Medical Social Sciences Research Articles

Infodemic management in higher education: Mapping opportunities at the University of Belgrade

Abstract Background Effective infodemic management (IM) requires a multidisciplinary approach and the use of various skills originating from natural, social, and medical sciences. Personnel involved in IM activities have diverse backgrounds from medical doctors and data scientists to communication specialists and journalists. However, the IM framework is rarely introduced into the existing teaching programs, compromising the training of a competent workforce. Objectives Our goal was to identify opportunities for integrating the IM framework into the existing teaching programs at the University of Belgrade. A team of researchers reviewed the curricula of 31 faculty and identified the courses that already covered IM skills or had the potential to include them in their teaching programs. The research was conducted as part of the U.S. Federal Assistance Award within the University Partnership Program between Emory University and the University of Belgrade. Results After conducting independent reviews and reaching a consensus, over 40 different courses and/or teaching programs have been identified to include or could potentially integrate IM skills and competencies. These courses are found across all major academic clusters (natural sciences and mathematics, technology and engineering, medical sciences, social sciences, and humanities). Faculties of medicine, pharmacy, and dentistry lead with the number of courses and interested teaching staff, followed by social sciences (psychology, sociology, political science). Most of the identified courses are related to information, data science, and communications. Conclusions There is a promising opportunity to introduce IM skills into the current teaching programs at the University of Belgrade. Faculties from the medical sciences group have a solid potential to lead such a process. Collaborative efforts are needed to establish comprehensive teaching programs to ensure a competent public health workforce and certification. Key messages • University of Belgrade has the potential to introduce infodemic management skills into its existing teaching programs, respecting the multidisciplinary nature of this discipline. • Medical and social sciences faculties can lead the process of mainstreaming infodemic management in their curricula, ensuring a competent public health workforce and certification.

Development and implementation of the Capstone Program on integrating career exploration and medical humanities at a medical school in Korea.

This study aimed to implement and evaluate the outcomes, perceptions, and satisfaction of the Capstone Program developed at the Catholic University of Korea, which integrates career exploration and medical humanities. This study was conducted with fourth-year medical students from 2017 to 2019. First, the study analyzed the trends in the results of Capstone Projects conducted by students as part of their career exploration, where they independently explored areas of interest and selected topics. Second, it qualitatively analyzed the content of individual reports in which students reflected on their experiences from a "medical humanities perspective" through the Capstone Program. Third, it examined students' perceptions and satisfaction with the Capstone Program. The analysis revealed that students chose research topics from a wide range of fields, including basic medicine, clinical medicine, global healthcare, and integrated healthcare systems and innovation. The students reported positive perceptions of their career exploration and research experiences through the Capstone Program, particularly valuing sessions like "Meetings with Seniors" within the conference framework. Students indicated that the Capstone Program enhanced their ability to think introspectively from a humanities perspective, deepening their understanding of their roles and responsibilities as medical professionals. The Capstone Program provides a significant opportunity for medical students to explore their career paths and engage in introspective reflection from the viewpoint of medical humanities and social sciences. Thus, the integration of programs like capstone into the broader medical curriculum, focusing on career guidance and the reinforcement of medical humanities education, is imperative.

Social capital in academia: Measuring researchers’ collaboration habits versus preferences

Abstract Many studies concerning social capital in academia have used social network theory and social network analysis as an approach. Social network analysis focuses on a boundary set of actors in a network and what it reveals as an outcome of social capital. However, social capital is also a precursor or catalyst for cooperative work. Here, we investigate researchers’ perceptions of social capital based on the hypothesis that what academics do when they collaborate (as a habit), may not relate to what they actually prefer. We have piloted a questionnaire-survey to test this, focusing on the goal-seeking behavior of publishing new research. Data were collected from 1,092 academics, across 6 faculties at the University of Copenhagen: Health and Medical Science, Science, Social Sciences, Humanities, Law, and Theology. The survey of collaboration habits first revealed significant differences at the level of gender, academic position, years active in publishing, and faculty. Collaboration preferences, interpreted from social capital theory, were also measured according to three interrelated dimensions—i.e. cognitive, relational, and structural. Survey respondents tended to prefer the cognitive-relational aspects of collaboration (i.e. reciprocity and obligation; shared understandings), over certain structural determinants (i.e. linking to networks). Few habits and preferences correlated and did not correlate strongly. Amongst the researchers who indicated a preference for bridging networks (i.e. working with people who have different types of expertise), few confirmed this as a collaboration habit, particularly with experts from organizations outside academia (i.e. the business/public sector).

The right to health care in the system of social human rights

In the current academic literature, the right to health is considered in the context of a wide range of disciplines, including medical law, international law and social sciences. An important step in the formation of the legal framework for the right to health was the adoption of the WHO Constitution in 1946, which proclaimed that «the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of health is a fundamental right of every human being». This declaration became the basis for the further development of international health standards, including the 1966 International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, which in Article 12 recognises the right of everyone to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health.
 Research and scholarship on the right to health covers various aspects of this issue, including analyses of national health systems, examination of international standards and their impact on national legislation, and development of recommendations to ensure equal access to health services. Despite the significant achievements in the development of international norms and standards, there are challenges related to their implementation at the national level, including the need to adapt national legislative and institutional frameworks to international obligations.
 Ukraine, like many other countries, is striving to meet international standards in the field of the right to health, while facing a number of challenges that require a comprehensive approach to reforming the national healthcare system. Scientific research plays an important role in this process, helping to identify gaps in legislation and practice, as well as to develop sound recommendations for their elimination.
 Given these aspects, this article aims not only to analyse the theoretical foundations of the right to healthcare, but also to highlight the practical steps and challenges that Ukraine faces on the way to its full implementation.

From The Editor: Flexner Report 3.0—Structurally competent healthcare

The editor advocates to formalize the addition of “Medical Social Sciences” as a basic science in our Schools of Medicine and “Clinical Decision Science” as the corollary clinical practice discipline: a “Flexner Report 3.0."

Learning Language, Un/Learning Empathy in Medical School.

This article considers the ways in which empathy for patients and related solidarity with communities may be trained out of medical students during medical school. The article focuses especially on the pre-clinical years of medical school, those that begin with orientation and initiation events such as the White Coat Ceremony. The ethnographic data for the article come from field notes and recordings from my own medical training as well as hundreds of hours of observant participation and interviews with medical students over the past several years. Exploring the framework of language socialization, I argue that learning the verbal, textual and bodily language of medical practice contributes to the increasing experience of separation between physicians and patients. Further considering the ethnographic data, I argue that we also learn a form of empathy limited to performance that short circuits clinical care and the possibility for solidarity for health equity. The article concludes with implications for medical education and the medical social sciences and humanities.

Linguistic and semantic characteristics of articles and peer review reports in Social Sciences and Medical and Health Sciences: analysis of articles published in Open Research Central

We aimed to examine the differences in articles, peer review and editorial processes in Medical and Health Sciences vs. Social Sciences. Our data source was Open Research Central (ORC) portal, which hosts several journal platforms for post-publication peer review, allowing the analysis of articles from their submission, regardless of the publishing outcome. The study sample included 51 research articles that had Social Sciences tag only and 361 research articles with Medical and Health Sciences tag only. Levenshtein distance analysis showed that text changes over article versions in social science papers were statistically significant in the Introduction section. Articles from Social Sciences had longer Introduction and Conclusion sections and higher percentage of articles with merged Discussion and Conclusion sections. Articles from Medical and Health Sciences followed the Introduction-Methods-Results-Discussion (IMRaD) structure more frequently and contained fewer declarations and non IMRaD sections, but more figures. Social Sciences articles had higher Word Count, higher Clout, and less positive Tone. Linguistic analysis revealed a more positive Tone for peer review reports for articles in Social Sciences and higher Achievement and Research variables. Peer review reports were significantly longer for articles in Social Sciences but the two disciplines did not differ in the characteristics of the peer review process at all stages between the submitted and published version. This may be due to the fact that they were published on the same publication platform, which uses uniform policies and procedures for both types of articles.

“A million other factors killing us”: Black women's health and refusing necropolitics-as-usual during COVID-19

Ongoing social, economic, and political marginalization combined with racialized gender violence has sentenced Black women in the United States to disproportionate harm in the form of premature illness and death. Despite widespread recognition within the medical social sciences, public health, and social work of the health inequities that unevenly impact Black women, as a population, their suffering continues to be overlooked and marginalized in biomedical research, healthcare institutions, and health policy. This omission contributes to the naturalization and normalization of heightened morbidity and mortality of Black women. In this article, we draw from theory on necropolitics, misogynoir, and Black ecologies of care in analyzing findings from semi-structured interviews conducted between February and June 2021 with African American women (n = 16) who were experiencing a chronic health condition or caring for someone with a chronic health condition in Tucson, Arizona. Interviews explored women’s healthcare-seeking behaviors, experiences with healthcare providers, and self-care and caregiving during the COVID-19 pandemic. Our findings suggest that necropolitical logics in the form of naturalization and normalization of Black women's suffering – and of the structures that render such suffering – permeated but did not entirely define women's experiences of the pandemic, including how they navigated biomedical spaces and negotiated interactions with healthcare providers, engaged in practices of care (including self-care), and perceived and made meaning of their own health statuses. We advance a Black ecologies of care framework: (1) to make visible and hold accountable necropolitical structures in tabulations of morbidity and mortality; and (2), despite the myriad harms represented in logics of necropolitics-as-usual, to foreground the life-affirming practices by women that persist nevertheless.

Wicked problems in a post-truth political economy: a dilemma for knowledge translation

The discipline of knowledge translation (KT) emerged as a way of systematically understanding and addressing the challenges of applying health and medical research in practice. In light of ongoing and emerging critique of KT from the medical humanities and social sciences disciplines, KT researchers have become increasingly aware of the complexity of the translational process, particularly the significance of culture, tradition and values in how scientific evidence is understood and received, and thus increasingly receptive to pluralistic notions of knowledge. Hence, there is now an emerging view of KT as a highly complex, dynamic, and integrated sociological phenomenon, which neither assumes nor creates knowledge hierarchies and neither prescribes nor privileges scientific evidence. Such a view, however, does not guarantee that scientific evidence will be applied in practice and thus poses a significant dilemma for KT regarding its status as a scientific and practice-oriented discipline, particularly within the current sociopolitical climate. Therefore, in response to the ongoing and emerging critique of KT, we argue that KT must provide scope for relevant scientific evidence to occupy an appropriate position of epistemic primacy in public discourse. Such a view is not intended to uphold the privileged status of science nor affirm the “scientific logos” per se. It is proffered as a counterbalance to powerful social, cultural, political and market forces that are able to challenge scientific evidence and promote disinformation to the detriment of democratic outcomes and the public good.

Reinventing “Hygiene”: The Sanitary Society of Japan and Public Health Reform During the Mid-Meiji Period

During the last decades of the nineteenth century, public health policy in Japan transformed from a stricter focus on anti-disease measures to a more discursive and long-term strategy, one that attempted to train local and prefectural administrators to implement top-down directives regarding hygiene (eisei 衛生). This paper uses the early speeches and articles published by The Sanitary Society of Japan (Dai Nippon Shiritsu Eiseikai 大日本私立衛生会, lit. “Great Japan Private Hygiene Association”), the nation’s largest forum for the discussion and dissemination of knowledge related to hygiene, to analyze how and why this change took place. Founded in 1883 by leading figures in medicine and the medical social sciences, the Society attempted to reformulate popular understandings of hygiene and health after widespread manipulation of the government’s early public health programs. I argue that the Society repurposed and reformulated supposedly native Japanese healing practices in order to ground unfamiliar medical concepts, including the term “hygiene” (eisei) itself, within the familiar vocabulary of supposedly shared medical traditions. In recuperating and mobilizing these ideas, the organization broadened the discourse of hygiene while also immuring the concept within a circle of medical elites.

English

In the last decade, there have been different mental health challenges among students due to academic stress, especially during examinations. This has led to the need to explore the relationship between psychoactive ingredients, behavioral responses and academic stress in relation to the use of hair creams. The objectives of the study were to identify hair creams containing psychoactive ingredients in use by female students, assess behavioral responses manifested by female students due to use of these hair creams and compare behavioral responses due to the use of these hair creams across the different departments as it relates to academic workload. The study was a cross-sectional survey of four hundred female students (100 to 500 levels) of the Obafemi Awolowo University Ile-Ife, in the Faculties of Pharmacy, Basic Medical Sciences, Administration and Social Sciences. The sample size was determined and randomly obtained from the population. A semi-structured questionnaire which was used as a data collection instrument was pretested. The data was subsequently organized with descriptive statistics like frequencies, percentages and analyzed with inferential statistics like Chi Square, Kruskal-Wallis tests and Mann Whitney test for post-hoc determinations. Twelve percent of the respondents confirmed using hair creams containing psychoactive ingredients. The hair products that contain psychoactive ingredients were Morgan hair cream (4.2%), Dax (2.8%), Mega growth (2.8%), Kuza Indian Hemp (1.4%) and Bergamot (0.8%). The behavioral responses (Anxiety (p=0.217), Mood disorders (p=0.14) and Depression (p=0.234)), were not significantly manifested due to psychoactive ingredients of hair creams. Also, there was no significant relationship existing between academic workload and behavioral responses from the use of hair creams (Anxiety (p=0.079), Mood disorders (p=0.141) and Depression (p=0.169)). The study concluded that only 12% of hair creams contain psychoactive ingredients and these hair creams are Morgan Dax, Mega growth, Kuza Indian Hemp and Bergamont hair creams. Data gathered indicated that there was insufficient evidence linking female students' usage of hair products containing psychoactive chemicals with their behavioral responses, and also, that academic workload did not have a role in the behavioral responses that were being displayed. Key words: Psychoactive ingredients, behavioral responses, academic stress, hair creams.

The Participation of Master’s Online Academic Conferences in Universities in Western China and Its Impact on Their Innovation Ability—Based on the Heterogeneity Analysis of Different Disciplines

The rise of online academic conferences in the epidemic era will be an academic opportunity for postgraduates in western China. Based on the statistical analysis of 463 random questionnaires for postgraduates in western universities, it is found that almost all postgraduates in western universities have the experience of participating in online academic conferences, of which 52.92 % have participated in three or more times. Through multiple regression analysis, it is concluded that the participation of postgraduates in online academic conferences in western universities will promote their innovation ability by positively affecting innovative knowledge, innovative motivation and innovative thinking. For postgraduate students of different disciplines, the participation has a significant positive impact on their innovative knowledge and innovative motivation. Among them, the innovative thinking of medical science, humanities and social sciences and engineering and technical sciences has improved, and the innovative personality of postgraduates in natural sciences has improved.

Exploring relationships between exposure to fast food outlets and childhood obesity at differing spatial resolutions: results from the Born in Bradford cohort study

BackgroundExposure to fast-food outlets (FFOs) is thought to relate to childhood obesity, but evidence is mixed and might be explained by imprecision in exposure measurement. We explored the effect of these differences by using novel geospatial analysis methods to study obesity rates of children living in a multi-ethnic, deprived location in the north of England. MethodsWe included 6260 children enrolled in the Born in Bradford cohort study who had participated in the most recent follow-up (2017–20), aged 6–12 years, and had BMI measurements (n=6260), body fat percentage (BFP; n=5004), and geolocation data for their home address. Informed consent was obtained from parents, and assent from children. Secondary points of interest data were used to classify and geolocate FFOs. We calculated proximity to FFOs using four contrasting methods including street network distance incorporating distance decay. We used linear regressions controlling for socioeconomic characteristics, including sex, age, ethnicity, mother's physical health, and perceived financial difficulties, with area-level deprivation; and built environment characteristics as controls. Complete data were available for 2883 children with BMI measurements and 2013 with BFP. FindingsWe introduced improved spatial precision in the quantification of exposure to FFOs, but this improvement did not lead to substantial differences in associations with BMI, or BFP, when comparing unadjusted associations of BFP and postcode buffers (correlation coefficient 0·08 [95% CI 0·05–0·11]) to BFP and address-based street network distance measurements (0·11 [90% CI 0·07–0·15]). After adjusting for confounders, exposure to FFOs close to home was not associated with an increase in BMI or BFP. Higher BMI was associated with increased maternal BMI (correlation coefficient 0·19 [95% CI 0·17–0·21]) and female sex (0·46 [0·22–0·70]); and comparable associations were observed for higher BFP, with an increased maternal BMI (correlation coefficient 0·40 [95% CI 0·34–0·46]), Pakistani ethnicity (2·89 [1·98–3·80]; reference white British), and female sex (2·90 [2·24–3·57]). InterpretationWe found no association between proximity to FFOs and obesity in children. Maternal predisposition and behavioural and sociocultural factors have a more important role in the development of childhood obesity. More research is required into the effectiveness of policies that ban FFOs. FundingUK Medical Research Council, UK Economic and Social Science Research Council, British Heart Foundation, ActEarly UK Prevention Research Partnership Consortium, and the National Institute for Health and Care Research.

Beyond Competence: Efficiency in American Biomedicine.

“Competence” is a longstanding value of American biomedicine. One underidentified corollary of competence is efficiency: at once a manifestation of competence, a challenge to competence, and a virtue in its own right. We will explore the social construction of efficiency in US undergraduate medical education through an analysis of its sociocultural and technological landscapes. We present qualitative data from two allopathic medical school field sites in the Midwestern United States, where medical students’ careful selection of certain learning resources and overall perspectives on the curriculum underscore their focus on efficiency and pragmatic approaches to knowledge. In the discussion, we consider the ethical implications of physician efficiency, as well as future trajectories for the study of efficiency in the medical social sciences, bioethics, and medical education. We posit that efficiency is at the theoretical heart of US medical practice and education: a finding that has wide-reaching implications for how researchers conceptualize the enterprise of biomedicine across cultural contexts and interpret the lived experiences of physicians, medical students, and other clinicians.

Estimating Population values in the Survey Research

The significance of sample statistics in the research study is increasing day by day. In the various study as medical science, physical sciences and social sciences total population study is guessed from sample statistics. There are two methods for finding population parameter. Viz point estimate and interval estimate. Point estimate is error free method and interval estimate always count error as well as confidence level. In research to find out population values there are fixed standard to draw the sample. The sample must be unbiased, consistent, efficient and sufficient because sample is basic foundation of the overall process.

Joint analysis of informatively interval-censored failure time and panel count data.

Interval-censored failure time and panel count data, which frequently arise in medical studies and social sciences, are two types of important incomplete data. Although methods for their joint analysis have been available in the literature, they did not consider the observation process, which may depend on the failure time and/or panel count of interest. This study considers a three-component joint model to analyze interval-censored failure time, panel counts, and the observation process within a unique framework. Gamma and distribution-free frailties are introduced to jointly model the interdependency among the interval-censored data, panel count data, and the observation process. We propose a sieve maximum likelihood approach coupled with Bernstein polynomial approximation to estimate the unknown parameters and baseline hazard function. The asymptotic properties of the resulting estimators are established. An extensive simulation study suggests that the proposed procedure works well for practical situations. An application of the method to a real-life dataset collected from a cardiac allograft vasculopathy study is presented.

The frequency of pregnancy recognition across the gestational spectrum and its consequences in the United States

The frequency of pregnancy recognition across the gestational spectrum and its consequences in the United States

Proposal for Life Course Intervention Researcher Core Competencies.

Proposal for Life Course Intervention Researcher Core Competencies.

Peer reviewers\u2019 dilemmas: a qualitative exploration of decisional conflict in the evaluation of grant applications in the medical humanities and social sciences

Independent evaluations of grant applications by subject experts are an important part of the peer-review system. However, little is known about the real-time experiences of peer reviewers or experts who perform reviews of a grant application independently. This study sought to gain insight into this stage of the grant evaluation process by observing how experts conduct an independent review in near real time. Using the think aloud approach and Critical Decision Method of interviewing, in-depth interviews were conducted with 16 peer reviewers from a range of roles and disciplines within the medical humanities and social sciences. Participants were asked to think aloud while reviewing applications to different grant schemes from a single prestigious funder. The analysis shows reviewers encountered five dilemmas during the evaluation process. These dilemmas were related to whether or not one should (1) accept an invitation to review, (2) rely exclusively on the information presented in the application, (3) pay attention to institutional prestige, (4) offer comments about aspects that are not directly related to academics’ area of expertise, and (5) to take risks and overlook shortcomings rather than err on the side of caution. In order to decide on the appropriate course of action, reviewers often engaged in a series of deliberations and trade-offs—varying in length and complexity. However, their interpretation of what was ‘right’ was influenced by their values, preferences and experiences, but also by relevant norms and their understanding of the funder’s guidelines and priorities. As a result, the way reviewers approached the identified dilemmas was idiosyncratic and sometimes diametrically opposed to other reviewers’ views, which could lead to variation in peer-review outcomes. The dilemmas we have uncovered suggest that peer reviewers engage in thoughtful considerations during the peer-review process. We should, therefore, be wary of reducing the absence of consensus as resulting from biased, instinctive thinking. Rather, these findings highlight the diversity of values, priorities and habits and ways of working each reviewer brings to the fore when reviewing the applicants and their project proposals and call for further reflection on, and study of, this “invisible work” to better understand and continue to improve the peer-reviewing process.

Awareness and readiness to participate in faculty learning communities and e-resources utilisation among academics of Adeleke University, Ede, Nigeria

The study investigated awareness and readiness to participate in faculty learning communities (FLCs) and e-resources utilisation among academics of Adeleke University, Ede, Nigeria. Survey design was adopted with population of 173 academics in six faculties (arts, basic medical sciences, business and social sciences, sciences, engineering and law) in 2021/2022 academic session of the University. Out of whom 108 selected based on Research Advisors Sample Size Table (2006). A self-developed instrument tagged: ‘Academic Staff Awareness and Readiness of FLCs Questionnaire (ASARF)’ was condensed to Google form for easy participation via the WhatsApp. The findings indicated a high level of awareness and readiness to participate in FLCs with wider access to online resources and social media needed for effective FLCs activities. The potential challenges noted included the need for institutional support and membership commitment to participate in FLCs. While the need to creating institutional policy on FLCs adoption was suggested.