American Journal of Public Health Research

Campylobacter is one of the major causes of foodborne illness globally, making prevention of Campylobacter infections a significant public health concern. Factors such as under-reporting and the low dose required to cause illness make surveillance and control of food-acquired campylobacteriosis challenging. A literature review was conducted to identify articles that included relevant information about the causes of foodborne illness, transmission of Campylobacter, specific risk factors associated with food-acquired Campylobacter infection and reported numbers of cases of Campylobacter. The majority of studies determine that specific demographic groups are at a higher risk for contracting foodborne illness, with age, gender and location being the most significant factors. Food-acquired campylobacteriosis accounts for up 74 to 85% of total cases, with poultry being the number one contributing vehicle. Location of food-acquired Campylobacter infection differs between countries. In Ontario, the majority of food-acquired campylobacteriosis cases are attributed to food prepared in the home. A risk factor diagram shows the source of Campylobacter organisms and the locations where people are exposed. It then shows causes of food-acquired Campylobacter infection, dividing them into human and non-human factors. Human factors are the major contributing causes of Campylobacter infection in people. Targeted policies should be developed which target these factors and address the specific groups that are at a higher risk for foodborne illness. Policy initiatives that focus on consumer level human factors will have the greatest impact on campylobacteriosis prevention. Further research needs to be conducted to determine the proportion of foodborne illness which can be attributed to specific risk factors and why consumers and food handlers do not follow proper procedures for minimizing exposure to Campylobacter organism. Targeted policies can provide a more cost-effective way to help prevent further cases of Campylobacter infection as well as improve disease surveillance.

American Journal of Public Health Research. 2013, 1(1), 32-37. DOI: 10.12691/ajphr-1-1-5
Pub. Date: February 22, 2013

Full-Text PDF

17071 Views5550 Downloads35 Likes3 Citations

Profile of Insurance Coverage in a National Inpatient Sample

by Sheree M. Schrager, Christine Do, Ian W. Holloway, Eric M. Cheng and Alex Y. Chen

Original Research

To identify the hospitals most strongly impacted by health insurance trends, this study investigated the relationships between hospital characteristics and patterns of insurance coverage in a national inpatient sample. Data from the 2007 Nationwide Inpatient Sample of the Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project were used to examine hospital characteristics, aggregated patient characteristics, and payer mix (defined as rates of Medicare, Medicaid, private insurance, and uninsured). Medicare was expected to cover nearly half of all inpatient admissions; however, hospitals showed a wide range of percentages for all payers, and some facilities reported up to 61.5% of visits from uninsured patients. Significant multivariate differences in insurance coverage resulted from bed size, location, region, and patient age, gender, racial, and socioeconomic distributions. Results suggest that reimbursement policy changes may disproportionally impact certain hospitals based on their characteristics and/or patient distribution and may be particularly informative in the current era of potential system-wide reform.

American Journal of Public Health Research. 2013, 1(1), 27-31. DOI: 10.12691/ajphr-1-1-4
Pub. Date: February 22, 2013

Full-Text PDF

14292 Views5550 Downloads33 Likes1 Citations

The Implementation of a Tele-Homecare System with Service Oriented Architecture and HL7 Message Transmission Standard

by Ching-Sung Wang

Original Research

Because of the continuously growing elderly population and annually declining birth rate, the population structure faces major changes, creating problems regarding medical care and healthcare. To address these problems, this study proposes a tele-homecare system that combines wireless sensors and transmission technologies to provide simple physiological data analysis and remote health management consultation services. This system collects measured data, including heart rate, blood oxygen level, blood pressure, and electrocardiograph results from various physiological measuring instruments using Bluetooth wireless technology to transmit and save these data via the Internet to a remote database. The tele-homecare platform is designed with Web architecture of Smarty modular and provides services to users of all levels. The health management interface of the personalized service-oriented architecture (SOA) provides real-time physiological monitoring and analysis of physiological parameters, allowing users to inquire about their health information using mobile devices or personal computers. This study anticipates that by using Health Level Seven (HL7) as the unified and standardized electronic medical record and Extensible Markup Language (XML) as the data conversion format to provide expandable and integrated medical information services on the Internet and exchange medical histories with other medical institutes, medical resources can be shared. The combination of this system and information from medical institutes allows the integration of the patients’ medical records with their daily physiological measurements. The integrated data can be used as a diagnosis reference for physicians, reducing the time required to modify prescriptions and enabling the nursing staff to fully understand the patients’ physiological conditions. This reduces burden on medical personnel and family members providing long-term care, and ultimately improve the quality of medical services and reduce costs.

American Journal of Public Health Research. 2013, 1(1), 18-26. DOI: 10.12691/ajphr-1-1-3
Pub. Date: February 22, 2013

Full-Text PDF

43871 Views15864 Downloads36 Likes2 Citations

Technology Preference in Choices of Delivery Care Utilization from User Perspective –A Community Study in Vietnam

by Tran Khanh Toan, Bo Eriksson, Pham Nhat An, Nguyen Thi Kim Chuc, Goran Bondjers and Karin Gottvall

Original Research

Choices for delivery care are made based on the available resources and influence health outcomes of women and their children. The aim of the paper is to study utilization and preference for delivery care and related factors in one urban and one rural area of northern Vietnam. Two cohorts of pregnant women were carried out in DodaLab and FilaBavi Health and Demographic Surveillance Sites (HDSS) in Hanoi, Vietnam from April 2008 to December 2009. Together, 2515 pregnant women were identified and followed until delivery through quarterly household interviews using structured questionnaires. Almost all women delivered at health care facilities. Most of the rural women gave birth at primary health care facilities (88.5%) while urban women primarily used secondary and tertiary hospitals (93.6%). Caesarean section (CS) was used for 38.5% of births in the urban area and 12.4% in the rural. Giving birth in hospitals and CS were more common among highly educated women, employed women, women living in households or communities with good economic conditions, and women expected to give birth to a son. Technology preference in delivery care was associated with better socioeconomic conditions and expecting a boy. Improving the quality and reputation of primary health care facilities, informing women about CS risks and monitoring indications of CS are important policy issues.

American Journal of Public Health Research. 2013, 1(1), 10-17. DOI: 10.12691/ajphr-1-1-2
Pub. Date: February 22, 2013

Full-Text PDF

18566 Views6785 Downloads33 Likes1 Citations

Transition of the Health Care System and Sustainable Economy - Case Study for Serbia

by Sofija Adžić and Jasminka Adžić

Original Research

This paper deals with the challenges of the health care system transition in the function of establishing a regime of sustainable economy in . The current system is not able to support this process, because a manipulative transition and a blend of quasy-public, quasy-market and administrative mechanisms of regulation made the existence of both public and private health care meaningless. The basic hypothesis is that the key task of the national health care system is to provide health care to every individual, so that he could cope with the challenges and problems of the development and operation of sustainable economy. Additional hypotheses are:(1) the production of medical goods and services must take place in the administrative hierarchical environment and (2) the main task of the public factors is the removal of barriers that block the adjustment of soft (software) elements of the health care system. In this context, the methodology for determining the transition model of health care can be defined as a process and activities that lead to adjustment of circumstances that cannot be changed, or competently act on those which can be controlled. Restructuring model of the health care system is defined as a mix strategy problems in which we need to solve the problems arising from the interactions of the: (1) health care system, (2) creation of humane conditions for establishing a regime of sustainable economy, (3) system of governance and (4) set of matching elements of education and innovation. A key result is that the solution lies in total re-engineering and in re-defining the justice paradigm. This way, the foreground of public health care system should be in prevention and preservation of health capabilities. Sophisticated and expensive technologies should be left to the private sector, based on the mix of public and private participation.

American Journal of Public Health Research. 2013, 1(1), 1-9. DOI: 10.12691/ajphr-1-1-1
Pub. Date: February 22, 2013

Full-Text PDF

12407 Views4542 Downloads36 Likes2 Citations