[The public health profession in Spain: an urgent challenge to strengthen its practice]. / La profesión de la salud pública en España: un reto urgente para fortalecer su práctica.

The recent health crises have highlighted the weakness of public health structures in Spain. The causes are, among others, the scarcity of economic resources and the delay in their institutional modernization. In addition, there is the weakness of the training processes and the employability. The Spanish Society of Public Health and Health Administration (SESPAS) has developed a White paper of the public health profession with the aim of contributing to strengthening professional practice. The sociodemographic characteristics of the associations federated to SESPAS have been described and the discourse of professionals has been analyzed through six focus groups and 19 interviews (72 people). To agree on the conclusions and recommendations, a meeting was organized with the participation of 29 participants. The demographic and employment data of the 3467 people belonging to seven SESPAS societies show that, overall, about 60% are women and 40% were under 50 years of age. Undergraduate degrees were medicine (35.9%), nursing (17.4%) and pharmacy and veterinary medicine (10.4%). Key aspects of the meaning of public health, training, employability and career and institutionalization of public health were collected through interviews and focus groups. The final meeting agreed on 25 conclusions and 24 recommendations that aim to contribute to strengthening professionals and the public health profession in Spain. Some of them, related to training, employability and professional career, have been shared in a workshop at the School of Public Health of Menorca with public health officials from the Ministry of Health and some autonomous communities.

[Future National Public Health Agency: an opportunity for the public health system in Spain]. / La Agencia Estatal de Salud Pública: una oportunidad para el sistema de Salud Pública en España.

The creation of a national centre for public health, with adequate resources, will make it possible to face the public health challenges of the present and the future in our country. To this end, the proposed state agency, should hold functions based on advanced public health organizational schemes, while linking with the sustainable development goals. The coordination of a national public health strategy built on a collaborative network of networks would also be essential, as developing an innovative, benchmarked and prioritised public health communication strategy, among other tasks. The lack of resources, the current relative disconnection of essential public health functions at the state level, and the inequity in their development of these functions at the regional and municipal levels, favour the development of the agency project as a network of networks. In this paper we give ideas for a process that seems decisive for Spanish public health in the 21st century.

[Who, how and what: community health and local administration]. / Quién, cómo y qué: salud comunitaria y administración local.

The thirteenth SESPAS (Spanish society of public health and health management) report is structured in three blocks Who, How and What about community health and local governance. In the who block the main agents working in community health are described: communities, health care system, and local government; and how their relations and implication in community health have evolved; which concepts are used; what is the current situation and which challenges they have. The How block contains methodological views, oriented towards implementation of community interventions, based upon participatory tools, development of networks and review of evidence and evaluations to build a National Strategy of Health Promotion of the Spanish Ministry of Health, welfare and consumers affairs including suitable deontologic principles. Finally, the what block refers to a wide range of experiences of community health at the local level as well as training in community health, urbanism, gender, neighborhoods, healthy universities. Additionally, besides regular papers, we show dialogs including debates to further develop community health. It contains 18 papers, without taking into account this introduction, authored by 40 men and 49 women.

[Assets: from maps to territory. SESPAS Report 2018]. / Activos: de los mapas al territorio. Informe SESPAS 2018.

In recent years, health asset maps have become increasingly important tools in the field of health promotion. They are being incorporated into the daily practice of many healthcare workers, in individualized care in consultations (through social prescription), and in groups or community development processes. It is necessary to reflect on how the asset maps are being produced, analyzing how the different stages of the process can be involved in their construction. The formats in which the data is obtained through the identification of health assets are presented, as well as the processes of production of the information, participative and evaluated processes, are crucial for the maps to be useful, for professionals as well as citizens and institutions.

[Hygeia and virtue or remembering Protagoras: dialogue on community health ethics. SESPAS Report 2018]. / Hygea y la virtud o recordando a Protágoras: diálogo sobre ética de la salud comunitaria. Informe SESPAS 2018.

A dialogue between ethics and public health on the moral implications of the promotion of community health in which the importance of respecting autonomy and contributing to the empowerment of the community with which it collaborates is highlighted; in addition to the appropriateness of an explicit commitment that sets out the limits of collaboration and the opportunity for a specific deontology.

[Cuts, austerity and health. SESPAS report 2014]. / Recortes, austeridad y salud. Informe SESPAS 2014.

Since 2009, the economic recession has led to cuts in spending on social welfare policy and in health care. The most important risks to health depend on negative changes in social determinants. Notable among these determinants are unemployment and the large proportion of people at risk of poverty, which affects 30% of children younger than 14 years. Social inequalities have increased significantly, much more than health inequalities, probably because the value of retirement pensions has been maintained until now. Most of the population is fairly satisfied with the public health system, although it is under considerable pressure. Mortality statistics have not been affected so far, but there has been an increase in mood disorders and mental health problems. Health services utilization has decreased and the number of publicly prescribed drugs has fallen dramatically. This restriction accounts for much of the decrease in public spending on health, since the hospital care budget has not decreased, despite the fall in primary care and public health spending. The crisis could encourage community health and the inclusion of health in all policies. It is the responsibility of professionals and public health institutions monitoring the trend in health problems and their determinants to avoid irreversible situations as far as possible.

[Inappropriate use of health resources and the trivialisation of medicine]. / El consumo sanitario inapropiado y la trivialización de la medicina.

One of the main problems of our health care system is its excessive use. The most evident results of this misuse are the waste of resources and the iatrogenic consequences that are not justified by any expectations in health improvement. Among the possible causes of this inappropriate use, the trivialization of medical practice should be emphasized. This entails not only a loss of respect and consideration, but facilitates and even stimulates reckless use. Although patients and health care workers are both responsible for this recklessness, politicians and health care managers should be held responsible more so. Without a real emancipation allowing health care users and the population to control the factors that determine their health, it is unlikely that the inappropriate use of health resources and its associated iatrogenic consequences will be reduced.

[The putative link between the MMR vaccine and autism and refusal to vaccinate]. / La supuesta asociación entre la vacuna triple vírica y el autismo y el rechazo a la vacunación.

The paper of Wakefield et al. in The Lancet, triggered a negative reaction to the MMR vaccine, even though it was just a series of cases and the association between vaccination and autism could well be anecdotal. However, it was found that this association was spurious, not only because of hidden biases but also to alterations of the data and other improper behavior of the two authors that they were expelled from medical council. Finally, the article was removed from the magazine. This episode invites to think about the credibility and trust in the authorities and professionals to the population, as well as the suspicions that may arise when there are potential conflicts of interest among professionals, industry magazines and the population. A special area of interest is on the distorted expectations of health interventions, including vaccination, particularly with regard to both individual and collective prevention.

[Common competencies and contents in public health in graduate programs]. / Competencias y contenidos comunes de salud pública en los programas universitarios de grado.

OBJECTIVE: To identify fundamental public health competencies and contents in nursing, pharmacy, teaching, medicine, human nutrition and dietetics, optics and optometry, labor relations and human resources, and social work in graduate programs and to formulate proposals for their improvement. METHODS: The workshop on Public health contents in graduate programs in the XXI Menorca Public Health School was organized as follows: eight groups were set up, coordinated by 37 Spanish university teachers participating in the workshop and selected through key informants and snowball techniques. Two studies on public health professional competencies and the participants' own graduate programs were used to discuss public health professional competencies and contents and establish recommendations to improve public health programs. Each group worked on a particular degree course and the results were shared in plenary. RESULTS: Professional competencies for the three essential public health functions were indentified in all the degrees, except teaching, optics and optometry, and social work. Some of the competencies included in degrees in nursing, teaching, human nutrition and dietetics, and social work were rewritten to highlight the role of each type of professional in public health functions. The groups agreed on the introductory topics (basic concepts and health determinants) and intervention strategies. CONCLUSION: Common competencies and contents were identified in graduate programs. Updating public health contents in graduate programs would help to define and promote the profile of public health professionals.

[The use of the Framingham-REGICOR equation in a primary care centre. Impact on primary prevention of cardiovascular diseases]. / Utilización de la ecuación de Framingham-REGICOR en un centro de atención primaria. Impacto sobre la prevención primaria de las enfermedades cardiovasculares.

OBJECTIVES: To evaluate the adequacy of cardiovascular primary prevention by calculating cardiovascular risk (CVR) with 2 different equations and to evaluate the economic impact of the resulting drug expenditure. DESIGN. By means of a transversal study of all the new cases of lipaemia diagnosed, patients were classified in 2 CVR categories (> or =20% and <20%). The Framingham-Wilson (FW) and Framingham-REGICOR (FR) equations were used to analyse the difference between observed treatments (really prescribed) and expected treatments. Costs were compared. SETTING: Barceloneta PCC, Barcelona, Spain. PATIENTS: Ninety-two cases of lipaemia (2002 and 2003) that met the following inclusion criteria: no coronary history, no taking of lipid-lowering drugs, and age between 35 and 74. There were 10 losses in the 92 individuals through lack of a variable for calculating CVR. RESULTS: According to the clinical criterion, 22 of the 82 patients were treated with medication (26.82%). The expected proportion of patients treated when the FW equation was used was 24.39% (20/82); and was 0% (0/82) with the FR equation. On applying the FW equation, it was seen that 12 of 22 patients treated and 10 of 60 patients not treated did not receive the correct drug treatment. If the mean cost per patient treated and per year at the PCC is applied to the new cases, there is a 9.09% reduction (euro 479.2) for the FW equation and 100% (euro 5271.2) for the FR equation. CONCLUSIONS: The use of one or other algorithm for calculating CVR entails pertinent differences in clinical practice and expenditure. All patients in primary prevention must receive non-pharmacological treatment.

[Public health and public health systems sustainability]. / Salud pública y sostenibilidad de los sistemas públicos de salud.

Public health and healthcare originally started out separately from one another in the past, having later further developed taking different paths in modern times. The major development the health systems underwent in the last half of the 20th century entailed a heightening of the individual standpoint and a division of these two approaches despite the attempts made to bring them together as of the WHO Alma-Ata Conference in 1978. The waning of rationalism and other social phenomena had a hand the collective or population-oriented focus being focused on to a lesser degree in Public Health, but these trends also gave rise to a growing problem of rationality in individual healthcare and sustainability in the public health systems. The debate on the current scene stands to set out the sustainability-related problems mediated by internal and external agents and to revise Public Health's possible contribution to the improvement thereof by advocating yet a further attempt at bringing together and integrating these two diverging standpoints.

[Screening induced by health services: impact and consequences. Ethical issues]. / Inducción sanitaria de los cribados: impacto y consecuencias. Aspectos éticos.

The main aim of screening is to identify people with an increased probability to benefit from preventive interventions, generally from secondary prevention but also from primary prevention activities. The goal is to facilitate early diagnosis and treatment in order to modify positively the prognosis (the former case), or to recognize people exposed to risk factors which increase the incidence rate of disease, and then to prevent the disease (the latter case). Good intentions are not enough to achieve good results in terms of effectiveness, safety, efficiency or equity. It is necessary to have a systematic assessment of the consequences of screening, particularly on the impact on peoples health and on the health services. Due to the diversity of types of screenings that are done, it is very difficult to estimate the net impact caused by their implementation. Moreover, the changes in the health of a population depend on many factors other than health service interventions. Thus, it is very important to determine the effectiveness and safety of the screening methods that are most frequently applied. Unfortunately, assessment of the benefits and the harm potentially caused by preventive interventions has not been done often. In Spain only a few partial assessments have been published, and they focus on the activities and the processes themselves rather than the final outcomes. Given that screening activities are carried out in health care services, and that the populations screened are mostly healthy people, the ethical issues have great importance when health policies are designed and implemented. Thus, it is recommended that screenings activities be analyzed applying the ethical principles of autonomy, benefit, safety and justice. If any screening program cannot reasonably satisfy these principles then they should be removed from the list of public health activities that are financed by public resources. In the same sense, all screening procedures offered to the population must be subjected to a systematic evaluation of their effectiveness, safety, efficiency and equity in terms of how the procedure would be applied. Lastly, to achieve an effective implementation of the principle of autonomy as well the desired goal of empowering the population to exercise some control over their determinants of health, it is recommended to explore new ways of achieving active citizen participation to establish preventive priorities and to assess the impact of screening interventions.