited to show their support by signing their name on the campaign’s “virtual wall of support”, on the www.bornhivfree.org website. The campaign asks people - by the simple act of clicking a button - to register their support for the work of The Global Fund and for the elimination of mother to child transmission of HIV by 2015.

Watch the videos on: www.youtube.com/bornhivfree

Community Informatics and Older People: A Call for Papers

This call for papers is for a special issue of the Journal of Community Informatics on ICTs and Older Persons. Examples of activities using ICTs for support of the elderly in Less Developed Countries are particularly encouraged.

Community Informatics and Older People: A Call for Papers

If you have an article (or an idea for one) contact
Geneloeb Aronin, Ph.D. by July 15th geneloeb at gmail.com.

The peer-reviewed Journal of Community Informatics (www.ci-journal.net) is inviting submissions of articles for a special issue on community informatics and elderly. Community Informatics is concerned with the use of Information and Communications Technologies (ICTs) to enable and empower local communities including for personal, social, cultural or economic development of and within communities.

There has been a recent a surge in the use of ICTs involving the geriatric community, elderly and those associated with their care or needs. This activity has taken several forms, including: the elderly communicating with others by computers and other technologies; technical devices used to monitor needs or send warnings; information from governments is now available online including training programs for older people to access such information; and the use of ICTs to support community caregivers for the elderly, self-help and self-care for the elderly, and as an infrastructure for the development of virtual community connections among the elderly and between the elderly and others are burgeoning areas of community care and in some places part of the public health system. We would very much welcome explorations and systematic (and other) accounts of these processes and others.

Now is the opportunity to examine model practices of ICT to benefit communities of older persons and their families, to support their care and their caregivers within communities and to suggest new ways in which ICTs can be used to maximize community based initiatives and opportunities.

Articles in the planned issue will focus on the use of ICTs for personal, social, cultural or economic development of, and within, communities for the elderly. We would look to include paradigms for reaching out to elderly people who can not yet access ICTs for these benefits; demonstrate improved technical frameworks for community based ICT applications; show the effectiveness of applications and new ways technology may be applied. Examples of activities using ICTs for support of the elderly in Less Developed Countries are particularly encouraged.

What other ideas and suggestions do you have? Email the co-ordinator for this issue,
Geneloeb: geneloeb at gmail.com

With Best Wishes for an Even Better Day

Gene-loeb
Gene-loeb Aronin, Ph.D.

Charity song 'Change for the Better' for World Malaria Day

We [The Butterfly Tree] are launching a charity song, entitled 'Change for the Better' for World Malaria Day, April 25th, to raise funds and global awareness of malaria.

No less that 80% will be used to buy mosquito nets and malaria testing kits.

Your support could save a child's life:

http://www.thebutterflytree.org.uk/pages/2010/africa-malaria-2010/

My source:
LinkedIn Groups, Non Profit Network - MojaLink,
Jane Kaye-Bailey

International Leprosy Day

Fighting for a Just Cause
Sunday 31 January 2010

How would you respond if, because of a disease,
your family no longer wanted you to live at home?
How would you feel if, because of a disease,
your husband or wife wanted a divorce?
What would you say if you lost your job
because of an illness that had no impact on your ability to carry out your work?
What would you do if your children were no longer allowed to go to school
because of your ill health or disability?

These situations may sound remarkable, unbelievable even, and yet these are real situations, faced by real people everyday. They happen just because the person has leprosy.

TLM-UK: In 2010 The Leprosy Mission is focusing on Nepal to celebrate World Leprosy Day. At Anandaban hospital, patients not only receive medical care, but staff also help them begin the slow process of emotional healing and release. The hospital's projects include medical treatment and surgery, counselling, education support, housing support and small business loans.

Additional links:

http://www.leprosymission.org.uk/

http://www.who.int/lep/

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/medical_notes/166163.stm

memo FROM: Classroom health TO: Global health - PSHE education and model standards

Health care and educational professionals learn and adopt the key tools of the trade whilst training. Although for several decades experiential learning has also gained recognition and weight, it is the learning of theory and relation to practice in basic training that shapes the future career. We can describe this as formative professional education. We then hope that this learning and the tools in use are then updated according to research, evidence and best practice. There is much navel gazing at present as to how to measure, nurture, instill and strengthen the character trait of compassion. This applies not only to children, but within nursing.

This issue highlights of course what students bring with them to the lecture theatre, clinical arena and what they take from there to carry them through their professional career. My ideal would be that students have already learned and used Hodges' model as 14-16 year old's, as they negotiate their personal, social, health and economic (PSHE) education.

While Hodges' model is a world away from a de jure standard
- that is, defined and enforced by the ISO -
it might just :) become a de facto standard,
because of its widespread adoption in and beyond the classroom.

There is a great opportunity here for Hodges' model in the UK as PSHE education becomes compulsory in 2011. Perhaps you can help in or beyond the UK?

Reference:
Mooney, H. (2009). Can you measure compassion?, Nursing Times, 21 April 2009.

Blog post inspired by adamatronics groups.drupal.org Drupal in Education: Joint effort on a D6 SCORM API

tags: 'preventive medicine' + 'preventive medical sociology'?

Guidance: Breakthrough to real change in local healthcare - a guide for applications to create Health Innovation and Education Clusters (HIECs)

6 May 2009: The Department of Health is investing £10 million in the introduction of Health Innovation and Education Clusters (HIECs) across England. HIECs will be partnerships between NHS, higher education, industry and other public and private sector organisations. They will support the spread and adoption of innovation locally and strengthen professional education and training.

This guide describes the vision for HIECs, the role of HIECs in education and training, how HIECs will support innovation and the application process. This starts a period of informal dialogue with strategic health authorities (SHAs) and prospective HIEC partners, leading to expressions of interest in early September 2009 and a final announcement on the first wave of HIECs in December 2009. SHAs are co-ordinating applications and, as part of the process, they are arranging regional stakeholder events.

Contact details for the SHA in your area are included.

Published by Department of Health, UK

Review: Tackling Health Inequalities - ten years on

A review (Published: 7 May 2009) of developments in tackling health inequalities in England over the last ten years.

This report reviews developments in health inequalities over the last 10 years across government - from the publication of the Acheson report on health inequalities in November 1998 to the announcement of the post-2010 strategic review of health inequalities in November 2008. It covers developments across government on the wider social determinants of health, and the role of the NHS. It provides an assessment of developments against the Acheson report, reviews a range of key data sets covering social, economic, health and environmental indicators, and considers lessons learned and challenges for the future.

Published by Department of Health, UK

c/o Alex Scott-Samuel The Spirit of 1848 list

The Times: Virus clue to cause of Alzheimer’s

From The Times
December 6, 2008

Virus clue to cause of Alzheimer’s

Cheap cold sore drugs could offer best treatment yet


Mark Henderson, Science Editor

The virus that causes cold sores may be one of the main causes of Alzheimer’s disease, according to research that suggests that existing drugs could be used to treat the most common form of dementia.

Compelling new evidence found by British scientists has implicated the cold sore virus, known as herpes simplex virus 1 (HSV1), in up to 60 per cent of Alzheimer’s cases.

Though the findings from the University of Manchester remain preliminary, they could transform scientific understanding of a brain disorder that affects more than 400,000 people in Britain, and open an entirely new approach to treating it.

...

Full article

Transdisciplinary Research: Supplement in American Journal of Preventive Medicine

Sometimes being turned on by conceptual frameworks, transdisciplinary studies, paradigms and other esoteric sounding - blue skies stuff, you wonder if you are being just a tad grandiose. Your lip gets bitten especially when you are not being paid to think and write in this way and your doing so has major repercussions for the people in (and out) of your life. ...

Transdisciplinary research studies is far from new (have a scroll through Links I 2nd row - 'Theology / Inter - Transdisciplinary Studies'), but it is still very reassuring for me to see transdisciplinarity feature in a supplement of the latest American Journal of Preventive Medicine:

Thomas Kuhn wrote is his classic book, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, that paradigm shifts occur in science when the old ways of making sense of the world are no longer useful or appropriate. The need for a transdisciplinary approach to the study of health and disease is critically needed because the traditional silo approach to these issues clearly is not adequate to the challenges we face. As has been noted, we are not able to identify many disease risk factors; even when we do successfully identify risk factors, it is difficult for people to change their behavior to change their risk profile; and even if people do change their behavior, new people continually take their place because we have failed to identify many of the fundamental societal forces that cause the problem in first place. A new paradigm is needed.
Syme, S.L. (2008).

Other papers in the supplement include:

• Enhancing Transdisciplinary Research Through Collaborative Leadership
• Evaluation of Interdisciplinary and Transdisciplinary Research: A Literature Review
• The Social Determinants of Cancer: A Challenge for Transdisciplinary Science
• Challenges for Multilevel Health Disparities Research in a Transdisciplinary Environment
• The Role of Transdisciplinary Collaboration in Translating and Disseminating Health Research: Lessons Learned and Exemplars of Success

If you come across other transdisc resources please let me know through the main site.

Syme, S.L. (2008). The Science of Team Science: Assessing the Value of Transdisciplinary Research, American Journal of Preventive Medicine, Volume 35, Issue 2, Supplement 1, August, Pages S94-S95. (two pages 18 refs).