Health Pioneer Research Articles

Don’t Ever Whisper: Darlene Keju, Pacific Health Pioneer for Nuclear Survivors , by Giff Johnson (review)

Don’t Ever Whisper: Darlene Keju, Pacific Health Pioneer for Nuclear Survivors , by Giff Johnson (review)

The Great Trouble: A Mystery of London, the Blue Death, and a Boy Called Eel by Deborah Hopkinson (review)

Reviewed by: The Great Trouble: A Mystery of London, the Blue Death, and a Boy Called Eel by Deborah Hopkinson Elizabeth Bush Hopkinson, Deborah The Great Trouble: A Mystery of London, the Blue Death, and a Boy Called Eel. Knopf, 2013 [256p] Library ed. ISBN 978-0-375-94818-3 $19.99 Trade ed. ISBN 978-0-375-84818-6 $16.99 E-book ed. ISBN 978-0-449-81819-0 $10.99 Reviewed from galleys Ad Gr. 5-8 As an orphan in 1854 London, Eel is cautiously content with his present circumstances. He has work as a messenger at a brewery, and he supplements his scant income by sweeping up for a tailor and cleaning animal cages for Dr. Snow, who experiments on them with that new-fangled anesthetic, chloroform. Since he has a place to sleep, enough to eat, and just enough coin to keep his younger brother Henry in school, his only real worry is being found by his larcenous stepfather, who wants to put his stepsons to work as burglars. Widespread tragedy puts Eel’s own issues into perspective, though, when cholera breaks out near the brewery, and he persuades Dr. Snow to redirect his medical attention to easing the plight of Eel’s neighbors. There’s nothing that Snow can do for individual sufferers, but with Eel’s assistance, he makes a careful survey of the area and musters enough evidence to convince the town fathers that tainted water rather than “miasma” is behind the [End Page 157] outbreak and disabling the local water pump is the best strategy for disease control. Hopkinson crafts Eel’s storyline to lure readers into the real-life drama of the London cholera outbreak that earned Dr. John Snow credit as a public health pioneer. The fictional and informational threads often vie awkwardly for attention, though, and it’s likely that readers who avidly follow one line will become a bit impatient with the other. However, fictionalized accounts of historic epidemics (e.g., Anderson’s Fever 1793, BCCB 10/00) have a robust following, and kids who want to know more about Dr. Snow and his innovative investigation will garner enough background to try Steven Johnson’s accessible adult work The Ghost Map. Copyright © 2013 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois

GiffJohnson, Don't Ever Whisper: Darlene Keju – Pacific Health Pioneer, Champion for Nuclear Survivors, Marshall Islands: Giff Johnson, 2013, 443 pages.

The Ecumenical ReviewVolume 65, Issue 3 p. 402-404 Book Review Giff Johnson, Don't Ever Whisper: Darlene Keju – Pacific Health Pioneer, Champion for Nuclear Survivors, Marshall Islands: Giff Johnson, 2013, 443 pages. Jonathan Frerichs, Jonathan FrerichsJonathan Frerichs is WCC Programme Executive for Peace-Building and Disarmament.Search for more papers by this author Jonathan Frerichs, Jonathan FrerichsJonathan Frerichs is WCC Programme Executive for Peace-Building and Disarmament.Search for more papers by this author First published: 20 December 2013 https://doi.org/10.1111/erev.12058 Read the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Volume65, Issue3October 2013Pages 402-404 RelatedInformation

A discussion with digital health pioneer Dr. Eric Topol

Digital health pioneer Dr. Eric Topol was the most influential physician executive in the United States in 2012, according to a national poll by Modern Healthcare . Topol is a professor of genomics and the Gary and Mary West Endowed Chair of Innovative Medicine at the Scripps Research Institute in

A pioneer of public health, Bernardino Ramazzini.

2014 marks the tercentenary of the death of Bernardino Ramazzini, an academic who lived in the Duchy of Modena in the second half of the seventeenth century. This event represents an occasion to remember his thinking, which is remarkably anticipatory of some concepts and trends of modern public health. Although the main merit of Bernardino Ramazzini lies in his contribution to the knowledge of occupational diseases, which granted him the title of father of Occupational Medicine, his work deserves a more detailed and complete consideration. In fact, the systematic approach to the clinical presentation of diseases and their relationship to work, gathered in the famed treatise De Morbis Artificum Diatriba, resulted in little attention being paid to the preventive aspects of his thinking. The free spirit, the tension for searching, the love for the discussion characterize his scientific attitude, which spans from the anticipation of an epidemiologic approach to studies on the impact of air and climate, from workplace surveillance to suggestions for the protection of health, from proposals of primary prevention tools to recommendations of lifestyle behaviour, from educational issues to health promotion. His scientific, cultural and humanitarian stature is evidenced by his overall scientific works revealing the modernity of his thinking in the light of the present trend of public health focusing on the needs of people and promoting occupational health as an integral component of the health concept.

A focus on Trotula de' Ruggiero: a pioneer in women's and children's health in history of medicine

Trotula de' Ruggiero was the first female physician in history of medicine and her role at Medical School of Salerno. Her reputation in the Middle Ages was so important that her theoretical manuscripts were diffused in all European universities and laid the foundations for modern medicine. Of note, Trotula deepened medicine as an eternal dichotomy between art and science, narrative and evidence. In particular, she spent all her life in treating children’s diseases, exhibiting a kind of emotional, cultural and spiritual maternity of inestimable value.

Comparative Studies of Different Indices Related to Filarial Vector of a Rural and an Urban Area of West Bengal, India

Background: Despite of all types of efforts, mosquito born disease like lymphatic filariasis seems to cause new disease burden in many countries. Proper information about the vector of these diseases is necessary to stop the transmission, but sometime information on vector is scanty from many areas. Present study is designed to collect comparative information about the filarial vector from rural and urban areas of West Bengal in India. Methods: Regular collection of indoor-resting mosquitoes was done from the human habitations of Kolkata (urban area) and Tenya of Murshidabad district (rural area) for 2 years. Collected mosquitoes were identified and examined for different parameters following standard methods recommended by World Health Organization and pioneer workers of the field. Results: In both the areas Wuchereria bancrofti was identified as the causative parasite of filariasis and Culex quinquefasciatus as the vector. In the urban area, overall man hour density, infection rate, infectivity rate and daily mortality rate of the vector was assessed as 27.56, 3.49%, 0.34% and 13% respectively, which was 11.86, 1.41%, 0.14% and 15% respectively in rural area. Average load of microfilaria, 1st stage, 2nd stage and 3rd stage parasite larvae in infected vectors were 8.10, 7.37, 5.38 and 2.75 respectively in urban area, which was 6.45, 5.40, 4.67 and 2.33 respectively in rural area. Among the searched shelters in urban area 4.27%, 8.85% and 1.46% were found to be invaded by 10 or more vector, infected vector and infective vector respectively, which were 1.56%, 2.08% and 0.31% respectively in rural area.Conclusion: Different indices related to the vector mosquito were much higher in urban area of Kolkata than rural area of Tenya in Murshidabad, which indicates that, situation is more favourable in urban study areas for transmission of lymphatic filariasis than the rural one, though the situation in the rural area cannot be neglected. Available data will help to formulate an effective management strategy in those areas.

The Calderone Prize in Public Health A Legacy of Legends

The article presents information about the Frank A. Calderone Prize in Public Health and also notes several winners of the award since 1992. The international award is named for Dr. Frank A. Calderone, a pioneer in public health who considered public health a cornerstone of civilization. The article notes the first recipient was former U.S. Surgeon General C. Everett Koop. Topics include the organizations and agencies represented on the selection committee and the achievements of the 2011 recipient Harvey Fineberg, president of the Institute of Medicine (IOM).

Guest Editorial on the Festschrift “Challenges in population oral health for the 21st Century”

This Festschrift provides important and valuable guidance on population oral health. It is unfortunate that it coincides with the retirement of one of population oral health's pioneers, Professor John (AJ) Spencer, who has made significant contributions to the subject over the last 35 years. Oral diseases and disorders remain prevalent and have detrimental effects on individuals, and society-at-large. Many of our attempts to improve population oral health through existing oral health services have met with limited success, owing to the focus on 'care' rather than 'cure'. It has long been recognised that oral diseases are largely behavioural in origin; but this approach at the individual level has not been entirely successful. There is a need to consider 'mid- and up-stream' approaches to changing oral health and health care delivery systems. However social inequalities are a major determinant of oral health, and their influence in oral health are omnipresent, which emphasises the important role of population oral health in future health care strategies. The Festschrift provides theoretical and empirical evidence of the need for further epidemiological investigations (particularly life course studies), innovative approaches to oral health surveillance and oral health outcome evaluation, plus a realisation that multidisciplinary approaches are the way forward. In an information and globalization era, we must put the 'population' into oral health and this is our challenge for the 21st Century.

Social determinants of health: practical solutions to deal with a well-recognized issue

The call on governments to address the major challenge of health inequities which are determined by the social conditions in which people are born, grow, live, work, and age, is not new. The Commission on Social Determinants of Health worked on this. Its report re-enforces the message from the Ottawa Charter for Health Promotion, which itself was strongly rooted in the commitments made at the International Conference on Primary Health Care in Alma-Ata in 1978.1,2 The thinking behind the Alma-Ata Declaration, of course, dates back much further. Public health pioneers, such as Rudolf Virchow, Robert Koch and Oswaldo Cruz, had an in-depth knowledge of how social inequities relate to health outcomes.3 Robert Koch, for instance, devoted a key part of his Nobel Laureate speech in 1905 to the issue.4 And Brock Chisholm, the first Director-General of the World Health Organization, asserted in 1949 that “the death rate from pulmonary tuberculosis is now everywhere accepted as a sensitive index to the social state of a community.”5 Today, we know that this statement is not only true for tuberculosis but also for noncommunicable diseases, HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases. Reflecting that socio-cultural context is key to public health, the mandate for the World Health Organization to assist Member States in addressing the “causes of the causes” of ill-health is firmly rooted in its constitution.4 So why, one might ask, is it important to hold a world conference on social determinants of health in Rio de Janeiro in October 2011, bringing together Heads of State, Ministers of Health and other social sectors, the most distinguished experts and the world's leading civil society organizations working in the field? The short answer to this is: addressing social determinants of health is a matter of social justice and, looking at current social unrest, we can no longer procrastinate. And there is increasing knowledge about how to do it. Thus, this conference will focus on providing innovative solutions on the “how-to.” Noncommunicable diseases, in particular, cannot be addressed effectively without action on social determinants of health and obesity provides a good example for this. Since 1980, obesity rates have more than doubled in the world. This is due to an increased intake of energy-dense foods that are high in fat, salt and sugars but low in vitamins, minerals and other micronutrients. The problem is not only rooted in people's lifestyle choices and eating habits but also in the lack of availability of healthy, affordable food or – as Michelle Obama has put it – the existence of “food deserts,” especially in urban poor areas. So, in addition to the social gradient in health that runs from top to bottom of the socioeconomic spectrum, we can identify a “food gradient.” This gradient shows both a lack of affordable healthy food and an over-exposure to unhealthy and processed food in the geographical areas which have the highest disease burden. I am convinced that the political leaders coming together for the world conference are determined that more needs to be done to address the societal conditions for people and turn them into environments that are conducive to health. Coming back to the example of obesity, the food industry can play a significant role in promoting healthy diets by reducing the fat, sugar and salt content of processed foods. It can practice responsible marketing and change its strategy (as American retailer Walmart has announced)6 so that healthy and nutritious choices are available and affordable to all consumers. If health as a societal goal is taken up by other governmental and policy sectors, it will contribute to improving equity and economic development and tackling social and environmental challenges. There are impressive examples from Australia, Chile, India and Scotland in this issue. The conference will focus on five building blocks that have proven to be essential for effective action on social determinants of health: governance, participation, the changing role of the health sector, the need for global action and how to monitor progress. Key recommendations are suggested for action in each of the building blocks. We know the “what and the why” of social determinants and we are getting closer to understanding the “how-to.” The Rio Declaration on the Social Determinants of Health as the main outcome of the conference will provide high-level political support for action. Success in implementation will then depend on the will, the powers and the political economy – the political determinants of health.

Lessons from the past: celebrating the 75th anniversary of Poverty and Public Health

2011 marks the 75th anniversary of the publication of George Cuthbert Mura M'Gonigle and John Kirkby's groundbreaking study Poverty and Public Health (1936).1,2 It was one of the first major texts to reflect the emerging ideas of social medicine3 and a forerunner of post-war investigations into health and social conditions such as the Black Report.4 However, unlike similar publications, such as Rowntree's study of York,5 Poverty and Public Health is now largely forgotten, except by historians.6 This editorial attempts to correct this neglect by paying tribute to M'Gonigle as a public health pioneer. It outlines his life and summarizes his classic work. It concludes by highlighting lessons that are relevant to public health policy and practice today. Born in Monkwearmouth near Sunderland in 1889, M'Gonigle studied medicine and then public hygiene at the University of Durham Medical School (Newcastle). He worked as the School Medical Officer for County Durham before serving in the First World War. He then became the Medical Officer for Health in Stockton-on-Tees from 1924 until his death in 1939.7 His campaigning (particularly about child and maternal health) and his ‘public health advocacy’ meant that he was held in great regard by the local population who called him the ‘Housewives' Champion’.7 Poverty and Public Health describes the health of the urban poor in the North East of England in the 1930s, with a particular focus on the town of Stockton-on-Tees. The book initially summarizes the national state of …

Paul B. Cornely (1906–2002): Civil Rights Leader and Public Health Pioneer

PAUL B. CORNELY, MD, DRPH, accomplished many firsts in his life. He was the first African American medical student elected to the Alpha Omega Alpha honor society at the University of Michigan School of Medicine, the first African American public health student to earn a doctorate in public health at the University of Michigan School of Public Health, the first African American elected president of the pro-National Health Insurance Physician's Forum, the first African American to chair the Medical Care Section of the American Public Health Association (APHA), and the first African American to be elected president of the APHA.1 Most impressively, Cornely achieved these firsts without a trace of reticence about his strongly held and powerfully expressed beliefs. Cornely was born on March 9, 1906, on Guadeloupe in the French West Indies but grew up mostly in Detroit, Michigan.1 He received his BA from the University of Michigan in 1928, his MD there in 1931, and his DrPH in 1934. After an internship at Lincoln Hospital in Durham, North Carolina, he accepted a job as assistant professor in the Department of Bacteriology, Preventive Medicine, and Public Health at Howard University's College of Medicine in Washington, DC. He began a productive career as a teacher, researcher, and advocate, and in 1942 he was appointed chair of the department. In 1947, Cornely was also made medical director of Howard's Freedmen's Hospital and was later named chief of Freedmen's Division of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation. He produced a considerable number of scientific articles during this period, several of them published in the Journal.2 In the 1950s Cornely became highly visible as a civil rights leader, focusing on the desegregation of the nation's health facilities. With his Howard colleague Montague Cobb, in 1956 he founded Imhotep National Conference, which through its meetings focused on using legal and political strategies to open them to African American patients and physicians.3 He strongly supported the civil rights movement led by Martin Luther King, Jr., and in the summer of 1963 he was the local medical coordinator for the August 28 March on Washington.4 Cornely also sponsored the Medical Committee on Human Rights3 and strongly supported the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare's efforts to desegregate hospitals through strict enforcement of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.5 From 1966 to 1968 he served as a member of APHA's Committee on Integration in Health Services and in March 1967 he was an active participant in the first nationwide conference on the health status of the “Negro.” He was asked by APHA to summarize the conference, and that summary, published in April 1968, is excerpted here. Cornely was honored by the APHA with his election as president in 1969 and receipt of the Sedgwick Medal in 1972. He contributed actively to APHA in many capacities for several additional decades, and was still reviewing papers for the Journal in his nineties. He received many honors and awards throughout his career but was probably proudest of the University of Michigan School of Public Health's decision to create the Cornely Postdoctoral Program “for PhD level scholars who are conducting research on the clarification, reduction, and elimination of racial and ethnic health disparities.”6 Cornely died in 2002 at the age of 96 years.

Building Person-centered Medicine through Dialogue and Partnerships: Perspective from the International Network for Person-centered Medicine

Person-centered medicine is to a large extent relationship-centered medicine. This involves, first, the understanding that a dialogic attitude lies at the foundation of medicine for the person and therefore represents a commitment to promote this interactive and communicational attitude in all aspects of clinical care. It also involves pursuing the development of partnerships as a natural path and mechanism for constructing the reality and the future of this initiative and its organization. Most immediately, these considerations informed the selection of Collaboration across Specialties, Disciplines and Programs as the overall theme for the Third Geneva Conference on Person Centered Medicine. At the same time, one can usefully reflect on how such considerations have emerged from the work of medicine and health pioneers who perceived and placed the whole person in context at the center of our field. And how these ideas are being nurtured by current innovative work on clinical procedures and strengthened by the cooperation of many global medical and health organizations and a growing community of scholars.

Studies on seasonal fluctuation of different indices related to filarial vector, Culex quinquefasciatus around foothills of Susunia of West Bengal, India

Objective To collect information on the seasonal activity of filarial vector around foothills of Susunia of West Bengal, India. Methods Indoor-resting mosquitoes were collected from the human habitations of 16 villages. Collected mosquitoes were identified and examined for different parameters following standard methods recommended by World Health Organization and pioneer workers. Results Overall man hour density, infection rate, infectivity rate, human blood index and daily mortality rate of the vector were assessed as 10.54%, 6.31%, 1.38%, 77.33% and 13.00%, respectively, which were 12.17%, 8.63%, 2.26%, 100.00% and 17.00%, respectively in the summer season. Average load of microfilaria, 1 st stage, 2 nd stage and 3 rd stage larvae of Wuchereria bancrofti in infected vectors were 10.02, 7.50, 5.56 and 4.68, respectively, which were 11.58, 9.90, 6.27 and 5.44, respectively in summer. Among the searched shelters 63.37%, 8.16% and 2.08% were found to be invaded by any vector, infected vector and infective vector, respectively, which were 68.75%, 12.76% and 3.91%, respectively in summer. Conclusions Different indices related to the vector were much higher in summer, which indicates that, summer is the most favorable season for transmission of lymphatic filariasis in the study area. Available data will help to formulate an effective vector control measure.

Florence Nightingale: nurse and public health pioneer

August 2010 marks the centenary of the death of Florence Nightingale, who must be, without doubt, the most famous name in nursing. Most people, even those in the health professions, think of her as 'The Lady with the Lamp'; the heroine of the Crimean War, who tended the sick and wounded soldiers at Scutari. Important though this was, her main contribution, which continued long after Crimea, was in the organization of nursing training, in hospital planning, public and military health, and in effective collection of medical statistics.

Indiana’s Public Health Pioneer and History’s Iron Pen: Recollecting the Professional Idealism of John N. Hurty, 1896-1925

Indiana’s Public Health Pioneer and History’s Iron Pen: Recollecting the Professional Idealism of John N. Hurty, 1896-1925

Marian Jacobs: pioneer of child health in South Africa

Marian Jacobs: pioneer of child health in South Africa

Public Health Practice and the School-Age Population

By Diane, DeBell ( ed .) London : Hodder Arnold , 2007 ISBN 9780340907207 , 104 pp, £19.99 (pb ) Public Health Practice and the School-Age Population combines contributions from 17 specialists working in related fields across the UK. Its 11 chapters focus on particular aspects of this vast topic including its historical development, activity in the vital sites of home, school and community and key contemporary concerns. Although the last chapter explicitly focuses on growing efforts to connect The child’s perspective and service delivery, this is a recurring theme throughout, with research findings and quotations evidencing the views of young people. With an emphasis on Every Child Matters, each author sets out the legislative and policy background for particular initiatives. Far from dry reading, these sections reference the work of public health pioneers, drawing in places on evidence from outside the UK. One chapter quotes school nurses in 1908 New York reporting the success of dual-focus interventions in school and home environments. Of interest in comparative and historical terms, such passages reinforce that the need for better partnership working persists — as do the inequalities underpinning contemporary challenges to children’s health. As Moules and O’Brien effectively demonstrate, improving child health actually requires us to find ways of gaining admission to the child’s perspective (p. 273). They advocate the involvement of children and young people both as informed and insightful service users, and as rights-bearing citizens enjoying ‘healthy’ interaction in decision-making communities. However, while welcoming the fact that government policy increasingly demands a role for young people in service design and delivery, the authors caution that there are still barriers to their meaningful participation. One such barrier concerns difficulties encountered in mapping existing work. To date, limited dissemination of learning puts a ceiling on the impact of their involvement for both young people and practitioners. The book is certainly not intended as a comprehensive guide to local initiatives. However, readers recognising the problems raised may well be eager to share experience. One means of so doing not mentioned in the text is the ParticipationWorks portal at http://www.participationworks.org.uk— the homepage of which (at time of writing in January 2008) carries prominent features on the work of young people on sexual health, bullying and the personal, social, health and economic education (PSHE) curriculum – some of the issues emphasised by DeBell and colleagues. A problem raised by each and every contributor concerns the shortcomings of the existing evidence base – not in relation to public health problems per se, but rather the effectiveness of interventions designed to address them. The authors urge attention to this as a matter of priority, while acknowledging the inherent difficulties in ‘rigorously’ evaluating much activity, particularly that engaging young people in their own leisure space and in the informal encounters which — paradoxically — they may particularly value. With equality introduced as vital to a field dominated by the consequences of inequality, many chapters devote attention to the challenges of reaching vulnerable groups. The importance of sensitive social marketing to the delivery of public health messages is reinforced with reference to thought-provoking typologies and warnings against assumptions that young people’s attitudes and behaviours link in any simple way to ‘official’ ethnic or other categories in which they are deemed to belong. Informative and packed with useful references, the text is clear and accessible for those without in-depth knowledge of the area. The book will be of use to those planning, conducting and evaluating public health initiatives involving children – as well as those simply interested in what is a high-profile and contentious set of issues. Readers are referred to many excellent online sources – on subjects ranging from asylum-seekers’ access to services to initiatives on outdoor play — particularly useful given the fast-changing environment. However, these are sometimes hidden within the text, with the risk that those dipping into a particular chapter might miss out. It would be helpful were they listed, as are Acts of Parliament, at the close of each chapter, or compiled under relevant headings at the end of the edited collection. The book is an engaging and motivating read, succinctly summarising the challenges with which practitioners must grapple, the directions and principles indicated by research, and the consequences for young people and public health if they fail. Sobering statistics are sprinkled throughout. Helpfully, however, the authors marshal their evidence towards what can be done – in the context of grounded insights into young people’s lives, loves and livers today. Rather than deploring a culture of risk-taking, they exhort practitioners to pull back from paternalism; and ask young people – as readers might ask themselves –What could you do, in your current situation, to help yourself, and why? (p. 256).

Florence Nightingale: Creator of Modern Nursing and Public Health Pioneer

In starting this series of articles on distinguished women in nursing, medicine and the related healthcare professions, the choice of the first name is obvious. Florence Nightingale is, I suggest, the most famous female in the long history of medicine and is a name that is known and revered throughout the world. Most people--even those in 'the trade'--think of her as 'the lady with the lamp', the heroine who went out to the Crimean War and nursed the sick and wounded at Scutari. Important though this was, her main contribution was her continued work, long after the war, in nursing organisation and training, hospital planning, public and military health and her pioneering work in the efficient gathering of medical statistics.

John Snow: early anaesthetist and pioneer of public health

This year marks the 150th anniversary of the death of an English physician who achieved lasting fame in two entirely unrelated fields. He was the first professional anaesthetist in England, making important contributions to the newborn specialty, and he was also one of the founding fathers of modern epidemiology and public health.