Latest news with #healthoutcomes
Forbes
07-07-2025
- Health
- Forbes
Public Health Is Getting Precise – Let's Make Sure It's Fair
An aerial view of houses in Jersey City, United States on July 13, 2024. (Photo by Jakub ... More Porzycki/NurPhoto via Getty Images) It may sound like a contradiction, but public health—the field built on serving entire populations—is becoming more precise. At its core, precision public health seeks to marry the tools of big data, genomics, and individualized insights with population-level interventions. The surprising twist? By focusing on smaller population units, specific communities, neighborhoods, or even individuals, interventions can be more effectively tailored, improving outcomes while reducing inefficiencies and unintended consequences. Public health has long embraced the principle of serving the many, with sweeping interventions aimed at benefiting entire populations. Public health accomplishments, include community sanitation policies, vaccination campaigns, and smoking cessation programs. These efforts, built on the understanding of generalized patterns in populations, have saved countless lives. Recent advancements in technology, such as the ability to analyze large amounts of data and detection of disease risk using AI frameworks, are drastically changing how public health practitioners develop interventions. Precision public health is assuredly the next great leap in improving health and well-being for the masses. However, we are faced with the question, is precision public health equitable or at risk of exacerbating health disparities? For some, it feels like a contradiction. Public health is rooted in equity, aiming to level the playing field for all — not just those with access to individual, personalized treatment and therapeutics. Critics worry that even the term "precision" conjures the idea of individual health. This descriptor shifts attention away from determining factors of health, such as poverty, housing, education, and systemic racism and discrimination, which contribute to a community's quality of life and their health span. Cultural biases, accessibility, and systemic inequities in healthcare could turn a promising innovation into yet another mechanism that widens gaps rather than bridging them. When applied thoughtfully, precision public health can enhance — not replace — the principles of equity and prevention. For example, advanced mapping technologies can identify urban heat spots, helping to target cooling interventions for neighborhoods that are at higher risk for unhealthy temperatures, or being able to accurately predict everyone's risk profile for diabetes using their weight change patterns. Similarly, machine learning algorithms can better detect, diagnose, and treat diseases by reducing unwanted variations in blood data removing a potential challenge to using metabolite profiles of blood samples for research or improve standard of care when triaging patients during the Covid-19 pandemic using an algorithm on electronic health data. The challenge, then, lies in implementation. To realize the potential of precision public health, equity must remain the foundation, which can be applied in several ways: While precision technologies can provide incredible insights, they should not distract from addressing the root causes of health disparities. Precision public health should empower systemic change rather than reinforce the status quo. Ultimately, precision public health is is a tool — a powerful one — that must be wielded with care. By anchoring it in the principles of equity and prevention, we can harness its potential to address both individual needs and the collective wellness of entire populations. As we stand at this crossroads, the path we choose will define the future of health and wellness. With deliberate action and conscientious oversight, precision public health could complement traditional approaches, creating a more inclusive and effective model for improving health outcomes. Whether it becomes the future of wellness or an empty buzzword, it depends on our commitment to using it fairly.
Yahoo
03-07-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Calling all women: The IWK Foundation wants to hear your health stories
The IWK Foundation has launched a survey in the hopes of better understanding women's health experiences in the Maritime provinces and to address the disparity in health outcomes between men and women. The foundation is a not-for-profit organization that raises funds to support IWK Health, a major hospital in Halifax that provides care to women, youth and children from Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island. Jennifer Gillivan, president and CEO of the foundation, said the online survey invites women ages 18 and up to share their perspectives about their overall health experiences, challenges and outcomes. It also asks questions about their health in different stages of their life. "Part of our mandate is to educate and advocate for women. And so we realized — we need to hear from women. We need women's voices," said Gillivan in an interview on Thursday. "I mean, you go out to eat with your girlfriends or your family and you start talking about experiences in health, and they don't stop talking. So we thought this is a phenomenal way to kind of collect all that data and then understand where the pressure points are." The survey is anonymous. It includes questions like: "What positively or negatively impacts your overall physical health the most?" There is also a full page dedicated to sharing in detail "the good, bad or ugly" of one's health-care story. The results, which will be reviewed by a team of researchers, will help inform where women need more support and where there are gaps in the system, said Gillivan. This could include gaps in education and awareness or access to tools and information. But most importantly, it seeks to fundamentally change how women's health is understood, prioritized and delivered in a country where women spend 25 per cent more time in poor health than men, said Gillivan. "There needs to be a real push on women's research, because research informs care. It changes everything. And we need better training for doctors on women's health," she said. Gillivan said women's health has been historically under-researched and underfunded, with just seven per cent of total national research funding allocated to it, despite women making up 50 per cent of the population. She said the findings of the report will inform the IWK's own practices and operations, but will also be shared with anyone else who wants it, including governments, health authorities and other non-profits across Canada. It will also help guide efforts to educate the wider community that women's bodies are fundamentally different than men's, and their health care needs to be prioritized and researched, she said. Maggie Archibald is a patient advocate based in Halifax who has struggled with chronic pain for 18 years due to endometriosis that was only officially diagnosed two years ago. She said she often felt dismissed by the health-care system. "You symptoms are often not believed and women often have to fight harder to get help," said Archibald. "I'm really excited to see the results and what comes out of this and hopefully we can have some real change." The foundation expects to share the results publicly on Oct. 1. Click here to take the IWK Foundation's survey. MORE TOP STORIES
CBC
03-07-2025
- Health
- CBC
Calling all women: The IWK Foundation wants to hear your health stories
The IWK Foundation has launched a survey in the hopes of better understanding women's health experiences in the Maritime provinces and to address the disparity in health outcomes between men and women. The foundation is a not-for-profit organization that raises funds to support IWK Health, a major hospital in Halifax that provides care to women, youth and children from Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island. Jennifer Gillivan, president and CEO of the foundation, said the online survey invites women ages 18 and up to share their perspectives about their overall health experiences, challenges and outcomes. It also asks questions about their health in different stages of their life. "Part of our mandate is to educate and advocate for women. And so we realized — we need to hear from women. We need women's voices," said Gillivan in an interview on Thursday. "I mean, you go out to eat with your girlfriends or your family and you start talking about experiences in health, and they don't stop talking. So we thought this is a phenomenal way to kind of collect all that data and then understand where the pressure points are." The survey is anonymous. It includes questions like: "What positively or negatively impacts your overall physical health the most?" There is also a full page dedicated to sharing in detail "the good, bad or ugly" of one's health-care story. The results, which will be reviewed by a team of researchers, will help inform where women need more support and where there are gaps in the system, said Gillivan. This could include gaps in education and awareness or access to tools and information. But most importantly, it seeks to fundamentally change how women's health is understood, prioritized and delivered in a country where women spend 25 per cent more time in poor health than men, said Gillivan. "There needs to be a real push on women's research, because research informs care. It changes everything. And we need better training for doctors on women's health," she said. Gillivan said women's health has been historically under-researched and underfunded, with just seven per cent of total national research funding allocated to it, despite women making up 50 per cent of the population. She said the findings of the report will inform the IWK's own practices and operations, but will also be shared with anyone else who wants it, including governments, health authorities and other non-profits across Canada. It will also help guide efforts to educate the wider community that women's bodies are fundamentally different than men's, and their health care needs to be prioritized and researched, she said. Maggie Archibald is a patient advocate based in Halifax who has struggled with chronic pain for 18 years due to endometriosis that was only officially diagnosed two years ago. She said she often felt dismissed by the health-care system. "You symptoms are often not believed and women often have to fight harder to get help," said Archibald. "I'm really excited to see the results and what comes out of this and hopefully we can have some real change." The foundation expects to share the results publicly on Oct. 1.
The Independent
01-07-2025
- Health
- The Independent
Study finds BMI is a ‘deeply flawed' way to measure weight
A new study from University of Florida Health questions the effectiveness of Body Mass Index (BMI) as a standard for defining obesity and predicting health outcomes. Lead author Dr. Arch Mainous stated the study found BMI to be "deeply flawed" and unable to predict the risk of future death, unlike direct body fat measurements. The research proposes bioelectrical impedance analysis (BIA), an inexpensive method that directly measures body fat, as a significantly more accurate alternative to BMI. The study of 4,252 individuals revealed a strong link between high body fat (measured by BIA) and increased mortality risk, a correlation not observed when using BMI. Critics note BMI's limitations, including its inability to differentiate between muscle and fat mass and its failure to account for variations across different demographics.
BBC News
21-06-2025
- Health
- BBC News
Dorset hospital discharges improve, hears wellbeing board
Extended hospital stays for patients medically well enough to be discharged are improving, a county's health and wellbeing board has use of apps and partnership working have seen delayed stays shorten from more than 10 days to seven in some Dorset hospital settings - and from 30 to 20 days for people with more complex needs, it was told.A patient at Blandford Hospital, who had been on the wards for 100 days beyond the point she could medically be discharged, was now back home thanks to the efforts of four different teams, the Dorset Council committee was board was being updated on the progress of a council programme called Future Care. Councillors were told much of the success was down to staff in health, social services and social care who had "embraced change" and made the new methods work to the benefit of patients staying in hospital beds longer than they needed to, freeing the beds for more pressing programmes across the county are costing £9m, mainly paid for by NHS are estimated to deliver £36m in benefits up until 2029/2030, councillors Miller, vice chair of the board, said: "This programme is about making sure that as many as possible who go through our service have a really, really positive experience and it's also an experience that improves their health outcomes."Steve Robinson, the board's chair, said the new way of working was the "way it should be, different agencies coming together for the benefit of the patient".He said it was about "putting aside titles and saying 'what is best for this person?'." You can follow BBC Dorset on Facebook, X (Twitter), or Instagram.
