Patient Education/Self Management Programmes for People with Long Term Conditions

Regional Summary Report 2012/13

Education for science and science for education: more than a play upon words

In the celebration of the Oswaldo Cruz Institute centenary, we wanted to stress our concern with the relationship between two of its missions: research and education. What are the educational bases required for science and technology activities on health sciences for the future years? How can scientists collaborate to promote the popularization of academic knowledge and to improve a basic education for citizenship in an ethic and humanistic view? In this article we pointed out to need of commitment, even in the biomedical post-graduation level, of a more integrated philosophy that would be centered on health education, assuming health as a dynamic biological and social equilibrium and emphasizing the need of scientific popularization of science in a cooperative construction way, instead of direct transfer of knowledge, preserving also macro views of health problems in the development of very specific studies. The contemporary explosion of knowledge, particularly biological knowledge, imposes a need of continuous education to face the growing illiteracy. In order to face this challenge, we think that the Oswaldo Cruz Institute honors his dialectic profile of tradition and transformation, always creating new perspectives to disseminate scientific culture in innovated forms.

Management of Private Practice in Health Service Hospitals in Northern Ireland: A Handbook November 2007 (PDF147KB)

Management of Private Practice in Health Services Hospitals in Northern Ireland: A Handbook

Health education, recent and future trends

During the past, Health Education has been taking place in a variety of ways: prevention, monitoring and control of potentially epidemic diseases. New trends have been arising (such as 'health corners', interdisciplinary activities, exhibit, 'mini-university' for children, etc.). But it is important to discuss what 'Health Education' means, and define 'health' and rethink educational strategies. Several evaluations have highlighted the limited impact that communication activities, or one-off awareness campaigns, may have.

Natural immunoglobulins (contribution to a debate on biomedical education)

Immunology has contributed to biomedical education in many important ways since the creation of scientific medicine in the last quarter of the 19th century. Today, immunology is a major area of biomedical research. Nevertheless, there are many basic problems unresolved in immunological activities and phenomena. Solving these problems is probably necessary to devise predictable and safe ways to produce new vaccines, treat allergy and autoimmune diseases and perform safe transplants. This challenge involves not only technical developments but also changes in attitude, of which the most fundamental is to abandon the traditional stimulus-response perspective in favor of more "systemic" views. Describing immunological activities as the operation of a complex multiconnected network, raises biological and epistemological issues not usually dealt with in biomedical education. Here we point to one example of systemic approaches. A new form of immunoblot (Panama blot), by which the reaction of natural immunoglobulins with complex protein mixtures may be analyzed by a special software and multivariate statistics, has been recently used to characterize human autoimmune diseases. Our preliminary data show that Panama blots can also be used to characterize global (systemic) immunogical changes in chronic human parasitic diseases, such as malaria and schistosomiasis mansoni, that correlate with the clinical status.

Science education and popularization of science in the biomedical area: its role for the future of science and of society

This paper presents the main subjects discussed in the round-table: "Educational Base for Biomedical Research", during the International Symposium on Biomedical Research in the 21st century; two main aspects will be focused: (1) the importance of popularizing science in order to stimulate comprehension of the scientific process and progress, their critical thinking, citizenship and social commitment, mainly in the biomedical area, considering the new advances of knowledge and the resulting technology; (2) the importance to stimulate genuine scientific vocation among young people, by giving them opportunity to early experience scientific environment, throught the hands of well prepared master in a humanistic atmosphere.

Price policies and Price dispersion in the private healthcare insurance industry: The Catalan case

We present an overlapping generations model that explains price dispersion among Catalonian healthcare insurance firms. The model shows that firms with different premium policies can coexist. Furthermore, if interest rates are low, firms that apply equal premium to all insureds can charge higher average prices than insurers that set premiums according to the risk of insured. Economic theory, health insurance, health economics.

R&D cooperation between Spanish firms and scientific partners: what is the role of tertiary education?

This paper explores the factors that determine firm’s R&D cooperation with different partners, paying special attention on the role of tertiary education (degree and PhDs level) in facilitating the connection between the firms and the to scientific bodies (technology centres, public research centres and universities). Here, we attempt to answer two questions. First, are innovative firms that carry out internal and external R&D activities more likely to cooperate on R&D projects with other partners? Second, do Spanish innovative firms with a high participation of researchers with degrees or PhDs tend to cooperate more with scientific partners? To answer both questions we apply a three-dimensional approach on a firm level Panel Data with a sample of 4.998 manufacturing and services Spanish firms. First, we run a complementary test between external R&D acquisition and skilled research workers and find that firms which carry out external R&D activities obtain a greater return on R&D cooperation when they have skilled workers in R&D, especially in high-tech manufactures and KIS services. Second, we carry out a 2-step tobit model to estimate, in the first stage, the determinants that explain whether Spanish innovative firms cooperate or not; and in the second stage the factors that affect the choice of partners. And third, we apply an ordered probit model to test the marginal effects of explanatory variables on the different partners. Here we contrast some of the most interesting empirical hypotheses of previous studies, and which emphasize the role of employees with degrees and PhDs in facilitating cooperative R&D between firms and scientific partners. JEL classification: O31, O33, O38. Key words: Determinants R&D cooperation, industry-university flows, PhD research workers.

COAC "To Protect and to Serve" the separate representation of children in private law proceedings (PDF 379 KB)

Children Order Advisory Committee discussion paper on separate representation of children in private law proceedings

Primary care at Swiss universities--current state and perspective.

BACKGROUND: There is increasing evidence that a strong primary care is a cornerstone of an efficient health care system. But Switzerland is facing a shortage of primary care physicians (PCPs). This pushed the Federal Council of Switzerland to introduce a multifaceted political programme to strengthen the position of primary care, including its academic role. The aim of this paper is to provide a comprehensive overview of the situation of academic primary care at the five Swiss universities by the end of year 2012. RESULTS: Although primary care teaching activities have a long tradition at the five Swiss universities with activities starting in the beginning of the 1980ies; the academic institutes of primary care were only established in recent years (2005 - 2009). Only one of them has an established chair. Human and financial resources vary substantially. At all universities a broad variety of courses and lectures are offered, including teaching in private primary care practices with 1331 PCPs involved. Regarding research, differences among the institutes are tremendous, mainly caused by entirely different human resources and skills. CONCLUSION: So far, the activities of the existing institutes at the Swiss Universities are mainly focused on teaching. However, for a complete academic institutionalization as well as an increased acceptance and attractiveness, more research activities are needed. In addition to an adequate basic funding of research positions, competitive research grants have to be created to establish a specialty-specific research culture.

Public sector rationing and private sector selection [paper accepted and forthcoming in Journal of Public Economic Theory]

We study the interaction between nonprice public rationing and prices in the private market. Under a limited budget, the public supplier uses a rationing policy. A private firm may supply the good to those consumers who are rationed by the public system. Consumers have different amounts of wealth, and costs of providing the good to them vary. We consider two regimes. First, the public supplier observes consumers' wealth information; second, the public supplier observes both wealth and cost information. The public supplier chooses a rationing policy, and, simultaneously, the private firm, observing only cost but not wealth information, chooses a pricing policy. In the first regime, there is a continuum of equilibria. The Pareto dominant equilibrium is a means-test equilibrium: poor consumers are supplied while rich consumers are rationed. Prices in the private market increase with the budget. In the second regime, there is a unique equilibrium. This exhibits a cost-effectiveness rationing rule; consumers are supplied if and only if their costbenefit ratios are low. Prices in the private market do not change with the budget. Equilibrium consumer utility is higher in the cost-effectiveness equilibrium than the means-test equilibrium [Authors]

Information and education in schistosomiasis control: an analysis of the situation in the State of Minas Gerais, Brazil

This paper presents the main ideas discussed in the round-table "Social and Educacional Aspects of Schistosomiasis Control", during the VII International Symposium of Schistosomiais. Considering the perspectives of schistosomiasis control in Brazil, it is described the example of the State of Minas Gerais , where the disease has been registered for more than seven decades. The importance of an extensive evaluation is now more important, considering the recent change in the Brazilian health system, since the Federal responsibility for the tropical diseases control programs have been replaced by the municipalities coordination. In this way, it is urgent to develop effective alternatives to assist the municipal staffs in the control task. In the specific case of health education, one observes a wide gap between the planned objectives and what is in fact carried out. Instant objectives and the utilization of traditional techniques prevail, which do not take into account the active participation of the population involved. Based on the authors' experience in the scientific and health education, the paper analyzes: (1) some data from a case study in the metropolitan region of Belo Horizonte, which presents the social representation and perception of schistosomiasis by the population; (2) an analysis of 35 different informative and educative materials used in Brazil since the sixties, and (3) some recommendations resulted from the studies that were carried out.

Use of Existing Meningococcal Group C Vaccine - Students in Higher Education (PDF 20KB)

This document is also available in the Publications Section of the DHSS website at:www.dhssni.gov.uk åÊ åÊ