1,720,960 research outputs found
Placements in global health masters' programmes: what is the student experience?
No full textBACKGROUND: Global health training is increasingly part of public health training in high-income countries, with placements as key components. We sought preliminary evidence of student placement experiences and learning through masters' programmes at the universities of Oxford and Toronto. METHODS: In a mixed-methods design, we drew on existing programme records, student feedback surveys (Oxford only) and semi-structured interviews with graduates. RESULTS: Students participated in practice, informed policy and conducted research across a wide variety of topics, and with a range of different tasks, mostly overseas. Building on existing collaboration- or partnership-facilitated placement setup. Clear communication and face-to-face time with organizational representatives or on-site supervisors helped clarify placement objectives. Flexibility on students' and supervisors' part enabled students to take advantage of urgent public health activities for learning. Students valued the opportunity to make cross-country comparisons, to see first-hand the role of international organizations and to learn concrete skills in project design, questionnaire formulation, qualitative and quantitative analysis and writing up. CONCLUSIONS: Placements were valuable to public health professionals in training. We encourage other programmes to share placement experience of their students, field supervisors and host organizations
Cardiovascular disease risk factors and women prisoners in the UK: the impact of imprisonment.
No full textCardiovascular disease (CVD) is a leading cause of death throughout the world. In high income countries, the greatest burden of disease is seen in those from lower socio-economic groups. It is therefore likely that CVD is an important issue for prisoners in the UK, the majority of whom were either unemployed or in non-skilled employment prior to imprisonment. However, there is little research examining this issue. The aim of this study was to examine the prevalence of five modifiable cardiovascular risk factors (smoking, physical activity, diet, body mass index and hypertension) in women prisoners on entry to prison and then 1 month after imprisonment. This was a prospective longitudinal study involving 505 women prisoners in England. Participants completed a questionnaire containing questions about health-related behaviours within 72 h of entering prison. The researchers measured their blood pressure, height and weight. They followed up all participants who were still imprisoned 1 month later and invited them to participate again. The results showed that women prisoners were at high risk of CVD in the future; 85% smoked cigarettes, 87% were insufficiently active to benefit their health, 86% did not eat at least five portions of fruit and vegetables each day and 30% were overweight or obese. After 1 month, there were few improvements in risk factors. This may in part reflect the fact that, unlike prisons in other high income countries, there are currently no systematic approaches which address these health issues within UK women's prisons
Living with severe perinatal depression: a qualitative study of the experiences of labour migrant and refugee women on the Thai-Myanmar border
No full textBackground: perinatal depression is an important contributor to maternal morbidity and mortality worldwide. Migrant women, particularly those resettling within low- and middle-income settings, are at increased risk of perinatal depression due to multiple stressors experienced before, during and after migration. Evidence on migrant perinatal mental health to date has focused largely on women in high-income destination countries, leaving the voices of displaced women in low-income settings unheard. This study addresses the current evidence gap by exploring the experiences of migrant women living on the Thai-Myanmar border.Methods: in-depth interviews were conducted with pregnant and post-partum labour migrant and refugee women on the Thai-Myanmar border who had been diagnosed with severe depression. An interview guide covering women's current and past life experiences, social support and the impact of depression on social and occupational functioning was used as a prompt. Thematic analysis was used to identify themes emerging from women's narratives.Results: eleven pregnant and post-partum women with severe perinatal depression took part. Participating women provided extensive insight into the many difficult aspects of their lives that they perceived as contributing to their depression status. Predominant themes emerging from women's narratives included difficult relationships with partners, challenging life situations, mechanisms for coping with depression and impressions of mental health care.Conclusions: labour migrant and refugee women with severe perinatal depression face a wide range of chronic stressors at the individual, household and community levels that are likely to have both short- and long-term negative effects on their mental well-being and day-to-day functioning. Participating women responded positively to the mental health support they received, and findings provide important insights into how services might further support their needs.</p
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Get PDFThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Schools and student obesity: research into school-level environmental associations and student weight-related factors
Get PDFBackground: This thesis investigated the role that primary schools play in promoting healthy eating and physical activity (PA) amongst students. The socio-ecological model (SEM) to health provided the theoretical framework for understanding the different levels of influence on childhood obesity. A systematic review of the evidence was published that looked at the relationship between the school setting and rates of student overweight and obesity (O&O). Its primary aim was to examine if there was a significant association between student Body Mass Index z-scores (zBMI) and the number of school environmental actions in place to promote healthy eating and PA amongst students.
Methods: As part of a larger-scale investigation into childhood obesity led by the World Health Organization (WHO) Collaborating Centre for Childhood Obesity in Victoria, Australia, student- and school-level data were collected using objective measures of student weight outcomes and self-report behavioural questionnaires (providing individual-level data), along with the Be Active Eat Well (BAEW) school environmental questionnaire (providing school-level data). Descriptive and regression analyses were completed to investigate statistical associations between student zBMI and results from the BAEW questionnaire, including once adjusted intermediary factors and clustering.
Results: From a sample of 715 Year 4 and 6 students across 34 primary schools, males reported a significantly higher prevalence of O&O than females (34.3% and 28.7%, respectively) and further analyses were split by gender. Indigenous Australian students reported significantly higher rates of zBMI than non-Indigenous Australians (p-value = 0.001), but with only a small sample size (n = 23). A range of significant associations were found between individual-level factors. Fully adjusted multivariate regression models reported a significant association between student zBMI and the amount that schools did to promote healthy eating amongst female students (p-value = 0.007).
Conclusion: The number of school-level actions in place to promote healthy eating was significantly associated with student zBMI in girls. This thesis was supportive of the hypothesis that schools play an important role in the prevention of childhood O&O. It makes a unique contribution to the evidence-base in terms of the methodology behind the study of school effects on student weight outcomes. It promotes the adoption of a socio-ecological approach to childhood obesity prevention, focused across all levels of society, and provides direction for future research and policy and legislation aimed at preventing childhood obesity in Australia and elsewhere.</p
Variations on the Author
Get PDF“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Get PDFWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Get PDFWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
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