Pet population management and public health:A web service based tool for the improvement of dog traceability

The risks associated with zoonotic infections transmitted by companion animals are a serious public health concern: the control of zoonoses incidence in domestic dogs, both owned and stray, is hence important to protect human health. Integrated dog population management (DPM) programs, based on the availability of information systems providing reliable data on the structure and composition of the existing dog population in a given area, are fundamental for making realistic plans for any disease surveillance and action system. Traceability systems, based on the compulsory electronic identification of dogs and their registration in a computerised database, are one of the most effective ways to ensure the usefulness of DPM programs. Even if this approach provides many advantages, several areas of improvement have emerged in countries where it has been applied. In Italy, every region hosts its own dog register but these are not compatible with one another. This paper shows the advantages of a web-based-application to improve data management of dog regional registers. The approach used for building this system was inspired by farm animal traceability schemes and it relies on a network of services that allows multi-channel access by different devices and data exchange via the web with other existing applications, without changing the pre-existing platforms. Today the system manages a database for over 300,000 dogs registered in three different Italian regions. By integrating multiple Web Services, this approach could be the solution to gather data at national and international levels at reasonable cost and creating a traceability system on a large scale and across borders that can be used for disease surveillance and development of population management plans. © 2012 Elsevier B.V.

Translating evidence into practice: A shared priority in public health?

Translational and transdisciplinary research is needed to tackle complex public health problems. This article has three aims. Firstly, to determine how academics and non-academics (practitioners, policy makers and community workers) identified with the goals of the UKCRC Centre of Excellence for Public Health in Northern Ireland and how their attitudes varied in terms of knowledge brokerage and translation. Secondly, to map and analyse the network structure of the public health sector and the placement of the Centre within this. Thirdly, to aggregate responses from members of the network by work setting to construct the trans-sectoral network and devise the Root Mean Sum of Squares to determine the quality and potential value of connections across this network.The analysis was based on data collected from 98 individuals who attended the launch of the Centre in June 2008. Analysis of participant expectations and personal goals suggests that the academic members of the network were more likely to expect the work of the Centre to produce new knowledge than non-academics, but less likely to expect the Centre to generate health interventions and influence health policy. Academics were also less strongly oriented than non-academics to knowledge transfer as a personal goal, though more confident that research findings would be diffused beyond the immediate network. A central core of five nodes is crucial to the overall configuration of the regional public health network in Northern Ireland, with the Centre being well placed to exert influence within this. Though the overall network structure is fairly robust, the connections between some component parts of the network - such as academics and the third sector - are unidirectional.Identifying these differences and core network structure is key to translational and transdisciplinary research. Though exemplified in a regional study, these techniques are generalisable and applicable to many networks of interest: public health, interdisciplinary research or organisational involvement and stakeholder linkage.

Safeguarding children and public health: midwives' responsibilities

Using a healthy settings framework, this study aims to compare and contrast how midwives working in either hospital or community settings are currently responding to the co-occurrence of domestic and child abuse; their perceived role and willingness to identify abuse; record keeping; reporting of suspected or definite cases of child abuse; and training received. Methods: A survey questionnaire was sent to 861 hospital and community midwives throughout Northern Ireland, which resulted in 488 midwives completing the questionnaire, a 57% response rate. Comparisons were made using descriptive statistics and cross-tabulation and the questionnaire was validated using exploratory factor analysis. Results: Community midwives reported receiving more training on domestic and child abuse. Although a high percentage of both hospital and community midwives acknowledged a link between domestic and child abuse, it was the community midwives who encountered more suspected and definite (p