ONLINE PROMOTION OF PUBLIC HEALTH

The need for competency-based training for the public health workforce is well recognised and documented. In the promotion of public health and associated community initiatives, a sound knowledge base is an essential and irreplaceable requirement apart from the experience of the professionals, and to some extend that of the public members. Traditional mode of learning is gradually substituted by a blended learning model of face-to-face and online methods. This is a natural adoption arising from the fast development and population-wide use of the information technology. The need for online learning is often also due to human and financial resource limitations, and now more substantially with the COVID-19 pandemic affecting the entire world. An effective distance education programme and training model for public health practitioners includes a standardised process for development, review, evaluation and continuous quality improvement, and should address topics related to regulatory responsibilities of public health practitioners, e.g. compliance with codes and regulations governing housing, food safety, water supplies, waste management, etc., public health surveillance, case investigation, disease prevention, health promotion and emergency preparedness. Online learning is equally applicable to continuing education for the practitioners. In the community, social network technologies have become part of health education, campaigns and wider public health promotion because social support, peer pressure and information sharing in online communities affect health behaviours. Moreover, mobile health monitoring of patients with chronic diseases in the community is becoming a daily e-application with home monitoring and wearable devices. Even the elderly is learning about health and other disciplines from the e-platform such as MOOCs to keep their connectivity with the society. The chapter reviews the extent and scope of the application of online learning in the promotion of public health among the practitioners and in the community both internationally and locally. It also proposed the ways for maximisation of community engagement and further development. © 2022 selection and editorial matter, Ben Y.F. Fong and Martin C.S. Wong;individual chapters, the contributors.

POTENTIALS AND BENEFITS OF HEALTH IMPACT ASSESSMENT IN COMMUNITIES

With the development of economy and society and the change of disease spectrum, the influence of social, natural environment, lifestyle and other factors on health becomes more and more prominent. In order to improve population health and promote health equity, health impact assessment came into being and gradually gained legal status in some countries, becoming an important institutional arrangement. The health impact assessment system has been enriched and improved in practice in many countries, and has become an effective policy tool to protect the health of citizens. Community is the foundation and support of a healthy city. Maintaining and promoting the health and wellbeing of community residents should be the starting point and end point of the community health impact assessment, which can promote cross-sectoral cooperation in health affairs, enhance communication, understanding and mutual trust, and promote health equity and the achievement of the development goals of Healthy Cities. It is also expected to play a constructive role in addressing the major health problems of the contemporary population and in achieving the goals of primary health care. As the largest developing country in the world, the changes in the health status of Chinese residents over the past decades are typical. With the establishment of the strategic goal of ‘Healthy China’, such concepts as ‘Health in All Policies’ and ‘establishing a health impact assessment system’ have become important guidelines of the Chinese government’s health work through legislation and have been continuously deepened in practice. With the help of the global information technology revolution, community health impact assessment will play a more active and important role in the national health care in the future, especially in the prevention and control of infectious diseases such as COVID-19 and in the rehabilitation nursing of chronic non-communicable diseases. Thus, it will largely promote national health literacy and health level to new heights, and make positive contributions to the building of human health community. © 2022 selection and editorial matter, Ben Y.F. Fong and Martin C.S. Wong;individual chapters, the contributors.

Equitable healthcare systems

Equity in healthcare is, though an ideal, desirable in any fair society to ensure all residents universal access to high quality care without socioeconomic or other barriers. Although this is not happening in some healthcare systems, efforts are being made by governments and the World Health Organisation to improve service provision through equity. Strategies to build equitable healthcare systems are presented. It appears that there is potential for academic and community health centres in a primary care oriented healthcare systems to play a key role in the pursuit of health equity globally. © 2021, William S. Hein & Co., Inc.. All rights reserved.

Dynamic knowledge management in response to the pandemic outbreak: an interinstitutional risk-based approach to sustainability

The coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19) represents an unprecedented challenge for the survival of various organisations around the world. The resilience of an organisation depends predominantly on its ability to respond in a timely manner by leveraging optimal decisions, as supported by dynamic knowledge management in assessing rapidly evolving external uncertainties while evaluating real options. Such a capability can be enhanced by a risk-based approach through collaboration among organisations under public health policy directives to implement concerted control measures in a responsive manner. An integrative framework is developed to illustrate an underlying system that embraces dynamic knowledge management to mitigate limitations in the conventional approach based on a single organisation’s perspective. The case of Hong Kong, a highly populated city in Asia, is illustrated to explore the interinstitutional dynamics of knowledge transfer to external stakeholders in protecting public health under an exposed system. Implications for postpandemic management system development for institutional sustainability are articulated. © Operational Research Society 2021.

COVID-19 – A TALE of TWO CITIES: SEATTLE and VANCOUVER

The coronavirus pandemic has been affecting many countries in the world over the past six months. Nowhere sees the light at the end of the tunnel. Precautionary measures, lockdown, as well as control of crowd gathering and movement have been implemented by all governments, with the sacrifice of economic activities. It is interesting to review how things were happening in North America where the United States has been hard hit by the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), scoring over two million confirmed cases and about 120 thousand deaths at the top of the list of the world. Canada ranked eighteenth with about 100 thousand cases and just about 8 thousand deaths. Both the cases and deaths per capita are lower in Canada, which shares the same border and similar culture with the United States. Seattle and Vancouver have some of the highest incomes and educational levels in both countries. These two West coast cities are only 200 kilometres apart and are near the U.S.-Canada border. They are selected for this review to study the different approaches in managing the COVID-19 pandemic. © 2020 Australasian College of Health Service Management. All rights reserved.