The COVID-19 Pandemic: Reshaping Public Health Policy Response Envisioning Health as a Common Good.

On 31 December 2019, the World Health Organization (WHO) was informed of a cluster of cases of pneumonia of unknown cause detected in Wuhan, Hubei Province, China [...].

A realist synthesis of staff-based primary health care interventions addressing universal health coverage.

Background: Universal Health Coverage (UHC) can be achieved by universal access to a solid and resilient people-centred health care system, with Primary Health Care (PHC) as its foundation and strategy. Increased access to PHC occurs when health care services are available, affordable, accessible, acceptable, and perceived appropriate by users. Many studies highlight that health care workers are critical in helping people access, navigate, and interact with PHC services. How the interventions involving health care staff work and under what circumstance remains unclear. Methods: Through a systematic review and a realist synthesis, we identified and described staff-based interventions impacting UHC through PHC. We conducted the systematic review from inception to June 2021, searching for peer-reviewed studies published in English, using quantitative methods for evaluating interventions. Results: We identified three Context-Mechanism-Outcome (CMO) configurations: inserting culturally sensitive ad hoc bridge figures, tailoring staff practices to the needs of specified populations, and training as a means for staff reskilling. Inserting ad hoc bridge figures in health care services was successful when they were familiar with the contextual culture and the users' needs. The second configuration entails interventions where the staff was asked to consider the needs of targeted populations and differentiate strategies by the detected conditions. Finally, the third one consists of specific, ad hoc, and context-based training targeting several stakeholders. Central to this intervention was training for health care bridge figures, since they were explicitly trained before performing their duties to cope with the health care and social needs of the specific groups they intended to serve. Conclusions: The review highlights that the context and contextual factors should be considered for an intervention to be successful. Hence, it provides policymakers with practical indications for designing staff-based interventions for reaching UHC within PHC services in a given context. Healthcare bridge figures, an umbrella term embracing a variety of selected community health workers, often trained and working in the communities from which they come, increase access to PHC services as they respond to local societal and cultural norms and customs, ensuring community acceptance and ownership.

From classroom training to e-learning: a journey through the quality of learning life of nurse students in post-graduate education - A longitudinal qualitative study.

BACKGROUND AND AIM: recent studies regarding COVID-19 experiences of nursing students highlighted the effect of the transition from face-to-face to online education, rather than the complexity of the overall quality of educational life. This study aim investigating of how the students perceive the quality of educational life in the forced online training, searching for any shift of meanings concerning the students learning experience, from the first phase of the sudden transition to online and the online stabilization phase. METHODS: a longitudinal qualitative study, carried during two moments of the online teaching activity forced by COVID-19, the first one in May-June 2020 and the second six months later in January -February 2021. A convenience sample of 24 students attending post-graduate courses for health professions recruited at University of Parma, answered in-depth interviews, videotaped, verbatim transcribed and analyzed using the Braun and Clarke model. RESULTS: five themes emerged from meaning shift of data collection: reactions to change in educational life; factors favoring a new quality of educational life; factors hindering the perception of the quality of educational life; adaptation strategies to the new educational life; tools and strategies to facilitate communication and the absence of the classroom. CONCLUSIONS: participants perceive advantages of online teaching, on quality of their educational life. The issue of how to create opportunities for internship period remains open. Further research to understand online internship and exploring what extent it is essential to propose it in face-to-face modality.

The Traffic Light Approach: Indicators and Algorithms to Identify Covid-19 Epidemic Risk Across Italian Regions.

With the beginning of the autumn-winter season, Italy experienced an increase of SARS-CoV-2 cases, requiring the Government to adopt new restrictive measures. The national surveillance system in place defines 21 key process and performance indicators addressing for each Region/Autonomous Province: (i) the monitoring capacity, (ii) the degree of diagnostic capability, investigation and contact tracing, and (iii) the characteristics of the transmission dynamics as well as the resilience of health services. Overall, the traffic light approach shows a collective effort by the Italian Government to define strategies to both contain the spread of COVID-19 and to minimize the economic and social impact of the epidemic. Nonetheless, on what principles color-labeled risk levels are assigned on a regional level, it remains rather unclear or difficult to track.