The advantages of a computerized program of population screening for cervical cancer.
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Computers↗
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Characterization of Georgia's Impaired Physicians Program treatment population: data and statistics.
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Adult↗
A population health program for a school of veterinary medicine.
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Alabama↗
Computer uses in population screening programs.
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Computers↗
An investigation of the educational needs of health sciences library manpower. I. Definition of the manpower problem and research design.
In order to plan adequately for education in health science librarianship and to be able to project future demands and needs we need to know a great deal more about existing manpower in health science libraries. This paper, the first in a series of reports on an investigation to gather this data, discusses the research methodology and the development of an inventory of the institution-program population upon which the survey is based. An analysis in terms of geographic location, type (educational, research, etc.), administrative control, and primary cognate area of these institutions is presented, and their distribution through the various Regional Medical Library areas is noted. Preliminary estimates are made, based on a questionnaire to the libraries, on the size of the library population, their relationship to reporting programs or institutions, exclusive of the hospital population which is being covered in an independent survey. A questionnaire to library personnel is underway which will establish, along with the other questionnaires, a basis for exploring the relationships which exist between institutions or programs, libraries and manpower.
Libraries, Medical↗
Population success.
"The commitment to population programs is now widespread," says Rafael Salas, Executive Director of the UNFPA, in its report "State of World Population." About 80% of the total population of the developing world live in countries which consider their fertility levels too high and would like them reduced. An important impetus came from the World Conference of 1974. The Plan of Action from the conference projected population growth rates in developing countries of 2.0% by 1985. Today it looks as though this projection will be realized. While in 1969, for example, only 26 developing countries had programs aimed at lowering or maintaining fertility levels, by 1980 there were 59. The International Population Conference, recently announced by the UN for 1984, will, it is hoped, help sustain that momentum. Cuba is the country which has shown the greatest decline in birth rate so far. The birth rate fell 47% between 1965-1970 and 1975-1980. Next came China with a 34% decline in the same period. After these came a group of countries--each with populations of over 10 million--with declines of between 15 and 25%: Chile, Colombia, India, Indonesia, the Republic of Korea, Malaysia and Thailand. Though birth rates have been dropping significantly the decline in mortality rates over recent years has been less than was hoped for. The 1974 conference set 74 years as the target for the world's average expectation of life, to be reached by the year 2000. But the UN now predicts that the developing countries will have only reached 63 or 64 years by then. High infant and child mortality rates, particularly in Africa, are among the major causes. The report identifies the status of women as an important determinant of family size. Evidence from the UNFPA-sponsored World Fertility Survey shows that in general the fertility of women decreases as their income increases. It also indicates that women who have been educated and who work outside the home are likely to have smaller families. Access to contraceptives is, of course, a major influence on fertility decline. According to UNFPA some of the Latin American countries have the highest contraceptive use among developing countries. The countries of Asia come next and contraceptives are least used in sub-Saharan Africa where birth rates of 45/1000 are still common. The money for population programs, says the report, has come largely from developing countries themselves. A survey of 15 countries showed them to have contributed 67% out of their own budgets--the rest having come from external aid. And in programs aided by UNFPA the local input has been even higher. During 1979-1981 the developing countries themselves budgeted $4.6 for each dollar budgeted by UNFPA. The report also highlights some of the emerging problems for the next 2 decades--and which will be high on the agenda of the 1984 conference. These include "uncontrolled urban growth" in developing countries as well as an important change in overall population age structure as more and more old people survive. Aging populations are of particular concern to the developed countries but, as the report points out, even countries like China--which has achieved a steep drop in fertility and mortality--will face the problems of an aging population by the year 2000.
Birth Rate↗
Cambodia. Programmatic approach to IEC on reproductive health.
Various UNFPA-funded population programs are now in place in six provinces and the capital and some more are in the pipeline. The ones currently being implemented include projects on maternal and child health and birth spacing, national population census, improvement of family health of displaced persons, and socio-economic research. Those in the pipeline are population education in the school system, gender and population issues, and population and environment. All the programs mentioned have implications for information, education and communication (IEC). To implement these programs effectively, UNFPA and the government realized the need for IEC support. To provide a coherent, integrated and holistic approach to the provision of IEC support to all the UNFPA-funded population activities, a programmatic approach to IEC was developed with the assistance of CST adviser on population communication, Mr. Francisco Roque. The IEC program will basically support the government policy of providing voluntary birth spacing services as a means to promote better maternal and child health through IECM activities; and to provide adequate information to selected target groups required to bring about desired behavioral changes in responsible reproductive decision-making and lifestyle. The target groups to be reached include: service providers and health workers, policymakers and administrators, women of reproductive age, men, and the adolescents aged 15-19 as well as teachers and trainers. The IEC interventions hope to create awareness of the benefits of birth spacing, introduce population concepts in curricula and appropriate health/teaching materials in selected medical schools and secondary schools, reduce misconceptions, provide proper counseling, and sustain government's interest and commitment to the population program.
Asia↗
China strives to limit population to 1.294 billion by 2000.
Mme. Peng Peiyun, minister of the State Family Planning Commission, said that China must strive to limit its total population to 1.294 billion by the end of the century as set by the 8th 5-Year Population Plan and the 10-Year Population Program. The average annual net increase of population in the country in this decade will need to drop to 15.1 million with an annual rate of natural increase of no more than 12.49/1000. According to these goals, the total fertility rate of women at childbearing age must be reduced from 2.3 in 1990 to 2.1 in 1995 and continue to decline below the present average in developed countries. These figures were announced at the National Conference for Commending Advanced Units and Model Individuals for Publicity on Family Planning held in Beijing on September 25, 1991. It is very arduous to reach the goals, admitted Minister Peng, because: First,China has a large population base and is at present confronted with the 3rd baby boom since 1949. There will be 19 million planned births each year during the 8th 5-Year Plan (1991-95). Second, the implementation of the family planning program is uneven in the country. During the 1980s, the total fertility rate of urban women was kept below 1.5 while that of rural women was around 2.8. The 1990 national population census shows that the proportion of 3rd and higher parity births is still as high as 19.32%. Facing the present grave situation of population growth, we have to increase the emphasis on publicity and education about population and family planning to better facilitate implementation of the family planning program. At the conference 365 advanced units and 485 model individuals were commended. Mr. Wang Renzhi, head of the Publicity Department of the Party's Central Committee, and Mme. Peng Peiyun attended the awarding ceremony for commendation.
Asia↗
The potential of next-generation microbiological diagnostics to improve bioterrorism detection speed.
Emerging, rapid, multivalent, microbial diagnostic technologies can produce results in hours, as contrasted to the standard methods that require at least the better part of a week. Used in bioterrorism surveillance in medical settings, the new biodetectors could significantly reduce the time between a covert attack and its detection. By how much is determined by the intensity of sampling. If used to screen all patients reporting flu-like symptoms to their doctors, this basic level of "front-line" sampling would reduce life-threatening medical floundering and missteps and give responders 3-5 days of warning that they otherwise would not have had. Being miniaturized and amenable to mass production, these devices could reduce the cost of screening to a fraction of current costs and so it is tempting to imagine their use in more intensive bioterrorism screening programs aimed at the apparently healthy population, programs that could detect a covert attack even before the victims felt ill. This article examines the tradeoffs between surveillance effort and probability of detection for such programs. Dual-use deployment, where the biodetector provides some medically useful information in addition to bioterrorism surveillance, is discussed.
Bioterrorism↗
Marketing of birth control in LDCs: with special references to India.
The authors outline a marketing approach for family planning programs in developing countries, with references to experiences in India. Following an overview of types of population programs, suggestions for strengthening program efforts are offered, and a framework for marketing birth control is described. "This approach was based on the recognition that acceptance of a small family norm is interwoven with the freedom to make that choice.... This framework suggests that marketing plans should be aimed at the three-dimensional goal of increasing the population's desire, ability, and capability toward acceptance of the small family norm and the practice of birth control [and] that in consideration of the wide geographical variations in population growth, per capita income, and the level of development in general, programs should be designed in a segmented manner to suit the socio-economic nature of each group."
Asia↗
Using a breastfeeding prevalence survey to identify a population for targeted programs.
Often, efforts to improve overall population health require identifying and targeting programs to specific high-risk populations. Breastfeeding is an example. In order to determine initiation and duration rates among various groups in the City of Toronto, a random sample of 434 mothers with infants at four months of age was surveyed to determine the prevalence of breastfeeding and major impacts on its duration. The study found that, overall, 83% of mothers initiated breastfeeding at birth. The greatest rate of decline occurred during the first month. At four months postpartum, 57% of mothers continued to breastfeed, including 35% who were exclusively breastfeeding and 22% who were supplementing breast milk with formula. Breastfeeding duration was related to a number of factors, including information and support, parity, education, use of formula supplements and country of birth. Specific groups are identified for targeted programs, and a number of strategies are proposed.
Adult↗
Learning to control the program evolution process with cultural algorithms
Traditional software engineering dictates the use of modular and structured programming and top-down stepwise refinement techniques that reduce the amount of variability arising in the development process by establishing standard procedures to be followed while writing software. This focusing leads to reduced variability in the resulting products, due to the use of standardized constructs. Genetic programming (GP) performs heuristic search in the space of programs. Programs produced through the GP paradigm emerge as the result of simulated evolution and are built through a bottom-up process, incrementally augmenting their functionality until a satisfactory level of performance is reached. Can we automatically extract knowledge from the GP programming process that can be useful to focus the search and reduce product variability, thus leading to a more effective use of the available resources? An answer to this question is investigated with the aid of cultural algorithms. A new system, cultural algorithms with genetic programming (CAGP), is presented. The system has two levels. The first is the pool of genetic programs (population level), and the second is a knowledge repository (belief set) that is built during the GP run and is used to guide the search process. The microevolution within the population brings about potentially meaningful characteristics of the programs for the achievement of the given task, such as properties exhibited by the best performers in the population. CAGP extracts these features and represents them as the set of the current beliefs. Beliefs correspond to constraints that all the genetic operators and programs must follow. Interaction between the two levels occurs in one direction through the extraction process and, in the other, through the modulation of an individual's program parameters according to which, and how many, of the constraints it follows. CAGP is applied to solve an instance of the symbolic regression problem, in which a function of one variable needs to be discovered. The results of the experiments show an overall improvement on the average performance of CAGP over GP alone and a significant reduction of the complexity of the produced solution. Moreover, the execution time required by CAGP is comparable with the time required by GP alone.
Journal Article↗
Development and utilization of low-cost audio-visual aids in population communication.
One of the reasons why population information has to a certain degree failed to create demand for family planning services is that the majority of information and communication materials being used have been developed in an urban setting, resulting in their inappropriateness to the target rural audiences. Furthermore, their having been evolved in urban centers has hampered their subsequent replication, distribution, and use in rural areas due to lack of funds, production and distribution resources. For this reason, many developing countries in Asia have begun to demand population materials which are low-cost and simple, more appropriate to rural audiences and within local production resources and capabilities. In the light of this identified need, the Population Communication Unit, with the assistance of the Population Education Mobile Team and Clearing House, Unesco, has collaborated with the Population Center Foundation of the Philippines to undertake a Regional Training Workshop on the Design, Development, and Utilization of Low-Cost Audiovisual Aids in the Philippines from 21-26 July 1980. The Workshop, which will be attended by communications personnel and materials developers from Bangladesh, Indonesia, Nepal, the Philippines, Sri Lanka and Thailand, will focus on developing the capabilities of midlevel population program personnel in conceptualizing, designing, developing, testing and utilizing simple and low-cost audiovisual materials. It is hoped that with the skills acquired from the Workshop, participants will be able to increase their capability in training their own personnel in the development of low-cost materials.
Asia↗
EPIZOO: a computer software package of methods for animal population health analysis and programming.
An animal population health and disease software package entitled 'EPIZOO' has been developed. This computer program comprises an integral and complex system of selected indicators contained in ten modules and over one hundred sub-programs, with approximately two hundred methods for use in problem solving, training and simulation. This fully user-friendly software is applicable to any animal disease, and makes analysis and programming easier and quicker. The software includes general methods for use in a number of fields: animal population health and disease situation (structure, dynamics, diagnosis, analysis and consequences) animal population characteristics of epizootiological importance animal health programme preparation, cost calculation and evaluation selected sampling other statistical procedures. EPIZOO is a relatively simple tool for field and management veterinarians, as well as veterinary students.
Animal Diseases↗
Prediction of valproate serum concentrations in adult psychiatric patients using Bayesian model estimations with NPEM2 population pharmacokinetic parameters.
Valproate serum concentrations between 45 and 125 microg/mL are associated with the drug's efficacy in acute mania. Adaptive control dosing of valproate has not been fully studied in psychiatry. The objective of this study was to derive population pharmacokinetic (PK) parameters for valproate in healthy volunteers and to test the ability of these PK parameters to estimate concentrations in adult psychiatric patients using a Bayesian program. Population PK parameters for oral valproate were estimated from 18 PK studies in six healthy volunteers (1) using NPEM2. A Bayesian PK program using these population parameters was used to predict valproate concentration-time points in a second cohort of 21 adult psychiatry patients using 0, 1, or 2 prior concentrations. Estimated population parameters (mean +/- SD) were: Ka, 1.15+/-1.75/h; V, 0.14+/-0.042 L/Kg; and CL, 0.902+/-0.133 L/h. Bayesian valproate estimations using these parameters were negatively biased (underestimations) using zero prior concentration and unbiased using 1 or 2 prior concentrations. Mean error values (95% CI) in microg/mL for predictions using 0, 1, or 2 prior concentration-time points were -12.0 (-22.5, -1.5), -9.5 (-19.1, 0.1), and -2.5 (-11.1, 6.1), respectively, and mean absolute error values in microg/mL (95% CI) were 19.8 (12.6, 27.1), 16.3 (9.4, 23.3), and 10.1 (4.9, 15.2), respectively. Population parameters derived from healthy adult volunteers provided biased predictions of valproate concentrations in adult psychiatric patients. However, estimates using 1 or 2 valproate concentration time points predicted future concentrations that were precise and unbiased, given the wide therapeutic target range.
Adaptation, Physiological↗
Resolution on family planning, 10 July 1987.
On 10 July 1987 the People's Congress Standing Committee of Guangxi adopted a Resolution on strengthening family planning work and strictly controlling population growth. The Resolution reads as follows: "Over the past few years, our region has scored some achievements in promoting family planning work. Quite a few areas have not firmly grasped family planning work, but have perfunctorily carried out ideological work and shown a poor command of the relevant policies, thus bringing about an excessively fast population growth rate. Moreover, our region is currently entering a new fertility peak. Therefore, we are faced with the very arduous tasks of fulfilling the population program listed in the Seventh 5-Year Plan and the population control targets set for the last years of this century." The Resolution adds: "We must strengthen the management and supply of contraceptives, raise the technical standards of sterilization, and improve services in this regard. We must also strengthen the management of family planning work concerning the floating population. Financial departments at all levels must successfully arrange the funds essential for family planning work. Judicial organs at all levels must strike severe blows at all illegal and criminal activities disrupting family planning work."
Asia↗
Building institutional and faculty capacity in higher education gerontology academic programs.
Directors of California State University (CSU) gerontology, geriatrics, and aging studies (GGA) academic programs were surveyed regarding CSU capacity to fulfill demographic and legislative mandates to prepare professional personnel for work with the state's aging population. Program directors affirmed the importance of providing GGA education and training to meet these needs which will require GGA program growth in core and breadth courses, students, faculty, and scope. National guidelines for GGA program development and possible future accreditation and licensure were noted. The CSU currently does not support such growth. The number of GGA programs remained at 1997 levels and unevenly distributed across the state. Faculty time assigned to GGA was less than half of that presently required. Program directors rated GGAprogram and curriculum strength as modest, and CSU fiscal and administrative support as low. Program directors strongly supported faculty development innovations to prepare more present and future GGA faculty for building the capacity of higher education GGA programs.
Aged↗
To what extent are key services offered in treatment programs for special populations?
Many substance abuse treatment (SAT) facilities offer programs designed specifically for special populations such as women, adolescents, gays/lesbians and others. Previous research shows that there are specific services that are integral to the successful treatment of these populations (e.g., family therapy for adolescents, childcare and transportation assistance for women, and HIV testing and counseling for gays/lesbians). This study examines whether facilities that self-report having programs for special populations actually offer the recommended services. The data come from the 2000 National Survey of Substance Abuse Treatment Services, which contains information on service offerings, special programs and other characteristics for all SAT facilities in the USA. The results indicate that facilities with special programs are more likely to offer the recommended key services. However, often less than half of these facilities provide the key services. There are consistent differences by ownership status, with for-profit facilities less likely to offer many of the key services.
Adolescent↗