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The antibiotic amoxicillin is usually recommended as a first-line treatment for many common infections affecting children. Repeated lockdowns related to the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic have contributed to supply difficulties for many drugs, including antibiotics. However, the risks associated with amoxicillin supply shortages appear not to have been sufficiently assessed, and the crisis we are facing today is serious and particularly dangerous for children's health. Without rigorous measures to prevent shortages related to drug production and distribution, populations could face a post-antibiotic era in which common infections and minor injuries can result in serious life-threatening situations. The availability of medicines declared by WHO as essential should be guaranteed not only in production but also in fair distribution. And this principle must be ensured by national and international regulatory agencies.Copyright © 2023 Medico e Bambino. All rights reserved.
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The purpose of this research is to examine the influential attributes of employees' attitudes and intentions to stay in the domain of human resources management in a low-cost carrier business. Using justice theory as a theoretical underpinning, financial compensation, nonfinancial compensation, coworker relationships, and procedural fairness were derived. The explained attributes of this research were attitude and intention to stay. This study used a survey and collected data on 233 employees in low-cost carriers as survey participants. To test the hypotheses, this study employed structural equation modeling. The results showed that attitude was positively impacted by financial compensation, nonfinancial compensation, coworker relationships, and procedural fairness. The results also revealed the positive effect of coworker relationships and attitudes on the intention to stay. This study sheds light on the literature by ensuring the explanatory power of justice theory in the area of low-cost carrier business.
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Background: Despite the development of safe and effective vaccines and antiviral treatments against COVID- 19, marginalized racial/ethnic groups in the United States continue to be disproportionally burdened by COVID-19. In response to this inequity, public health officials in several states designed, usually in an ad-hoc manner, policies aimed to be more equitable in both access and distribution of COVID-19 interventions. Method(s): We constructed an age- and race-stratified mathematical model of SARS-CoV-2 transmission and COVID-19 vaccination. We fit our model to data from Oregon at the beginning of 2021. Next, we explored counterfactual scenarios where we determined the optimal use of limited amounts of vaccine over the first 4 months of 2021 with the goal of minimizing 1) number of deaths or Years of Life Lost (YLL), 2) the inequity in mortality or YYL between race groups, 3) a combination of both. We compared them to a base-case scenario without vaccination. Result(s): When vaccine supply is very limited (enough to cover 10% of the population), there is a trade-off between minimizing mortality or minimizing inequity (Fig.1). For minimizing mortality, it is optimal to allocate vaccine to the oldest age group, irrespective of race. To minimize inequity, vaccine needs to be allocated first to the marginalized populations in the young- and middle-aged groups, incurring significantly more deaths in all groups, including the marginalized ones, compared to minimizing mortality (Fig.1). When minimizing both deaths and inequity, the optimal vaccination strategy achieved a significant reduction in inequity while preserving most of the reduction in mortality (Fig.1). When minimizing YYL and inequity, the optimal allocation resulted in a more equitable distribution of resources and outcomes across race groups. Once vaccine supply was enough to cover 20% of the population, our results suggest that it is possible to minimize both mortality (or YYL) and inequity, by protecting marginalized communities and the oldest populations at the same time. Conclusion(s): With low vaccine supply, there is a trade-off between being more equitable and reducing mortality. This is true because COVID-19 related mortality is concentrated in the oldest population while marginalized populations are predominately young. This trade-off quickly disappears when more vaccine is available. An interdisciplinary approach is needed to address the inequitable distribution of resources and outcomes in public health. Mortality rate (left), Years of Life Lost (center) and Indices of Disparity (right) with no vaccination (top row), minimizing deaths (2nd row), inequity (3rd row) or both (4th row) with enough vaccine to cover 10% of the population.
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Due to COVID-19's strain on health systems across the globe, triage protocols determine how to allocate scarce medical resources with the worthy goal of maximising the number of lives saved. However, due to racial biases and long-standing health inequities, the common method of ranking patients based on impersonal numeric representations of their morbidity is associated with disproportionately pronounced racial disparities. In response, policymakers have issued statements of solidarity. However, translating support into responsive COVID-19 policy is rife with complexity. Triage does not easily lend itself to race-based exceptions. Reordering triage queues based on an individual patient's racial affiliation has been considered but may be divisive and difficult to implement. And while COVID-19 hospital policies may be presented as rigidly focused on saving the most lives, many make exceptions for those deemed worthy by policymakers such as front-line healthcare workers, older physicians, pregnant women and patients with disabilities. These exceptions demonstrate creativity and ingenuity-hallmarks of policymakers' abilities to flexibly respond to urgent societal concerns-which should also be extended to patients of colour. This paper dismantles common arguments against the confrontation of racial inequity within COVID-19 triage protocols, highlights concerns related to existing proposals and proposes a new paradigm to increase equity when allocating scarce COVID-19 resources.
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While COVID-19 vaccines provide light at the end of the tunnel in a difficult time, they also bring forth the complex ethical issue of global vaccine distribution. The current unequal global distribution of vaccines is unjust towards the vulnerable living in low-income countries. A vaccine tax should be introduced to remedy this. Under such a scheme, a small fraction of the money spent by a country on vaccines for its own population would go into a fund, such as COVAX, dedicated to buying vaccines and distributing them to the world's poorest. A vaccine tax would provide a much-needed injection of funds to remedy the unequal distribution of vaccines. The tax allows for a distribution that, to a lesser degree, reflects the ability to pay and is superior to a donation-based model because it minimises the opportunity for free-riding.
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Struggles for economic justice have historically centered around the fight for jobs and higher wages, but universal basic income (UBI) seeks to distribute wealth outside of labor by giving every citizen an unconditional and universal minimum income. This paper critically assesses the policy ofUBI and asks what ought to be taken into consideration and addressed before the first practical implementation ofUBI on a broad scale. Three issues are outlined: UBI in relation to histories of oppression and the danger of a neoliberal universal basic income;UBI and the issues of citizenship, border imperialism, and social solidarity;and how UBI could affect the carceral system and the incarcerated. The essay argues that UBI runs the risk of reproducing precarity and inequality if not crafted with the needs of marginalized communities in mind and theorizes what a socially just UBI might look like if it was designed to confront these challenges.
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INTRODUCTION: Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) affects patients across diverse ethnic, minority, cultural, and socioeconomic backgrounds;however, the relationship between these social determinants of health (SDOH) and IBD outcomes is not well-studied. SDOH have a known impact on disparities in vaccination, but these effects may be more salient in the IBD population where patients are at greater risk for vaccine-preventable illness from immunosuppressive therapies. The social vulnerability index (SVI) is a tool provided by Centers for Disease Control that can identify individuals at risk for health care disparities by estimating neighborhood-level social need on a 0-1 scale (higher scores indicating greater social vulnerability). Utilizing census tract-level SVI data, we aimed to identify the relationship between the SDOH and vaccination rates in patients with IBD. METHOD(S): We used a retrospective cohort design of patients seen at a single IBD center between 01/01/2015 and 08/31/2022. Using the current address listed in the electronic medical record, we geocoded patients to individual census tracts and linked them to corresponding SVI and subscales (Figure 1). Controlling a priori for age, gender, race, ethnicity, marital status, English proficiency, electoral district, and religious affiliation, we used multivariable linear regression to examine the relationship between SVI and vaccination against influenza, Covid-19, pneumococcal pneumonia (conjugate and polysaccharide), and Zoster. RESULT(S): 15,245 patients with IBD were included and the percent of unvaccinated individuals was high across all vaccine types: flu (42.8%), Covid-19 (50.9%), pneumonia (62.4%), and Zoster (89.6%). High total levels of social vulnerability were associated with lower vaccination rates across all vaccine groups: flu (B -1.3, 95% CI -1.5, -1.2, p<0.001), Covid-19 (B -0.99, 95% CI -1.1, -0.88), p<0.001), pneumonia (B -0.21, 95% CI -0.27, -0.14, p<0.001), Zoster (B -0.23, 95% CI -0.27, -0.19, p<0.001). On SVI sub-scales, high scores in Socioeconomic Status, Household Composition, and Housing/Transportation were important predictors of vaccine uptake while Minority Status/Language was non-significant (Table 1). CONCLUSION(S): Living in a socially vulnerable community is associated with lower vaccination rates across all vaccine types. Higher scores on neighborhood level Socioeconomic Status, Household Composition, and Housing/Transportation were also associated with lower vaccine uptake. Many factors may affect why socially vulnerable patients are under-vaccinated, including a lack of patient and provider knowledge of routine vaccines, lack of access to care, and poor trust in vaccines and healthcare system. Further research is needed improve IBD health maintenance in gastroenterology clinics and ensure equitable distribution of vaccines to socially vulnerable patients. [Formula presented] [Formula presented]Copyright © 2023
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The COVID-19 pandemic crisis has fundamentally changed the way we live and work forever. The business sector is forecasting and formulating different scenarios associated with the impact of the pandemic on its employees, customers, and suppliers. Various business retrieval models are under construction to cope with life after the COVID-19 Pandemic Crisis. However, the proposed plans and scenarios are static and cannot address the dynamic pandemic changes worldwide. They also have not considered the peripheral in-between scenarios to propel the shifting paradigm of businesses from the existing condition to the new one. Furthermore, the scenario drivers in the current studies are generally centered on the economic aspects of the pandemic with little attention to the social facets. This study aims to fill this gap by proposing scenario planning and analytics to study the impact of the Coronavirus pandemic on large-scale information technology-led Companies. The primary and peripheral scenarios are constructed based on a balanced set of business continuity and employee health drivers. Practical action plans are formulated for each scenario to devise plausible responses. Finally, a damage management framework is developed to cope with the mental disorders of the employees amid the disease.Copyright © 2021 The Author(s)
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The COVID-19 pandemic has negatively affected the tourism and services sector. Using the example of Airbnb's recent layoff of 25% of its workforce, we focused on the role of organizational justice in mitigating the negative psychological impacts of layoffs. Based on a unique survey of Airbnb employees who survived the layoffs, as well as those who left, we employed an ordinary least squares regression to show that employees' perceptions of organizational justice were positively related to their job satisfaction and trust in management, while being negatively related to their emotional exhaustion and cynicism. We discovered the crucial importance of interactional justice (i.e., interpersonal and informational justice). The respect, dignity, and politeness shown by management (i.e., interpersonal justice), as well as truthful and adequate communication about the procedure (i.e., informational justice) were pivotal to successfully conducting layoffs, especially during unprecedented economic uncertainty. © 2023 by the authors.
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In recent decades, and in particular since the shift towards independent central banks, there has been no explicit coordination of fiscal and monetary policy. In the Eurozone, this lack of coordination represents an important flaw, especially since the Eurozone is not an optimal currency area. Complementing monetary union with a transfer union represents one possible solution. This paper argues that the negative impact of post-2008 and post-Covid-19 unconventional monetary policy on income inequalities provides a second reason to coordinate fiscal and monetary policy. Among various institutional arrangements to implement such coordination, the paper defends the idea that the European Central Bank should be sensitive to distributive considerations when formulating its monetary policy. Such an arrangement would help both to contain the distributive side-effects of monetary policy and to at least partially remedy the flaw at the heart of the Eurozone as long as an outright transfer union remains unfeasible.
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Rawls, a leading thinker of our time, attempted to develop an understanding of justice that reconciles liberty and equality in his work A Theory of Justice (1971). Rawls constantly revised his theory of justice and took it to an international level with The Law of Peoples. A Theory of Justice was met with great interest, but it was also heavily criticized. The aim of this paper is first to review Rawls' A Theory of Justice in broad terms and then to present the objections raised. Ultimately, the goal is to present my objections based on the impossibility of the Rawlsian theory of justice with some examples. Specifically, examples of the widening gap between the poor and the rich under Covid-19 conditions and the enormous increase in the incomes of the rich are addressed. © 2022 Istanbul University Press. All Rights Reserved.
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Social justice is turning into an international concern. This development is a response to the continuous rise of socioeconomic inequality – the gap between the rich and the poor –growing in several OECD member states since the 1970s. International human rights law (IHRL) presently only establishes a weak normative framework regarding social justice. This article argues that the full potential of this framework has still not been activated by international human rights adjudication. There are several reasons for this: a complex history of ideas suggesting little common understanding of the notion of social justice, the focus of international human rights adjudication on individual rather than constitutional justice, and the priority of liberty rights over equality rights. Yet, the domination of the liberal over the social in international human rights adjudication has started to change. The article shows how the social justice concern is beginning to be incorporated into IHRL by judicial interpretation of international equal protection and non-discrimination law (international equal protection law, IEPL). Integrating the social justice concern into IEPL is a legitimate yet transformative step as it increases judicial discretion at the international level. More than many other human rights, socioeconomic equality is highly context-specific and depends on a complex factual assessment of the local circumstances. This exacerbates the institutional legitimacy challenge levelled against international human rights courts. However, the article argues that the legitimacy challenge can be alleviated by focusing more on procedural rather than a substantive international review.
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Resumen Esta investigación tuvo por objetivo analizar la capacidad predictiva de la percepción de justicia distributiva y justicia de interacción en la disposición al cambio organizacional en trabajadores durante la pandemia por COVID-19. La población fue de 342 colaboradores de diversas organizaciones colombianas. El estudio se apoyó en un diseño predictivo transversal. Se utilizaron los instrumentos de justicia organizacional -adaptado a población colombiana- y cambio organizacional. Los resultados evidencian la existencia de la predicción del cambio organizacional como resultado de la percepción de justicia organizacional. De esta forma, las organizaciones se benefician en los procesos de cambio en los momentos en que exponen y dan certeza de los ajustes, afectaciones y decisiones a tomar por sus miembros, procurando que estos se transformen en agentes que acojan los cambios razonables y racionales que la institución procura. El contexto cambiante de la pandemia es una condición que limita la predicción de la justicia organizacional procedimental y el cambio organizacional en el nivel individual total.
Abstract The objective of the research was to analyze the predictive capacity of the perception of distributive justice and interaction justice in the willingness to organizational change in workers during the COVID-19 pandemic. The study was based on a predictive cross-sectional design, and the sample consisted of 342 workers from different Colombian organizations. The organizational justice (adapted to the Colombian population) and organizational change instruments were used. The results showed the existence of the prediction of organizational change due to the perception of organizational justice. In this way, organizations benefit in their change processes when they explain and give certainty to their members about the new adjustments, effects and decision making, ensuring that they become agents that welcome the reasonable and rational changes that the institution seeks. The changing context of the pandemic is a condition that limits the prediction of procedural organizational justice and organizational change at the total individual level.
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In June 2020, Gilead agreed to provide the USA with 500 000 doses of remdesivir-an antiviral drug which at that time was percieved to show promise in reducing the recovery time for patients with COVID-19. This quantity represented Gilead's then full production capacity for July and 90% of its capacity for August and September. Similar deals are evident around access to proposed vaccines for COVID-19, and such deals are only likely to increase. These attempts to secure preferential access to medicines and vaccines, so-called vaccine/treatment nationalism, jeopardise supplies of life-saving treatments and vaccines available elsewhere, and jeopardise global equitable distribution of such vaccines/treatments more generally. Much of the focus to date has been on States' role in negotiating such deals. However, such developments also demonstrate the power patent holders have in controlling access to life-saving healthcare, determining who obtains access first and at what price. This article argues that the extent of control currently given to patent holders for COVID-19 must be questioned. This article demonstrates that patents have significant implications for healthcare acting as private governance tools over patented inventions. It is only by greater probing of patent holders' role in delivering access to medicines, diagnostics and vaccines for COVID-19 that equitable global equitable access can be achieved.
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Withholding or withdrawing life-saving ventilators can become necessary when resources are insufficient. With rising cases in many countries, and likely further peaks in the coming colder seasons, ventilator triage guidance remains a central part of the COVID-19 policy response. The dominant model in ventilator triage guidelines prioritises the ethical principles of saving the most lives and saving the most life-years. We sought to ascertain to what extent this focus aligns, or conflicts, with the preferences of disadvantaged minority populations. We conducted a bibliographical search of PubMed and Google Scholar and reviewed all ventilator rationing guidelines included in major recent systematic reviews, yielding 589 studies before screening. Post screening, we found six studies comprising a total of 10 591 participants, with 1247 from disadvantaged populations. Three studies reported findings stratified by race and age, two of which stratified by income. Studies included two to seven principles; all included 'save the most lives'. Involvement of disadvantaged minority populations in eliciting preferences is very limited; few studies capture race and income. This is concerning, as despite relatively small numbers and framing effects there is an observable and plausible trend suggesting that disadvantaged groups worry that dominant principles reduce their chances of receiving a ventilator. To avoid compounding prior historical and structural disadvantage, policy makers need to engage more fully with these populations in designing and justifying ventilator rationing guidance and review their adequacy. Likewise, clinicians need to be aware that their implementation of dominant triage guidelines is viewed with higher levels of concern by minority populations.
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INTRODUCTION: Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) affects patients across diverse ethnic, minority, cultural, and socioeconomic backgrounds;however, the relationship between these social determinants of health (SDOH) and IBD outcomes is not well-studied. SDOH have a known impact on disparities in vaccination, but these effects may be more salient in the IBD population where patients are at greater risk for vaccine-preventable illness from immunosuppressive therapies. The social vulnerability index (SVI) is a tool provided by Centers for Disease Control that can identify individuals at risk for health care disparities by estimating neighborhood-level social need on a 0-1 scale (higher scores indicating greater social vulnerability). Utilizing census tract-level SVI data, we aimed to identify the relationship between the SDOH and vaccination rates in patients with IBD. METHOD(S): We used a retrospective cohort design of patients seen at a single IBD center between 01/01/2015 and 08/31/2022. Using the current address listed in the electronic medical record, we geocoded patients to individual census tracts and linked them to corresponding SVI and subscales (Figure 1). Controlling a priori for age, gender, race, ethnicity, marital status, English proficiency, electoral district, and religious affiliation, we used multivariable linear regression to examine the relationship between SVI and vaccination against influenza, Covid-19, pneumococcal pneumonia (conjugate and polysaccharide), and Zoster. RESULT(S): 15,245 patients with IBD were included and the percent of unvaccinated individuals was high across all vaccine types: flu (42.8%), Covid-19 (50.9%), pneumonia (62.4%), and Zoster (89.6%). High total levels of social vulnerability were associated with lower vaccination rates across all vaccine groups: flu (B -1.3, 95% CI -1.5, -1.2, p<0.001), Covid-19 (B -0.99, 95% CI -1.1, -0.88), p<0.001), pneumonia (B -0.21, 95% CI -0.27, -0.14, p<0.001), Zoster (B -0.23, 95% CI -0.27, -0.19, p<0.001). On SVI subscales, high scores in Socioeconomic Status, Household Composition, and Housing/ Transportation were important predictors of vaccine uptake while Minority Status/ Language was non-significant (Table 1). CONCLUSION(S): Living in a socially vulnerable community is associated with lower vaccination rates across all vaccine types. Higher scores on neighborhood level Socioeconomic Status, Household Composition, and Housing/Transportation were also associated with lower vaccine uptake. Many factors may affect why socially vulnerable patients are under-vaccinated, including a lack of patient and provider knowledge of routine vaccines, lack of access to care, and poor trust in vaccines and healthcare system. Further research is needed improve IBD health maintenance in gastroenterology clinics and ensure equitable distribution of vaccines to socially vulnerable patients. (Figure Presented).
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Age-based rationing remains highly controversial. This question has been paramount during the Covid-19 pandemic. Analyzing the practices, proposals, and guidelines applied or put forward during the current pandemic, three kinds of age-based rationing are identified: an age-based cut-off, age as a tiebreaker, and indirect age rationing, where age matters to the extent that it affects prognosis. Where age is allowed to play a role in terms of who gets treated, it is justified either because this is believed to maximize benefits from scarce resources or because it is believed to be in accordance with the value of fairness understood as (a) fair innings, where less priority is given to those who have lived a full life or (b) an egalitarian concern for the worse off. By critically assessing prominent frameworks and practices for pandemic rationing, this article considers the balance the three kinds of age-based rationing strike between maximizing benefits and fairness. It evaluates whether elements in the proposals are, in fact, contrary to the justifications of these measures. Such shortcomings are highlighted, and it is proposed to adjust prominent proposals to care for the worse off more appropriately and better consider whether the acquired benefits befalls the young or the old.
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With the discovery of the COVID-19 vaccine, what has always been worrying the decision-makers is related to the distribution management, the vaccination centers' location, and the inventory control of all types of vaccines. As the COVID-19 vaccine is highly demanded, planning for its fair distribution is a must. University is one of the most densely populated areas in a city, so it is critical to vaccinate university students so that the spread of this virus is curbed. As a result, in the present study, a new stochastic multi-objective, multi-period, and multi-commodity simulation-optimization model has been developed for the COVID-19 vaccine's production, distribution, location, allocation, and inventory control decisions. In this study, the proposed supply chain network includes four echelons of manufacturers, hospitals, vaccination centers, and volunteer vaccine students. Vaccine manufacturers send the vaccines to the vaccination centers and hospitals after production. The students with a history of special diseases such as heart disease, corticosteroids, blood clots, etc. are vaccinated in hospitals because of accessing more medical care, and the rest of the students are vaccinated in the vaccination centers. Then, a system dynamic structure of the prevalence of COVID -19 in universities is developed and the vaccine demand is estimated using simulation, in which the demand enters the mathematical model as a given stochastic parameter. Thus, the model pursues some goals, namely, to minimize supply chain costs, maximize student desirability for vaccination, and maximize justice in vaccine distribution. To solve the proposed model, Variable Neighborhood Search (VNS) and Whale Optimization Algorithm (WOA) algorithms are used. In terms of novelties, the most important novelties in the simulation model are considering the virtual education and exerted quarantine effect on estimating the number of the vaccines. In terms of the mathematical model, one of the remarkable contributions is paying attention to social distancing while receiving the injection and the possibility of the injection during working and non-working hours, and regarding the novelties in the solution methodology, a new heuristic method based on a meta-heuristic algorithm called Modified WOA with VNS (MVWOA) is developed. In terms of the performance metrics and the CPU time, the MOWOA is discovered with a superior performance than other given algorithms. Moreover, regarding the data, a case study related to the COVID-19 pandemic period in Tehran/Iran is provided to validate the proposed algorithm. The outcomes indicate that with the demand increase, the costs increase sharply while the vaccination desirability for students decreases with a slight slope.
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Muslim Philanthropy in Canada is a special issue of the Journal of Muslim Philanthropy and Civil Society (JMPCS) based on papers given at a symposium hosted in March 2021 (virtual due to the COVID lockdown) by the Centre for Religion and Its Contexts at Emmanuel College, of Victoria University in the University of Toronto. The symposium was jointly funded by JMPCS and Emmanuel College. A special issue and a symposium dedicated to the topic of Muslim philanthropy in Canada is pioneering in two ways. First, Canadian academia has not focused enough on charitable giving, despite it being a significant part of the Islamic tradition. Oral history testifies to its presence and importance in Canadian Muslim communities since the earliest Muslim settlements (Bullock, 2004, 2017;Hogben, 2021). Yet its academic study is negligible. Participants at a 2017 workshop in Ottawa studied a comprehensive bibliography about scholarly work on Muslims in Canada and identified that academia has focused on issues related to identity, integration, law, media, radicalization, and securitization (MUN). Arts, charitable work, business practices, economics, ethics, history, organizational behavior, and leadership are all important features of Muslim life in Canada that are barely studied. We hope the symposium and this special issue lay foundations for a new scholarly field that studies Muslim charitable life in Canada. Second, both the symposium and this issue bring together scholars and practitioners to illuminate the topic of Muslim philanthropy in Canada. Philanthropy is above all a field of action, so including practitioners’ voices is a crucial part of this pioneering issue on Muslim philanthropy in Canada. Mosque sermons remind congregations regularly that charity is part of faith, of the obligation of annual zakat, of the importance of serving the community and trying to alleviate poverty and suffering. Hundreds of Muslims in Canada heed this call and dedicate countless volunteer hours to charitable work, be it through formal associations or informal networks. It is only fitting that their voices be part of the symposium and this special issue. Pioneers have to tell foundational stories, so narrating the story of how we arrived at this special issue is an important part of understanding the topic itself. The account begins in 2017, when I volunteered with a multi-faith group to host a conference on faith and basic income at the University of St Michael’s College, Toronto. Although I had a cursory understanding of basic income, I knew how similar some of its concepts were to the Islamic institution of zakat and practices of the early Caliphs in distributing money from the public treasury to support the poor (Bullock & Daimee, 2021a). And yet, there were less than a handful of Muslims participating in basic income advocacy, and even fewer able to present Islamic perspectives on basic income at that conference. Moreover, as a comment by one of the (non-Muslim) participants demonstrated, there was very little understanding by attendees of the differences between Islamic concepts of charity and justice and that of secularists or other faith groups: she suggested that basic income was about justice, that is addressing the political and economic structures that lead to and support poverty, whereas religious groups tended to focus on charity, which is more about “mercy”—helping the poor—than justice. Even with my then perfunctory knowledge of a few scattered relevant Qur’anic verses and ahadith, I knew this did not describe the Islamic philanthropic tradition. There was the Qur’anic verse describing zakat as a “right” of the poor (70:24–25), and a hadith about the relationship between charity and justice that went like this: “Every joint of a person must perform a charity each day that the sun rises: to judge justly between two people is a charity. To help a man with his mount, lifting him onto it or hoisting up his belongings onto it, is a charity. And the good word is a charity. And every step that you take towards p ayer is a charity and removing a harmful object from the road is a charity” (Bahi, 2002, p.128). In addition to showing that “charity” in Islam goes beyond a standard Western definition of “voluntary donations of money or goods” (Kymlicka, 2001, pp. 87–88;also Goodin, 2017), this hadith relates charity to justice. Indeed, it makes justice a subset of charity. Clearly scholars need to pursue these topics more. With the aid of a volunteer research assistant, whose thorough scan of the literature about charity and justice from the Muslim point of view, or the study of Muslim charity in Canada, revealed next to nothing, we learned that much contemporary Muslim scholarship on zakat is mostly theoretical—how zakat could or should work as a normative tool for distributive justice (Ahmad & Hassan, 2000;Ahmad et al., 2006;Ahmad, 1991;Allheedan, 2016;Baidhawy, 2012;Siddiqui, 1988). Some work from the point of view of jurisprudence, covering the theoretical basics of what is zakat, how it should be calculated, who should pay it, and who should receive it (Dhar, 2013;Al-Qardawi, 1999). Others investigate its application in contemporary Muslim-majority societies (Davis & Robinson, 2006;Retsikas, 2014;Powell, 2009). Retsikas (2014) found that for Indonesia, zakat studies have been undertaken mostly by historians, geographers, and anthropologists (the latter focused mainly on the politics of international Islamic aid organizations) with “very little sustained attention” (p. 341) by ethnographers. Many scholars lament that zakat is currently overlooked as a potential tool for poverty alleviation, so their scholarship also advocates for zakat as a new (revived) policy instrument (Ahmad & Hassan, 2000, p. 169;Ahmad et al., 2006, p. 15;Al-Qardawi, 1999, p. 709;Chapra, 1992, p. 270). A few scholars conclude that where the state does administer zakat it is often marred by mismanagement, corruption, and dissension (Malik, 2016, p. 73;Powell, 2009, pp. 73–79). We also found that zakat in Western countries is understudied, locating only two papers on the topic (May, 2019;Ndiaye, 2007). In 2019 the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding, based in the USA, released a pioneering comparative study of Muslim, Jewish, Catholic, Protestant, and non-affiliated Americans’ giving, measured in dollar amounts, investigating why they donate, and who they donate to, with an age, gender, and race breakdown. But they did not break the dollar amounts down into zakat money versus other monies (Mahmood, 2019). Studies of Muslim communities do highlight social service practices, such as soup kitchens or food banks;such analyses mention zakat in passing in a routine way as an aspect of Muslim charity (Azmi, 1997;Bolognani & Statham, 2013;Bramadat & Seljak, 2009;Fridolfsson & Elander, 2012;GhaneaBassiri, 2017;Nadir, 2013;Peucker, 2020;Peucker & Kayikci, 2020;Qasqas & Chowdhury, 2017). These kinds of community-based studies are empirically focused and are mostly descriptive. They might use substitute concepts such as social work, social services, or volunteerism for zakat (Borell & Gerdner, 2011). So we decided to begin this pioneering research ourselves by doing a qualitative study of Muslim charities in Canada. In the absence of secondary literature, we needed to start at the source and ask the people doing zakat work what that means in a Canadian context. This resulted in two papers published by the Yaqeen Institute (Bullock & Daimee, 2021a, 2021b). The Journal of Muslim Philanthropy and Civil Society grant opportunity arose during this time. Knowing from our literature review that there was little scholarship on this topic in Canada, I thought a symposium might be able to draw out hitherto unknown scholars working on the topic. An event would also serve as a networking and gathering moment for a fledgling field. Fortunately, Emmanuel College and JMPCS agreed. Yet the symposium itself revealed the innovative nature of studying Muslim charity in Canada: the first call for papers focused solely on zakat in Canada. ven though we knew that there were no scholars who had published on zakat in Canada, we hoped that scholars working in cognate areas might take up the topic, or that we would discover PhD students working on these topics. Titled “Muslim Charity in a Canadian Context,” we invited papers to consider the following questions: ● Why do Muslims give in the Canadian context? What causes do they give to? ● What kind of adaptations are necessary or observed in the fiqh of zakat in Canada? The definition of someone who is zakat eligible? The calculations of zakat-able goods and assets? The distribution, i.e., cash vs goods? Are there distinctions made between Muslims and non-Muslims for zakat distribution? ● What role does the regulatory environment of Canadian charity law play in zakat giving? In the foundation and development of zakat-focused organizations, especially post-9/11? ● What is the relationship between zakat and distributive justice in Canada? ● What role does zakat play in alleviating poverty? ● Do Muslims in Canada make a distinction between charity and justice? What relationships do zakat-focused organizations have with wider social justice and anti-poverty movements? ● The history and evolution of zakat-focused organizations in Canada ● The establishment of waqf institutions in Canada? Resounding silence led us to widen the scope of the symposium. JMPCS works from the expanded Islamic understanding of what counts as charity based on hadith, such as the one cited above. A revamped call for papers for the renamed “Muslim Philanthropy in a Canadian Context” invited submissions on the following topics: ● The history and evolution of charitable organizations in Canada ● Muslim involvement in refugeeresettlement in Canada ● Muslim volunteerism and civic engagement in Canada ● Muslim participation in wider anti-poverty and social justice movements ● Muslim social work and social services in Canada ● Muslim charitable giving in the Canadian context ● The establishment of waqf institutions in Canada ● The impact of the regulatory environment of Canadian charity law on Muslim charities in Canada, especially post-9/11 ● The adaptations in the fiqh of zakat in Canada We accepted papers from a mix of junior and senior scholars, and, recognizing the pioneering nature of the event, included practitioners, based on the understanding, as mentioned, that with regard to charitable work, knowledge is contained and conveyed by people in the field. Senior scholars moderated the sessions. As symposium participant Shaykh Rizvi, current Imam of the Jaffari Community Centre in Thornhill, Ontario, points out in his article, the Qur’an teaches us that “[they] will not attain righteousness till [they] spend in charity of the things [they] love” (3:82). Not only is charity more than justice, not only is it more than donating money or goods, but charity is also an act of worship for Muslims. Zakat is a spiritual practice with a secular element. That is why al-Qardawi (1999) called it a “tax-worship or a worship-tax” (p. 502). Our Yaqeen papers show that for those who work at or volunteer at Muslim charitable organizations, those who donate to them, and those who are clients, charity is a central element of being Muslim in Canada. Zakat, sadaqa, and waqf are all essential characteristics of Muslim communities in Canada. We must draw attention to them. Our Yaqeen studies, the symposium presentations, and this special issue show how traditional Muslim institutions adapt on migration to minority status in Western countries. They draw attention to Muslim civic engagement and integration into the fabric of Western societies. They serve as meeting points for interfaith dialogue on service to the poor and secular commitments to social justice. They take us beyond identity politics and security and radicalization studies. They are a corrective to stereotypes of Muslims as haters of Western society, self-imposed ghettoization, people who take but do not contribute, or Muslim women as oppressed and men s terrorists. They draw attention to the material struggles facing Muslims in these societies. They are an insight into ethical life for Muslims in Canada. Fortunately, the Journal of Muslim Philanthropy and Civil Society takes a leadership role by highlighting Muslim philanthropy in its publications. The issue opens with Sanaa Ali-Muhammad and Ruby Latif’s paper that examines where Canadian Muslim’s philanthropic dollars are spent—at least those that are captured through a data analysis of the top 50 Muslim charities. It is the perfect piece to inaugurate this special issue, as it provides an overview of the landscape of Muslim charities in Canada. The paper begins with a demographic profile of Muslim communities in Canada. The authors use Nimer’s (2014) eight-part typology of Muslim communities in North America to search publicly available data on the 50 largest Muslim-serving, Muslim-led, and Muslim-focused charities. They build on Qasqas and Chowdhury’s (2017) analysis of Islamic religious groups in Canada to ask the questions, how much money is being raised, and where is it being spent? They want to do this to assess the efficacy of Canadian Muslims’ charitable dollars. They make recommendations about this in their concluding section. Echoing Ali-Muhammad’s and Latif’s literature review that it is “challenging” to locate scholarly work on Canadian Muslim charities, the next paper by Memona Hossain contributes a pioneering study of the environmental behaviors of Muslims in Canada. She found no work on this topic. Her paper is part of her larger study of environmental activism focused on over 60 Muslim women globally. She used semi-structured interviews to talk to 10 Canadian Muslims, men and women, exploring their environmental activism. Her paper begins with a brief discussion of the meaning of environmental philanthropy and then introduces Islamic perspectives on four key concepts related to environmental philanthropy. A series of recommendations follow her data results. Hossain makes a perceptive insight that Muslim integration and identity is related to their involvement in environmental activism, which is a movement not always inclusive of marginalized communities. Next comes the three practitioner’s reports, which together capture a diverse snapshot of on the ground activism in different Muslim communities. Nuzhat Jafri charts the story of the Canadian Council of Muslim Women (CCMW). It was founded in 1982 in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Jafri recounts the struggles of managing a volunteer-run organization. She discusses their fundraising techniques and strategies. The Canadian Revenue Agency restricts an organization’s activities in order to be eligible for charitable status (which allows the organization to give tax-receipts). Jafri’s discussion of the internal debate among CCMW members as to whether or not go that route is germane to all Muslim nonprofit organizations in Canada. Sheikh Sayyid Muhammad Rizvi’s paper looks at Muslim charitable giving from the perspective of the Shī‘a Ithnā-‘Ashari Muslims in Canada. He outlines the theory of zakāt before turning to case studies of his organization, the Islamic Shi‘a Ithnā-‘Ashari Jamaat of Toronto (ISIJ). Noting Shī‘ī jurisprudential rules of zakāt do not include banknotes, he concludes that the “the scope of zakāt, especially for Shī‘as in the West, is limited.” Rizvi details how the obligation of khums (one-fifth or 20% of the annual profit or savings of a person) is important both to poverty alleviation and to the financial upkeep of their religious institutions, along with other kinds of donations and fundraising. He argues for the importance of charity toward non-Muslims. He discusses various fundraising models, including income generating activities. He details the pioneering social services of the Islamic Shi‘a Ithnā-‘Ashari Jamaat of Toronto. He finishes with a brief survey of notable donations and charitable services by local Shi‘a community members. The final practitioner report widens the lens to an international level. Mohammed Abu Asaker’s paper looks at the founding and development of the United Nations High Commission on Refugees Zakat Fund. Asaker discusses the rationale behind founding the dedicated fund, their activities, and disbursements. He highlights the fatawa received from scholars around the world supporting the fund as zakat eligible. He details the fund’s transparency and governance policies—a crucial aspect of due diligence for those entrusted with zakat distribution. He finishes with a look at Canadian Muslim contributions to the fund, noting that Canada is the ninth largest donor. Abu Asaker’s presentation in March 2021 was before the Ukraine crisis changed the face of worldwide refugees, but Muslims are, unfortunately, still among the top refugee producing countries (UNHCR). We hope readers are inspired to begin their own studies of Muslim philanthropy in Canada.
RESUMEN
Telehealth has been a long-awaited advancement with the potential to improve efficiency, convenience, and quality in healthcare. However, as telehealth becomes integrated into routine clinical care, it is imperative to consider the practical and ethical implications that could undermine or devalue care delivery. The medical profession must ensure that it is implemented judiciously and with robust quality standards, guided by fair and equitable policies that balance patient autonomy with rigorous standards of care and access. Such a system must recognize the opportunity for more patient input as stakeholders to tailor care to their needs and preferences, while also acknowledging the risk of suboptimal care if convenience is prioritized over quality. More studies of optimal care models are needed to integrate data in terms of both stakeholder input and outcomes.