Violence against healthcare workers in the middle of a global health crisis: what is it about policy and what to learn from international comparison?

Introduction: Violence against healthcare workers is a global health problem threatening healthcare workforce retention and health system resilience in a fragile post-COVID 'normalisation' period. In this perspective article, we argue that violence against healthcare workers must be made a greater priority. Our novel contribution to the debate is a comparative health system and policy approach. Methods: We have chosen a most different systems comparative approach concerning the epidemiological, political, and geographic contexts. Brazil (under the Bolsonaro government) and the United Kingdom (under the Johnson government) serve as examples of countries that were strongly hit by the pandemic in epidemiological terms while also displaying policy failures. New Zealand and Germany represent the opposite. A rapid assessment was undertaken based on secondary sources and country expertise. Results: We found similar problems across countries. A global crisis makes healthcare workers vulnerable to violence. Furthermore, insufficient data and monitoring hamper effective prevention, and lack of attention may threaten women, the nursing profession, and migrant/minority groups the most. There were also relevant differences. No clear health system pattern can be identified. At the same time, professional associations and partly the media are strong policy actors against violence. Conclusion: In all countries, muchmore involvement from political leadership is needed. In addition, attention to the political dimension and all forms of violence are essential.

Bending not breaking: coping among Filipino University students experiencing psychological distress during the Global Health Crisis.

The impact of the global health crisis on students' mental health has been well documented. While most of the studies looked into the psychological impact of the coronavirus disease, the process of coping with psychological distress as experienced by university students in the Philippines remains unexamined. Cognizant of the dearth in literature, this grounded theory study purports to investigate and understand the coping processes among 20 Filipino university students. A comprehensive model highlights Filipino university students' coping techniques with psychological distress through vertical and horizontal analysis of the field text, open, axial, and selective coding. To ensure the trustworthiness and truthfulness of the theory and for refinement and consistency, triangulation, peer debriefing, and member checking validation strategies were likewise employed. The novel and distinct B.E.N.D. Model of Coping with Psychological Distress illustrates a substantive four-phased process symbolic of the challenges that a bamboo tree underwent, namely: (1) Befuddling Phase, (2) Enduring Phase, (3) Navigating Phase, and (4) Developing Phase. The phases that emerged had the advanced appreciable understanding of the university students' coping processes that may provide evidence-based information in crafting programs and specific interventions to support and safeguard students' mental health.

Examining the Culture of Excellence (CoE) within a Private Philippine Higher Education Institution amidst of the Global Health Crisis

Excellence is one of the thriving drives that any Higher Education Institution in Philippines to be attuned regardless of the challenges imposed by the society, especially during the initial phase of the global health crisis. The context of excellence in Higher Education has different vantage points that have great indicators or manifestations of being excellence in different foundational pillars of Higher Education Institutions. With this, the researchers examined the Culture of Excellence among the employees of a Private Philippine Higher Education Institution during the pandemic COVID-19 through a descriptive-correlational research design. Thus, the researchers developed and validated a research instrument that suited for the intention of the study. The developed research instrument was digitized and floated accordingly. Whereas, respondents were determined through the collaboration of the purposive and stratified sampling techniques. Afterward, the collected data was statistically analysed using frequency, percentage, weighted mean, standard deviation, and appropriate correlational analysis. It revealed that the respondents agree that they observed the indicators of Culture of Excellence despite of the global health crisis and modality of working. Furthermore, age and educational background were statistically related to their perception towards the Culture of Excellence. Based on these insights, the researchers created a proposed action plan to further harness and strengthen the said culture among the employees of the institution. [ FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of International Journal of Multidisciplinary: Applied Business & Education Research is the property of Future Science and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full . (Copyright applies to all s.)

Exemplary urban unified district superintendents leading with transformational strategies during the COVID-19 global health crisis

Purpose: The purpose of this qualitative multiple case study was to identify and describe strategies exemplary urban unified district superintendents used to lead in crisis using the five critical tasks of strategic crisis leadership (sense making, decision making and coordination, meaning making, accounting, and learning) during the COVID-19 pandemic. In addition, it was the purpose to understand and describe the experiences of exemplary leaders during a time of crisis. Methodology: In this qualitative multiple case study, interviews were used to secure data from exemplary urban unified district superintendents to identify and describe the strategies they used to lead during the COVID-19 global health crisis. Findings: Exemplary urban unified district superintendents interviewed for this research described the importance of communication, collaboration, self-reflection, strategic crisis leadership and management related to the five critical tasks, sense making, decision making and coordination, meaning making, accounting, and learning. Conclusions: By identifying and describing strategies exemplary urban unified district superintendents used to lead during the COVID-19 health pandemic, it was concluded that current and aspiring urban superintendents must be supported with the strategies to strengthen their leadership in times of crisis to best support their organizations. Recommendations: Further research is recommended, to replicating this study with a broader population of superintendents, including women. It is recommended to include social justice in the five critical tasks of leadership, and that the aspiring urban superintendent academy prepares and supports in depth with crisis leadership and management strategies to build successful leaders. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved)

Crisis-Critical Intellectual Property: Findings From the COVID-19 Pandemic.

A pandemic calls for large-scale action across national and international innovation systems in order to mobilize resources for developing and manufacturing crisis-critical products efficiently and in the huge quantities needed. Nowadays, these products also include a wide range of digital innovations. Given that many responses to the pandemic are technology driven, stakeholders involved in the development and manufacturing of crisis-critical products are likely to face intellectual property (IP)-related challenges. To (governmental) decision makers, IP challenges might not appear to be of paramount urgency compared to the many undoubtedly huge operational challenges to deploy critical resources. However, if IP challenges are considered too late, they may cause delays to urgently mobilize resources effectively. Innovation stakeholders could then be reluctant to fully engage in the development and manufacturing of crisis-critical products. This article adopts an IP and innovation perspective to learn from the currently unfolding COVID-19 pandemic using secondary data, including patent data, synthesized with an IP roadmap. We focus on technical aspects related to research, development, and upscaling of capacity to manufacture crisis-critical products in the huge volumes suddenly in demand. In this article, we offer a set of contributions. We provide a structure, framework, and language for those concerned with steering clear of IP challenges to avoid delays in fighting a pandemic. We provide a reasoning why IP needs to be considered earlier rather than too late in a global health crisis. Major stakeholders we identify include 1) governments; 2) manufacturing firms owning existing crisis-critical IP (incumbents in crisis-critical sectors); 3) manufacturing firms normally not producing crisis-critical products suddenly rushing into crisis-critical sectors to support the manufacturing of crisis-critical products in the quantities that far exceed incumbents' production capacities; and 4) voluntary grassroot initiatives that form during a pandemic, often by highly skilled engineers and scientists in order to contribute to the development and dissemination of crisis-critical products. For these major stakeholders, we draw up three scenarios, from which we identify associated IP challenges they face related to the development and manufacturing of technologies and products for 1) prevention (of spread); 2) diagnosis of infected patients; and 3) the development of treatments. This article provides a terminology to help policy and other decision makers to discuss IP considerations during pandemics. We propose a framework that visualizes changing industrial organizations and IP-associated challenges during a pandemic and derive initial principles to guide innovation and IP policy making during a pandemic. Obviously, our findings result only from observations of one ongoing pandemic and thus need to be verified further and interpreted with care.

Understanding How and by Whom COVID-19 Misinformation is Spread on Social Media: Coding and Network Analyses.

BACKGROUND: During global health crises such as the COVID-19 pandemic, rapid spread of misinformation on social media has occurred. The misinformation associated with COVID-19 has been analyzed, but little attention has been paid to developing a comprehensive analytical framework to study its spread on social media. OBJECTIVE: We propose an elaboration likelihood model-based theoretical model to understand the persuasion process of COVID-19-related misinformation on social media. METHODS: The proposed model incorporates the central route feature (content feature) and peripheral features (including creator authority, social proof, and emotion). The central-level COVID-19-related misinformation feature includes five topics: medical information, social issues and people's livelihoods, government response, epidemic spread, and international issues. First, we created a data set of COVID-19 pandemic-related misinformation based on fact-checking sources and a data set of posts that contained this misinformation on real-world social media. Based on the collected posts, we analyzed the dissemination patterns. RESULTS: Our data set included 11,450 misinformation posts, with medical misinformation as the largest category (n=5359, 46.80%). Moreover, the results suggest that both the least (4660/11,301, 41.24%) and most (2320/11,301, 20.53%) active users are prone to sharing misinformation. Further, posts related to international topics that have the greatest chance of producing a profound and lasting impact on social media exhibited the highest distribution depth (maximum depth=14) and width (maximum width=2355). Additionally, 97.00% (2364/2437) of the spread was characterized by radiation dissemination. CONCLUSIONS: Our proposed model and findings could help to combat the spread of misinformation by detecting suspicious users and identifying propagation characteristics.

Impact of Covid-19 on Livestock Production Chain and its Consequences on Food Security: A Review

Covid-19 represents an unprecedented public health threat and a severe crisis of society globally. Government agencies, policymakers and the global institutions, on the other hand, should give particular attention to and try to alleviate the problem (present and prospective) of the pandemic and related crisis response on key sectors that contribute to food stability, nutrition and livelihoods. The livestock sector plays an essential role in these areas, particularly for the particularly vulnerable population groups. Covid-19’s effects on livestock production are still largely unsubstantiated and not fully felt. Although case studies are not yet possible, observational data show interruptions in livestock’s entire value chain. The consequences of Covid-19 on the livestock production chain are in particular interruptions throughout the entire livestock value chain, lack of sales markets, import/export restrictions due to border closures, substantial financial losses to producers, increased cases of food insecurity. © 2022, Agricultural Research Communication Centre. All rights reserved.

The impact of digital marketing and customization on service innovation: Case of Moroccan healthcare services companies during covid-19

COVID-19 outbreak has affected the customers’ preferences and purchasing patterns as a result of the restrictive regulations taken by governments. Thus, service companies must adapt to this change by focusing on innovation as a solution to survive this crisis. Therefore, the basic objective of this study is the development of an integrated framework to investigate the impact of digital marketing and customization on service innovation in the context of the COVID-19 crisis. Data were collected from 53 Moroccan companies operating in the healthcare services industry. The data was analyzed, and the theoretical model was validated using Partial least square (PLS) and structural equation model (SEM). The findings show that: integration of digital marketing improves service innovation;customization of service offerings improves service innovation;customization has a higher impact on service innovation compared to digital marketing;and finally, customization has a significant effect on digital marketing. The contribution of this study is to emphasize the roles of customization and digital marketing, during the COVID-19 crisis, on companies’ service innovation so that they can differentiate their offered services and survive the current crisis. © 2021 International Consortium for Electronic Business. All rights reserved.

Impact of global health crisis and oil price shocks on stock markets in the GCC.

This study examines the impact of global COVID-19 cases and oil price shocks on the stock markets in the GCC. Using the Kalman filter to generate the unexpected oil price shocks, we find that, with the exception of Oman, the GCC markets responded to positive and negative oil price shocks before and during the pandemic, with impacts of higher magnitude since March 11, 2020. We also find that the spread of global COVID-19 cases had in itself no meaningful impact on the GCC stock markets.

Parental Social Isolation and Child Maltreatment Risk during the COVID-19 Pandemic.

On March 11, 2020, COVID-19 was declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization. The social isolation and economic stress resulting from pandemic have the potential to exacerbate child abuse and neglect. This study examines the association of parents' perceived social isolation and recent employment loss to risk for child maltreatment (neglect, verbal aggression, and physical punishment) in the early weeks of the pandemic. Participants (N = 283) were adults living in the U.S. who were parents of at least one child 0-12 years of age. Participants completed an online survey approximately 2 weeks after the World Health Organization declared that COVID-19 was a pandemic. The survey asked about recent changes (i.e., in the past 2 weeks) to employment status, parenting behaviors, use of discipline, use of spanking, and depressive symptoms. Nearly 20% of parents had hit or spanked their child in the past two weeks alone. Parents' perceived social isolation and recent employment loss were associated with self-report of physical and emotional neglect and verbal aggression against the child, even after controlling for parental depressive symptoms, income, and sociodemographic factors. Parents' perceived social isolation was associated with parental report of changes in discipline, specifically, using discipline and spanking more often in the past 2 weeks. Associations were robust to analyses that included two variables that assessed days spent social distancing and days spent in "lockdown." Study results point to the need for mental health supports to parents and children to ameliorate the strain created by COVID-19.

Taking control amidst the chaos: Emotion regulation during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The COVID-19 pandemic represents a major global health crisis that continues to threaten public health and safety. Although the pandemic is still unfolding, measures to reduce the spread of the virus have spawned significant challenges to people's current work as well as their careers more generally. In this commentary, we discuss the implications of COVID-19 for maintaining one's psychological well-being and employment security, and also managing family and work responsibilities. We also bring forth evidence from the emotion regulation literature to help mitigate the downstream negative consequences of COVID-19 on people's work lives. Finally, we offer several suggestions for future scholarly investigation into how this pandemic impacts vocational behavior.