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A special issue of International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health (ISSN 1660-4601). This special issue belongs to the section "Global Health".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (28 February 2021) | Viewed by 54712

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Special Issue Editors

Prof. Dr. Tener Veenema

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Guest Editor

Johns Hopkins School of Nursing, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, MD 21205, USA
Interests: disaster and public health preparedness; emergency health services; workforce development; catastrophic event planning; radiation/nuclear response

Dr. Mary Pat Couig

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Guest Editor

Center for Health Equity and Preparedness, College of Nursing, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM 87131, USA
Interests: public health preparedness; health equity in preparedness; nursing workforce

Prof. Dr. Roberta Lavin

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Guest Editor

College of Nursing , University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN 37996, USA
Interests: addresses critical topics in human services; disaster preparedness and public health emergency preparedness; with a focus on implications for policy related to the profession of nursing

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Earthquakes, bushfires, floods, toxic chemical and radiation releases, Coronavirus, and MERS—each day, a new hazard creates risk to human health and wellbeing. At a time when disasters and large-scale public health emergencies are occurring with increasing frequency and intensity, it is essential that the breadth and untapped potential of the nursing profession be fully understood. Nursing as a profession represents the largest sector of the global healthcare workforce, and nurses are well recognized and trusted in their communities. Nurses play a critical role in preparedness and response initiatives, including strategic planning, community engagement, health education and promotion, and rapid implementation of interventions safeguarding public health before, during and after disasters, mass casualty events, and infectious disease outbreaks. Nurses deliver first aid, advanced clinical care, lifesaving medication, and assess and triage victims and monitor ongoing physical and mental health needs. Nurses keep hospitals operational and assist with organizational logistics by creating operational response protocols, security measures, and statistical analysis of patient data. Regardless of the type of disaster event or the setting, nurses play a pivotal role in disaster and public health emergency response and need specific knowledge, skills, abilities and a willingness to respond to participate in a timely and appropriate manner to these types of events. Lives can and will be saved and population health outcomes optimized when nurses are ready, willing, and able to respond to these devastating events.

Prof. Dr. Tener Veenema
Assoc. Prof. Mary Pat Couig
Prof. Dr. Roberta Lavin
Guest Editors

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Keywords

Disaster
Public health emergency
Readiness
Response
Crisis standards for care
Nurses

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Published Papers (10 papers)

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Research

16 pages, 908 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Appraisal of a Contact Tracing Training Program for COVID-19 in Greece Focusing on Vulnerable Populations

by Elena Riza, Eleni Kakalou, Evangelia Nitsa, Ioannis Hodges-Mameletzis, Paraskevi Goggolidou, Agis Terzidis, Eleni Cardoso, Karl Philipp Puchner, Zisimos Solomos, Anastasia Pikouli, Eleni-Panagiota Stoupa, Christina Kakalou, Evika Karamagioli and Emmanouil Pikoulis

Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2021, 18(17), 9257; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18179257 - 2 Sep 2021

Cited by 5 | Viewed by 2950

Abstract

Background: Contact tracing as an epidemiological strategy has repeatedly contributed to the containment of various past epidemics and succeeded in controlling the spread of disease in the community. Systematic training of contact tracers is crucial in ensuring the effectiveness of epidemic containment. Methods: An intensive training course was offered to 216 health and other professionals who work with vulnerable population groups, such as Roma, refugees, and migrants in Greece, by the scientific team of the postgraduate programme “Global Health-Disaster Medicine” of the Medical School, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, with the support of the Swiss embassy in Greece. The course was delivered online due to the pandemic restriction measures and was comprised of 16 h over 2 days. The course curriculum was adapted in Greek using, upon agreement, a similar training course to what was developed by the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health. Evaluation of the course was conducted in order to determine the short term satisfaction from participating in this training course. Results: A total of 70% of the course participants completed the evaluation questionnaires and all trainers gave feedback on the course. The training modules were ranked as extremely useful by the majority of the participants and over 50% of the participants specifically stated that the course content was directly related to their work with vulnerable groups. Content about the ethics of contact tracing and the effective communication skills presented were deemed most useful. Conclusion: The course was well organised and provided the required skills for effective contact tracing. Many course participants intend to use some components in their work with vulnerable populations groups. Contact tracing efforts work best in a systematic and coordinated way and the provision of systematic and organised training can greatly increase its effectiveness. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Disaster Nursing and Public Health Emergency Preparedness)

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13 pages, 349 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Perception of the Movement Control Order during the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Qualitative Study in Malaysia

by Yea Lu Tay, Zalilah Abdullah, Kalvina Chelladorai, Lee Lan Low and Seng Fah Tong

Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2021, 18(16), 8778; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18168778 - 20 Aug 2021

Cited by 7 | Viewed by 6200

Abstract

Malaysia implemented its first Movement Control Order (MCO) during the early phase of the COVID-19 pandemic to slow the transmission of the virus. This study aimed to explore the public perception of the MCO implementation and people’s experiences during this period. The study employed qualitative explorative in-depth interviews conducted with 23 Malaysian adults from various demographic backgrounds. Thematic analysis was performed using NVivo 12. Three main themes were identified: a period of information surge, heterogeneous emotional response, and attempts to adapt. During the MCO, the participants obtained information from multiple platforms. They suggested the need for clear and repeated instructions to avoid confusion and misinformation. They also acknowledged the importance of the MCO in breaking the chain of transmission and safeguarding high-risk groups; however, they also expressed that stricter enforcement from the authorities was warranted. The changes in the participants’ work–life routines, lack of physical interaction, and uncertainty about their health and the economy due to the MCO negatively impacted their psychological states. Despite these challenges, the participants attempted to adapt to life under the MCO in different ways. The findings imply that during a crisis, the public tends to seek clear and reliable information, experience emotional turmoil, and adapt to changes. The MCO implementation can be improved through an effective communication strategy and efforts to battle misinformation. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Disaster Nursing and Public Health Emergency Preparedness)

12 pages, 2113 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Bivariate Joint Spatial Modeling to Identify Shared Risk Patterns of Hypertension and Diabetes in South Africa: Evidence from WHO SAGE South Africa Wave 2

by Glory Chidumwa, Innocent Maposa, Paul Kowal, Lisa K. Micklesfield and Lisa J. Ware

Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2021, 18(1), 359; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18010359 - 5 Jan 2021

Cited by 7 | Viewed by 6984

Abstract

Recent studies have suggested the common co-occurrence of hypertension and diabetes in South Africa. Given that hypertension and diabetes are known to share common socio-demographic, anthropometric and lifestyle risk factors, the aim of this study was to jointly model the shared and disease-specific geographical variation of hypertension and diabetes. The current analysis used the Study on Global Ageing and Adult Health (SAGE) South Africa Wave 2 (2014/15) data collected from 2761 participants. Of the 2761 adults (median age = 56 years), 641 (23.2%) had high blood pressure on measurement and 338 (12.3%) reported being diagnosed with diabetes. The shared component has distinct spatial patterns with higher values of odds in the eastern districts of Kwa-Zulu Natal and central Gauteng province. The shared component may represent unmeasured health behavior characteristics or the social determinants of health in our population. Our study further showed how a shared component (latent and unmeasured health behavior characteristics or the social determinants of health) is distributed across South Africa among the older adult population. Further research using similar shared joint models may focus on extending these models for multiple diseases with ecological factors and also incorporating sampling weights in the spatial analyses. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Disaster Nursing and Public Health Emergency Preparedness)

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14 pages, 6038 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Spatiotemporal Distribution of Zika Virus and Its Spatially Heterogeneous Relationship with the Environment

by Jie Li, Kun Jia, Yanxu Liu, Bo Yuan, Mu Xia and Wenwu Zhao

Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2021, 18(1), 290; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18010290 - 2 Jan 2021

Cited by 11 | Viewed by 3533

Abstract

Infectious diseases have caused some of the most feared plagues and greatly harmed human health. However, despite the qualitative understanding that the occurrence and diffusion of infectious disease is related to the environment, the quantitative relations are unknown for many diseases. Zika virus (ZIKV) is a mosquito-borne virus that poses a fatal threat and has spread explosively throughout the world, impacting human health. From a geographical perspective, this study aims to understand the global hotspots of ZIKV as well as the spatially heterogeneous relationship between ZIKV and environmental factors using exploratory special data analysis (ESDA) model. A geographically weighted regression (GWR) model was used to analyze the influence of the dominant environmental factors on the spread of ZIKV at the continental scale. The results indicated that ZIKV transmission had obvious regional and seasonal heterogeneity. Population density, GDP per capita, and landscape fragmentation were the dominant environmental factors affecting the spread of ZIKV, which indicates that social factors had a greater influence than natural factors on the spread of it. As SARS-CoV-2 is spreading globally, this study can provide methodological reference for fighting against the pandemic. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Disaster Nursing and Public Health Emergency Preparedness)

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18 pages, 5173 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Racial Segregation, Testing Site Access, and COVID-19 Incidence Rate in Massachusetts, USA

by Tao Hu, Han Yue, Changzhen Wang, Bing She, Xinyue Ye, Regina Liu, Xinyan Zhu, Weihe Wendy Guan and Shuming Bao

Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2020, 17(24), 9528; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17249528 - 19 Dec 2020

Cited by 43 | Viewed by 5956

Abstract

The U.S. has merely 4% of the world population, but contains 25% of the world’s COVID-19 cases. Since the COVID-19 outbreak in the U.S., Massachusetts has been leading other states in the total number of COVID-19 cases. Racial residential segregation is a fundamental cause of racial disparities in health. Moreover, disparities of access to health care have a large impact on COVID-19 cases. Thus, this study estimates racial segregation and disparities in testing site access and employs economic, demographic, and transportation variables at the city/town level in Massachusetts. Spatial regression models are applied to evaluate the relationships between COVID-19 incidence rate and related variables. This is the first study to apply spatial analysis methods across neighborhoods in the U.S. to examine the COVID-19 incidence rate. The findings are: (1) Residential segregations of Hispanic and Non-Hispanic Black/African Americans have a significantly positive association with COVID-19 incidence rate, indicating the higher susceptibility of COVID-19 infections among minority groups. (2) Non-Hispanic Black/African Americans have the shortest drive time to testing sites, followed by Hispanic, Non-Hispanic Asians, and Non-Hispanic Whites. The drive time to testing sites is significantly negatively associated with the COVID-19 incidence rate, implying the importance of the accessibility of testing sites by all populations. (3) Poverty rate and road density are significant explanatory variables. Importantly, overcrowding represented by more than one person per room is a significant variable found to be positively associated with COVID-19 incidence rate, suggesting the effectiveness of social distancing for reducing infection. (4) Different from the findings of previous studies, the elderly population rate is not statistically significantly correlated with the incidence rate because the elderly population in Massachusetts is less distributed in the hotspot regions of COVID-19 infections. The findings in this study provide useful insights for policymakers to propose new strategies to contain the COVID-19 transmissions in Massachusetts. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Disaster Nursing and Public Health Emergency Preparedness)

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12 pages, 661 KiB

Open AccessArticle

The Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Mental Health and Psychological Well-Being of Young People Living in Austria and Turkey: A Multicenter Study

by Türkan Akkaya-Kalayci, Oswald D. Kothgassner, Thomas Wenzel, Andreas Goreis, Anthony Chen, Veysi Ceri and Zeliha Özlü-Erkilic

Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2020, 17(23), 9111; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17239111 - 6 Dec 2020

Cited by 35 | Viewed by 6643

Abstract

Little is known about the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the mental health and psychological well-being of young people. The aim of this study is to investigate the psychological well-being and changes in the mental-health state of young people living in Austria and Turkey. By using an anonymous online survey, we recruited 1240 people aged 15–25 years from these two countries. We used the “Psychological General Well-being” and a self-created questionnaire to capture individual experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic and quarantine period. The native Turks indicated higher “anxiety” (ps < 0.010), lower “vitality” (ps < 0.011), and lower “general health” (ps < 0.011) than native Austrians or Austrian migrants and increased “depression” (p = 0.005) and lower “self-control” (p = 0.022), than Austrian migrants. Moreover, 50.9% of native Turks reported a decrease in their mental health status, compared to 31.1% of native Austrians and 23.7% of Austrian migrants. Participants with financial problems (OR = 1.68) and prior mental health problems (i.e., already in treatment by the time of COVID-19, OR = 5.83) reported a higher probability for a worsening in their mental health status. Our results show that the COVID-19 pandemic impaired the psychological well-being and mental health of young people. Especially people in Turkey were most affected, probably due to the stringent policies to fight COVID-19. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Disaster Nursing and Public Health Emergency Preparedness)

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16 pages, 1211 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Hearing the Voices of Wingless Angels: A Critical Content Analysis of Nurses’ COVID-19 Experiences

by Huseyin Arasli, Trude Furunes, Kaveh Jafari, Mehmet Bahri Saydam and Zehra Degirmencioglu

Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2020, 17(22), 8484; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17228484 - 16 Nov 2020

Cited by 33 | Viewed by 6685

Abstract

The world has been affected by an outbreak of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19). Health care workers are among those most at risk of contracting the virus. In the fight against the coronavirus, nurses play a critical role. Still, most social media platforms demonstrate that nurses fear that their health is not being prioritized. The purpose of this study is to investigate nurses’ experiences through analyzing the main themes shared on Instagram by nurses during the COVID-19 pandemic. In contrast with highly structured research, the current paper highlights nurses’ natural language use in describing their experiences during the first months of the outbreak in their workplace. Instagram captions were utilized as a data source. Leximancer was utilized for the content analysis of nurses’ narratives towards their coronavirus experience. We sought to accomplish three research objectives: the first was to identify the main themes in the descriptions of nurses’ experiences shared via their social media, specifically Instagram; then, to determine the relationships among concepts, and finally, to give useful implications based on the findings. The current study uses a qualitative (i.e., narratives) approach to analyze the main components of the nurses’ experiences during the pandemic. The Leximancer software analysis revealed nine major textual themes and the relationships among these themes. In order of the relative importance, the themes were “patients”, “coronavirus”, “exhaustion”, “family”, “hospital”, “personal protective equipment” (PPE), “shift”, “fear”, and “uncertainty”. The results offer practical implications based on the social media information regarding nurses’ overall experiences. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Disaster Nursing and Public Health Emergency Preparedness)

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18 pages, 603 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Comparison of Two Evacuation Shelter Operating Policies and the Role of Public Health Nurses after the Great East Japan Earthquake: A Qualitative Study

by Hiroko Mori, Shuichi P. Obuchi, Yasuhiro Sugawara, Takeo Nakayama and Ryutaro Takahashi

Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2020, 17(22), 8310; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17228310 - 10 Nov 2020

Cited by 3 | Viewed by 3072

Abstract

This study describes shelter operations by public health nurses (PHNs) in Kesennuma City, located near the epicenter of the Great East Japan Earthquake, which occurred on March 11, 2011. The data were semi-structured interviews with 10 PHNs, 2 nutritionists, and 2 general administrators conducted from July 2013 to January 2014. All transcripts were analyzed using the constructivist grounded theory approach. We identified two operating methods for shelters: shelters stationed by PHNs in the Old City, and shelters patrolled by PHNs in the merged district. These methods were compared using four themes. In emergency situations, “operational periods,” a predetermined short term for a leader to perform his/her duties responsibly, could be adopted for relatively small organizations on the frontline. PHNs must not only attempt to operate shelters on their own but also encourage residents to manage the shelters as well. Moreover, human resource allocation should be managed independently of personal factors, as strong relationships between shelter residents would sometimes disturb the flexibility of the response. Even when a situation requires PHNs to stay in shelters, frequent collecting of information and updating the plan according to response progress will help to maintain effective shelter operations. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Disaster Nursing and Public Health Emergency Preparedness)

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9 pages, 806 KiB

Open AccessCommunication

Preliminary Study of Sars-Cov-2 Occurrence in Wastewater in the Czech Republic

by Hana Mlejnkova, Katerina Sovova, Petra Vasickova, Vera Ocenaskova, Lucie Jasikova and Eva Juranova

Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2020, 17(15), 5508; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17155508 - 30 Jul 2020

Cited by 90 | Viewed by 5520

Abstract

The virus SARS-CoV-2, which has caused the recent COVID-19 pandemic, may be present in the stools of COVID-19 patients. Therefore, we aimed to detect SARS-CoV-2 in wastewater for surveillance of SARS-CoV-2 in the population. Samples of untreated wastewater were collected from 33 wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) of different sizes within the Czech Republic. SARS-CoV-2 RNA was concentrated from wastewater and viral RNA was determined using real-time reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR). SARS-CoV-2 RNA was detected in 11.6% of samples and more than 27.3% of WWTPs; in some of them, SARS-CoV-2 was detected repeatedly. Our preliminary results indicate that an epidemiology approach that focuses on the determination of SARS-CoV-2 in wastewater could be suitable for SARS-CoV-2 surveillance in the population. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Disaster Nursing and Public Health Emergency Preparedness)

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17 pages, 774 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Quarantine Vehicle Scheduling for Transferring High-Risk Individuals in Epidemic Areas

by Min-Xia Zhang, Hong-Fan Yan, Jia-Yu Wu and Yu-Jun Zheng

Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2020, 17(7), 2275; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17072275 - 27 Mar 2020

Cited by 21 | Viewed by 4729

Abstract

In a large-scale epidemic outbreak, there can be many high-risk individuals to be transferred for medical isolation in epidemic areas. Typically, the individuals are scattered across different locations, and available quarantine vehicles are limited. Therefore, it is challenging to efficiently schedule the vehicles to transfer the individuals to isolated regions to control the spread of the epidemic. In this paper, we formulate such a quarantine vehicle scheduling problem for high-risk individual transfer, which is more difficult than most well-known vehicle routing problems. To efficiently solve this problem, we propose a hybrid algorithm based on the water wave optimization (WWO) metaheuristic and neighborhood search. The metaheuristic uses a small population to rapidly explore the solution space, and the neighborhood search uses a gradual strategy to improve the solution accuracy. Computational results demonstrate that the proposed algorithm significantly outperforms several existing algorithms and obtains high-quality solutions on real-world problem instances for high-risk individual transfer in Hangzhou, China, during the peak period of the novel coronavirus pneumonia (COVID-19). Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Disaster Nursing and Public Health Emergency Preparedness)

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