“Lusog-linang”: Utilizing community-engaged research towards capacity building in health of an underserved community

@#<strong>BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES</strong><p style="text-align: justify;" data-mce-style="text-align: justify;">Nurses have a pivotal role in nurturing the capabilities of individuals, families, and population groups for better health. However, underserved communities in the Philippines, such as those with socioeconomic inadequacies, geographic isolation, and service access problems, have significant limitations in attaining the highest possible level of health. Hence, a community extension service (Project “Lusog-Linang”), employing community-engaged research, was launched with the residents of an underserved locality in Central Luzon. The current paper aimed to describe the engagement of the community residents in describing their current health situation and related priority problems, as well as explore appropriate initiatives to manage the identified problems.</p><strong>METHODS</strong><p style="text-align: justify;" data-mce-style="text-align: justify;">Community-engaged research was utilized to enable the residents of Barangay San Vicente, Bamban, Tarlac to participate in health capacity building. Particularly, records review and focus group discussions were conducted to assess the community’s health needs and to identify the residents’ perceived problems. The findings were presented in a community assembly, where residents further discussed their priority health concerns and potential interventions to address them. Quantitative data were summarized through descriptive statistics, while qualitative information was synthesized via content analysis.</p><strong>RESULTS</strong><p style="text-align: justify;" data-mce-style="text-align: justify;">The priority community health problems included healthcare inaccessibility (trained staff, health equipment, and facility access), food insecurity, water supply limitations, and environmental sanitation. Moreover, there was inadequate knowledge and skills among the residents in health promotion, disease prevention, and illness management. While Barangay San Vicente had limited socioeconomic resources to optimize their health capacities, the sense of community among the residents is a vital resource towards empowering them to improve their health.</p><strong>CONCLUSION</strong><p style="text-align: justify;" data-mce-style="text-align: justify;">The results could be utilized as a launching pad for developing appropriate health programs for the residents of Barangay San Vicente. Hence, the next steps in Project “Lusog-Linang” should include the identification and training of core group members toward community mobilization, and further exploring collaborative and sustainable partnerships across organizations to ensure that the community will have long-term solutions to their problems. Consequently, this project could guide public health workers in ensuring the active involvement and participation of the community members in managing their own health.</p>

Caring and witnessing in an urban poor community through engaged ethnography amidst the COVID19 pandemic

@#In this paper, I reflect on caring and witnessing through engaged ethnography of an urban poor community during the onset of the COVID19 pandemic. The urban poor are individuals and families who live below the poverty line in metropolitan areas, many of whom have little or no political voice and are insufficiently protected by social networks and other institutions. In March 2020, the government placed Metro Manila under Enhanced Community Quarantine to control the spread of COVID19. This left many an urban poor community in Metro Manila to struggle even more against an already precarious existence. By standard, nurses render different levels of care for urban poor clients in almost all health care settings. In public health nursing, we come in close contact to the realities of our clients when we see them in health centers, in the community, or whenever we do our home visits. Now, caring for vulnerable and marginalized groups such as the urban poor has changed due to minimum public health standards of wearing masks, physical distancing, handwashing, and enforcement of lockdowns. As a nurse, an academic, and as a student of anthropology, I came up for self-review while doing an article for a popular social news network derived from a virtually engaged ethnography. While this novel method requires you to see the world through the eyes of the “other,” and generates bioethical dialogue and awareness of personal biases in addressing ethical considerations and challenges, it gives voice and fulfills our roles as client advocates. In May 2020, the article was published with the urban poor organization and its partners as my coauthors. I borrowed from anthropology to arrive at a greater understanding of the socio-cultural effects and political implications of COVID19 to one of the most vulnerable nursing clientele – the urban poor.

Maternal outcome of primigravida patient with term pregnancy with engaged versus unengaged foetal head at onset of labour

Background: The primigravida are a group at risk as their capacity of child bearing has never put to the test, “primigravida is a dark and untired horse". The potential for future child bearing is determined by outcome of first labour. Hence, if first pregnancy results in normal healthy child, patient is mentally better prepared for subsequent pregnancies. Foetal head is said to be engaged when its biparietal diameter, the greatest diameter in an occiput presentation, passes through the pelvic inlet. Unengagement of head in primigravida has long been considered a possible sign of cephalopelvic disproportion.Methods: The study had 220 primigravida of which 110 had unengaged head as study group and 110 engaged head as controls. Data collection was done and the course of labour in all the patients recorded on partograph and all the patients were studied in detail. Engagement of the head was defined on the basis of Second Pawlik’s grip and Crichton’s fifth’s formula.Results: Our study shows that higher age group had more number of cases with unengaged head. The patient with engaged head had higher number of vaginal delivery than study group with unengaged head. More number of LSCS i.e. about 39.1% in study group as compared to 21% of controls is statistically significant difference (p value 0.05).Conclusions: We can conclude that primigravida with unengaged foetal head at onset of labour may deliver vaginally with minimal maternal morbidity, if proper   monitoring and maintenance of partogram is done.

An investigation of reproductive health in female workers engaged in administrative management / 中华劳动卫生职业病杂志

Objective@#To investigate the reproductive health status of female workers engaged in administrative management, and to provide a reference for protecting the reproductive health of female workers. @*Methods@#From April to November, 2016, a cross-sectional survey was performed for 2717 female workers aged 18-60 years and engaged in administrative management from 13 cities and provinces in China, and a questionnaire was used to investigate their general information, occupational hazards in workplace, and reproductive health status, and the reproductive health status of female workers was analyzed. @*Results@#Of all 2 717 female workers, 1 170 had gynecological diseases or symptoms, resulting in an incidence rate of 43.06%, and among these workers, 11.15% had abnormal menstruation, 34.64% had infertility, and 38.76% had a history of abortion. There were significant differences in the rates of abnormal results of gynecological examination, abnormal menstruation, abortion, and infertility between the female workers in different age groups (P<0.01) . Unhealthy living habits and major events were risk factors for gynecological diseases, abnormal menstruation, and abortion (P<0.05) ; bad working status was a risk factor for gynecological diseases and abortion (P<0.05) ; exposure to harmful factors was a risk factor for gynecological diseases and abnormal menstruation (P<0.05) . @*Conclusion@#Living habits, major events, working status, and occupational harmful factors have certain influence on reproductive health of female workers engaged in administrative management. Occupational health protection should be strengthened, working patterns should be improved, self-protection awareness should be raised, and health protection should be enhanced for women of childbearing age to protect and promote the reproductive health of female workers.

Adding technical competitive intelligence analysis into scientific literature novelty assessment / 中华医学图书情报杂志

After a description of research contents and methods in scientific literature novelty assessment and tech-nical competitive intelligence , the necessity and feasibility to add technical competitive intelligence analysis into scientific literature novelty assessment were analyzed , followed by an elaboration on adding technical competitive in-telligence analysis into scientific literature novelty assessment in aspects of the contents , types and report of scientific literature novelty assessment in combination with case analysis , which showed that technical competitive intelligence analysis is an effective method for searching literature and writing scientific literature novelty assessment report .

Avaliação in vitro da microdureza do esmalte dentário após exposição a bebidas isotônicas / In vitro evaluation of dental enamel microhardness after exposure to isotonic beverages

Objetivo: Analisar in vitro a microdureza do esmalte dentario apos exposicao a bebidas isotonicas. Metodo: Foram confeccionados 25 corpos de prova os quais foram divididos em cinco grupos: G1: controle (agua destilada), G2: Gatorade© tangerina a temperatura ambiente, G3: Gatorade© tangerina a temperatura de 90C, G4: Gatorade© limao a temperatura ambiente e G5: Gatorade© limao a temperatura de 90C. Procedeu-se entao a analise da microdureza Vickers antes (T1) e apos (T2) a imersao dos corpos de prova nessas solucoes. Os desafios acidos foram realizados por um periodo de um minuto, seguido de tres minutos na saliva artificial. Esse ciclo se repeti u cinco vezes, totalizando 20 minutos, sendo feito duas vezes ao dia, durante tres dias consecutivos e com um intervalo de 12 horas entre eles. Ao final do sexto desafio acido, foram feitas novamente mensuracoes da microdureza por meio da aplicacao de uma carga de 100 gramas durante 15 segundos. Os dados foram apresentados por meio da estatistica descritiva (media e desvio-padrao). Foram utilizados os testes ANOVA e t pareado. A significancia utilizada foi de 0,05 com 95% de grau de confianca. O banco de dados e as analises estatisticas foram realizadas com o uso do software SPSS 13.0. Resultados: A analise da microdureza Vickers nos tempos T1 e T2 mostrou haver diferenca estatisticamente significativa antes e apos a imersao dos corpos de prova nas bebidas isotonicas (t = 10,49; p = 0,000). Todos os grupos experimentais apresentaram diminuicao nos valores de microdureza apos o desafio acido (T2). Observou-se diferenca estatisticamente significante entre o G3 e o G5 para o tempo T2 (p<0,05). Conclusao: As bebidas analisadas causaram desmineralizacao do esmalte dental permanente, sendo verificado diferenca estatisticamente significante entre os valores inicial e final da microdureza nos grupos que foram submeti dos aos desafios acidos.

Objective: To evaluate the microhardness of dental enamel after exposure to isotonic beverages. Method: Twenty-five specimens were prepared and allocated to five groups: G1: control (distilled water), G2: Gatorade© tangerine at room temperature, G3: Gatorade© tangerine at 90C, G4: Gatorade© lemon at room temperature, and G5: Gatorade© lemon at 90C. Vickers microhardness was measured before (T1) and after (T2) immersion of the specimens in these solutions, by the application of a load of 100 g during 15 seconds. The acid challenge had the duration of 1 minute followed by 3 minutes in artificial saliva. This cycle was repeated 5 times, totalizing 20 minutes, and was performed twice a day, during 3 consecutive days with a 12-hour interval between them. At the end of the sixth acid challenge, new microhardness measurements (100 g/15 seconds) were made. Data were presented by descriptive statistics (maximum, minimum, mean and standard deviation) using ANOVA and paired t-test. A significance level of 0.05 and 95% confidence interval were used. Database and statistical analyses were done using the SPSS 13.0 soft ware. Results: The analysis of Vickers microhardness in T1 and T2 showed statistically significant difference before and after immersion of the specimens in the isotonic beverages (t =10.49; p =0.000). All experimental groups presented a decrease of the microhardness values after the acid challenge (T2). There was statistically significant difference between G3 and G5 in T2 (p<0.05). Conclusion: The beverages evaluated in this study caused permanent dental enamel demineralization with significant difference between the initial and the final microhardness values in the groups subjected to the acid challenge.