Pro-active monitoring and social interventions at community level mitigate the impact of coronavirus (COVID-19) epidemic on older adults' mortality in Italy: A retrospective cohort analysis.

BACKGROUND: The COVID-19 epidemic in Italy has severely affected people aged more than 80, especially socially isolated. Aim of this paper is to assess whether a social and health program reduced mortality associated to the epidemic. METHODS: An observational retrospective cohort analysis of deaths recorded among >80 years in three Italian cities has been carried out to compare death rate of the general population and "Long Live the Elderly!" (LLE) program. Parametric and non-parametric tests have been performed to assess differences of means between the two populations. A multivariable analysis to assess the impact of covariates on weekly mortality has been carried out by setting up a linear mixed model. RESULTS: The total number of services delivered to the LLE population (including phone calls and home visits) was 34,528, 1 every 20 day per person on average, one every 15 days during March and April. From January to April 2019, the same population received one service every 41 days on average, without differences between January-February and March-April. The January-April 2020 cumulative crude death rate was 34.8‰ (9,718 deaths out of 279,249 individuals; CI95%: 34.1-35.5) and 28.9‰ (166 deaths out of 5,727 individuals; CI95%:24.7-33.7) for the general population and the LLE sample respectively. The general population weekly death rate increased after the 11th calendar week that was not the case among the LLE program participants (p<0.001). The Standardized Mortality Ratio was 0.83; (CI95%: 0.71-0.97). Mortality adjusted for age, gender, COVID-19 weekly incidence and prevalence of people living in nursing homes was lower in the LLE program than in the general population (p<0.001). CONCLUSIONS: LLE program is likely to limit mortality associated with COVID-19. Further studies are needed to establish whether it is due to the impact of social care that allows a better clients' adherence to the recommendations of physical distancing or to an improved surveillance of older adults that prevents negative outcomes associated with COVID-19.

Ethics of Neighborly Intimacy among Community Health Activists in Delhi.

What makes community health activism an ethical undertaking? I examine how, among Accredited Social Health Activists (ASHAs) in an urban poor neighborhood in Delhi, health work is underscored by relational sensibilities. By primarily situating the inquiry into the everyday lives of ASHAs, and beyond the formal trajectories of their work, I show how their care work and relational commitments exceed the forms of care foregrounded in public health program protocols. ASHAs operate through an ethics of neighborly intimacy - relational knowledge and acts, guided by ethical obligations toward their neighbors, and underscored by existing dependencies and care, and the detachments and differentiations of relationships.

Effects of counseling professional ethics principles on midwifery professional codes of ethics compliance and applicability rate among midwives in community health centers: a randomized clinical trial in Iran.

INTRODUCTION: Compliance with ethical principles is regarded as one of the key components in providing services in midwifery profession. This study was to evaluate the effects of counseling professional ethics principles on midwifery professional codes of ethics compliance and applicability rate among midwives working in community health centers in the city of Karaj, Iran. METHODS: This randomized controlled trial (RCT) was conducted in 2018 on a total number of 84 eligible midwives in two intervention and control groups, selected through multistage sampling method. The intervention group took part in six counseling sessions but the control group only received a training manual. Both groups then completed the Self-Reporting Questionnaire of Ethical Codes of Reproductive Health Providers (including 95 items in 14 domains) at three time points (before, immediately, and four weeks after intervention). Finally, the data were analyzed using the IBM SPSS Statistics (version 22) software via descriptive and inferential statistics. RESULTS: The findings showed that level of compliance and applicability rate in all 14 domains of midwifery professional codes of ethics were higher in the intervention group (after intervention) than those in the control group and trend of time changes in mean level of compliance and applicability rate of codes of ethics during the three time points were significantly different between both groups (p < 0.001). CONCLUSION: Given the effectiveness of counseling professional ethics principles on midwifery professional codes of ethics compliance and applicability rate among the midwives working in community health centers, designing and applying this counseling approach was recommended to improve quality of reproductive health care services.

Estrategias para la atención comunitaria orientada a grupos vulnerables en Ecuador / Strategies for community care aimed at vulnerable groups in Ecuador

RESUMEN Las propuestas de modelos de atención comunitaria se sustentan fundamentalmente en la necesidad de estandarizar el lenguaje y la acción de los profesionales en cuanto a la articulación de las diferentes organizaciones y grupos de individuos presentes en la comunidad, en aras del resguardo de su salud. El estudio pretende comentar las estrategias orientadas al abordaje comunitario de carácter inclusivo para la atención de grupos vulnerables. Para ello se hace revisión de los temas desigualdad y vulnerabilidad, claves en la Agenda 2030. En escenarios como las comunidades rurales del Ecuador, la estrategia de atención comunitaria potencia acciones sobre problemas y necesidades de salud detectados como prevalentes, a través de actividades locales dirigidas a promover la salud e incrementar la calidad de vida de los pobladores.

ABSTRACT The proposals of community care models are fundamentally based on the need to standardize the language and action of professionals regarding the articulation of different organizations and groups of individuals present in the community, in order to protect their health. The objective of this study is to comment on strategies aimed at an inclusive community approach for the attention of vulnerable groups. To do this, we review the issues of inequality and vulnerability, key in the 2030 Agenda. In scenarios such as rural communities in Ecuador, the community care strategy promotes actions on health problems and needs detected as prevalent, through local activities targeted at promoting health and increasing the quality of life of the inhabitants.

Using a virtue ethics lens to develop a socially accountable community placement programme for medical students.

BACKGROUND: Community-based education (CBE) involves educating the head (cognitive), heart (affective), and the hand (practical) by utilizing tools that enable us to broaden and interrogate our value systems. This article reports on the use of virtue ethics (VE) theory for understanding the principles that create, maintain and sustain a socially accountable community placement programme for undergraduate medical students. Our research questions driving this secondary analysis were; what are the goods which are internal to the successful practice of CBE in medicine, and what are the virtues that are likely to promote and sustain them? METHODS: We conducted a secondary theoretically informed thematic analysis of the primary data based on MacIntyre's virtue ethics theory as the conceptual framework. RESULTS: Virtue ethics is an ethical approach that emphasizes the role of character and virtue in shaping moral behavior; when individuals engage in practices (such as CBE), goods internal to those practices (such as a collaborative attitude) strengthen the practices themselves, but also augment those individuals' virtues, and that of their community (such as empathy). We identified several goods that are internal to the practice of CBE and accompanying virtues as important for the development, implementation and sustainability of a socially accountable community placement programme. A service-oriented mind-set, a deep understanding of community needs, a transformed mind, and a collaborative approach emerged as goods internal to the practice of a socially accountable CBE. The virtues needed to sustain the identified internal goods included empathy and compassion, connectedness, accountability, engagement [sustained relationship], cooperation, perseverance, and willingness to be an agent of change. CONCLUSION: This study found that MacIntyre's virtue ethics theory provided a useful theoretical lens for understanding the principles that create, maintain and sustain CBE practice.

Role of community health service programs in navigating the medical ethical slippery slope-a 10-year retrospective study among medical students from southern China.

BACKGROUND: For promoting autonomous learning motivation, the learning effect of community-oriented service is beneficial, because through community participation and service, students can transfer their implicit cognition of ethics into explicit cognition, leading to the cultivation of a sympathetic partnership between the community and medical students. Despite the proven benefits of medical students' community health service (CHS) in Western countries, CHS programs designed for medical students are not well established in mainland China, and their effects on medical students' ethical cognition are largely unknown. This study evaluated the effects of CHS programs on the ethical cognition of medical students. METHODS: A cross-sectional study was conducted on third- and fourth-year medical students and graduates working at Shantou University Medical College by using a self-administered anonymous questionnaire. Through interviews, we applied a thematic approach to analyze the responses of the participating students. The questionnaire adopted in this study was revised based on a review of the literature on medical ethics in medical students and on the CHS environment in China. The reviewed questionnaires included an evaluation questionnaire on cultivating medical ethics in a CHS context, and questionnaires used to explore the cultivation and transformation of medical ethics in medical students during the preclinical period. RESULTS: A total of 361 (54.4%) undergraduate medical students and 302 (45.6%) graduates participated in this survey. Significant differences were observed in self-evaluation of the cognitive development of ethics between those who had participated in CHS programs 1-5 times and those who had participated > 6 times. The successful identification of accepting money from the patients under the table as unethical behavior significantly differed (p = .031) among the graduates but not (p = .567) among the undergraduate students. The participants expressed the positive impact of CHS programs on their self-development. CONCLUSION: CHS programs can be widely applied in medical education in China. This educational strategy, which supports medical professionalism and incorporates humanitarian behavior as a complement to learning, should be encouraged and promoted nationally.

Public responses to volunteer community care: Propositions for old age and end of life.

BACKGROUND: Funding shortages and an ageing population have increased pressures on state or insurance funded end of life care for older people. Across the world, policy debate has arisen about the potential role volunteers can play, working alongside health and social care professionals in the community to support and care for the ageing and dying. AIMS: The authors examined self-reported levels of care for the elderly by the public in England, and public opinions of community volunteering concepts to care for the elderly at the end of life. In particular, claimed willingness to help and to be helped by local people was surveyed. METHODS: A sample of 3,590 adults in England aged 45 or more from an online access panel responded to a questionnaire in late 2017. The survey data was weighted to be representative of the population within this age band. Key literature and formative qualitative research informed the design of the survey questionnaire, which was further refined after piloting. RESULTS: Preferences for different models of community volunteering were elicited. There was a preference for 'formal' models with increased wariness of 'informal' features. Whilst 32% of adults said they 'might join' depending on whom the group helped, unsurprisingly more personal and demanding types of help significantly reduced the claimed willingness to help. Finally, willingness to help (or be helped) by local community carers or volunteers was regarded as less attractive than care being provided by personal family, close friends or indeed health and care professionals. CONCLUSION: Findings suggest that if community volunteering to care for elderly people at the end of life in England is to expand it may require considerable attention to the model including training for volunteers and protections for patients and volunteers as well as public education and promotion. Currently, in England, there is a clear preference for non-medical care to be delivered by close family or social care professionals, with volunteer community care regarded only as a back-up option.

[Open-door psychiatry and community mental health work]. / Offene Psychiatrie und gemeindepsychiatrische Arbeit.

In connection with the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, mental healthcare concepts increasingly focus on the prevention of violence and coercion. Hospital care with an open-door policy is linked with a reduction in violence and coercive measures. The authors describe a specific therapeutic milieu aiming to promote social resources and to reduce institutional exclusion. Open-door policies can be extended to and tied in with outreach community mental health work. Model projects according to § 64b of the German Social Code (SGB V) on interdisciplinary care enable flexible needs-based care including home treatment for severe mental illness.

Neonatal deaths in Cambodia: findings from a community-based mortality review.

OBJECTIVES: The aim of this study was to describe potential factors contributing to neonatal mortality in Takeo, Cambodia through assessment of verbal autopsies collected following newborn deaths in the community. The mortality review was nested within a trial of a behavioral intervention to improve newborn survival, and was conducted after the close of the trial, within the study setting. The World Health Organization standardized definition of neonatal mortality was employed, and two pediatricians independently reviewed data collected from each event to assign a cause of death. RESULTS: Thirteen newborn deaths of infants born in health facilities participating in a community based, behavioral intervention were reported during February 2015-November 2016. Ten deaths (76.92%) were early neonatal deaths, two (15.38%) were late neonatal deaths, and one was a stillbirth. Five out of 13 deaths (38.46%) occurred within the first day of life. The largest single contributor to mortality was neonatal sepsis; six of 13 deaths (46.15%) were attributed to some form of sepsis. Twenty-three percent of deaths were attributed to asphyxia. The study highlights the continuing need to improve quality of care and infection prevention and control, and to fully address causes of sepsis, in order to effectively reduce mortality in the newborn period.

Action Guide for Addressing Ethical Challenges of Resource Allocation Within Community-Based Healthcare Organizations.

This article proposes an action guide to making decisions regarding the ethical allocation of resources that affect access to healthcare services offered by community-based healthcare organizations. Using the filter of empirical data from a study of decision making in two community-based healthcare organizations, we identify potentially relevant conceptual guidance from a review of frameworks and action guides in the public health, health policy, and organizational ethics literature. We describe the development of this action guide. We used data from a prior empirical study of the values that influence decision making about the allocation of resources in particular types of community-based healthcare organizations. We evaluated, organized, and specified the conceptual guidance we found in 14 frameworks for ethical decision making. The result is an action guide that includes four domains that are relevant to the context of the decision to be made, eight domains that are relevant to the process of the decision to be made, and 15 domains that are relevant to the criteria of the decision to be made. We demonstrate the potential use of this action guide by walking through an illustrative resource allocation decision. The action guide provides community-based healthcare organizations with a conceptually grounded, empirically informed framework for ethical decision making.

Moral Economy and Moral Capital in the Community of Clinical Practice.

This New Zealand study used focused ethnography to explore the activities of communities of clinical practice (CoCP) in a community-based long-term conditions management program within a large primary health care clinic. CoCP are the informal vehicles by which patient care was delivered within the program. Here, we describe the CoCP as a micro-level moral economy within which values such as trust, respect, authenticity, reciprocity, and obligation circulate as a kind of moral capital. As taxpayers, citizens who become patients are credited with moral capital because the public health system is funded by taxes. This moral capital can be paid forward, accrued, banked, redeemed, exchanged, and forfeited by patients and their health care professionals during the course of a patient's journey. The concept of moral capital offers another route into the "black box" of clinical work by providing an alternative theoretic for explaining the relational aspects of patient care.

Ethics support in community care makes a difference for practice.

BACKGROUND: Through the Norwegian ethics project, ethics activities have been implemented in the health and care sector in more than 200 municipalities. OBJECTIVES: To study outcomes of the ethics activities and examine which factors promote and inhibit significance and sustainability of the activities. RESEARCH DESIGN: Two online questionnaires about the municipal ethics activities. Participants and research context: A total of 137 municipal contact persons for the ethics project answered the first survey (55% response rate), whereas 217 ethics facilitators responded to the second survey (33% response rate). Ethical considerations: Based on informed consent, the study was approved by the Data Protection Official of the Norwegian Social Science Data Services. FINDINGS: Around half of the respondents found the ethics project to have been highly significant for daily professional practice. Outcomes include better handling of ethical challenges, better employee cooperation, better service quality, and better relations to patients and next of kin. Factors associated with sustainability and/or significance of the activities were sufficient support from stakeholders, sufficient available time, and ethics facilitators having sufficient knowledge and skills in ethics and access to supervision. DISCUSSION: This study shows that ethics initiatives can be both sustainable and significant for practice. There is a need to create regional or national structures for follow-up and develop more comprehensive ethics training for ethics facilitators. CONCLUSION: It is both possible and potentially important to implement clinical ethics support activities in community health and care services systematically on a large scale. Future ethics initiatives in the community sector should be designed in light of documented promoting and inhibiting factors.

Conflicting rationales: leader's experienced ethical challenges in community health care for older people.

BACKGROUND: Ethical challenges arise in all types of care, and leaders need to be aware of how to resolve these challenges. Healthcare systems tend to be organised around medical conditions, and the patient is often faced with a series of uncoordinated visits to multiple specialties. Ideally, care should be organised around the patient's needs. AIM: The purpose of this article was to highlight some ethical challenges perceived by leaders with responsibility for management and service distribution, finance and ensuring quality of community health services for older people. METHOD: This study had a qualitative design with a qualitative content analysis of one focus group with six leaders that met four times in total. Leaders from the community healthcare sector in one Norwegian municipality were included, representing both nursing homes and home-based health care. The study followed the intentions of the Declaration of Helsinki and standard ethical principles. The Norwegian Social Science Data Services approved the study. All participants voluntarily gave written informed consent. FINDINGS: The main theme that emerged from this study was the ethical challenge leaders felt in the form of an inherent conflict between a caring rationale versus economic or technological rationales. Four categories emerged: (i) Management: quality versus economy; (ii) Prioritisation: fair distribution of healthcare services; (iii) Responsibility: considering individuals' needs versus the needs of the whole community; and (iv) Welfare technology: possibilities and challenges. CONCLUSION: Leaders' responsibilities in community health care for older people need to strike a balance between ethical principles in the management of limited resources.

Transversalización de la ética en intervenciones comunitarias y atención integral en salud para personas viviendo con VIH / Ethics mainstreaming in community interventions and integral health care to people living with HIV

En este artículo se presenta una reflexión sobre la vinculación de las intervenciones comunitarias y la atención integral en salud, para personas infectadas por el virus de la inmunodeficiencia humana (VIH), desde una perspectiva ética. Se parte de revisar los conceptos sobre moral, ética y bioética, además del escenario de las intervenciones comunitarias como estrategia final en la mejora de la salud de una comunidad. La atención integral en salud se valora con acciones de vigilancia, tales como: promoción de salud, prevención de enfermedades, vigilar y controlar el daño, así como brindar una atención dirigida a la recuperación y rehabilitación de la salud de las personas, con pertinencia cultural y enfoques de género, con un componente ético que asegure el adecuado funcionamiento de las intervenciones comunitarias y la atención integral en salud (AU).

This article offers a reflection, from an ethical point of view, on the linking of the community interventions and the comprehensive health care for people living with HIV. It begins reviewing the concepts of moral, ethics and bioethics, and also the surroundings of the community interventions as a final strategy in improving the community health. The comprehensive health care is assessed through surveillance actions as health promotion, disease prevention, monitoring and damage control; it also includes providing care aimed to people´s health recovery and rehabilitation, with cultural pertinence and gender approach and an ethic component, ensuring the adequate functioning of the community interventions and the comprehensive health care (AU).

Transversalización de la ética en intervenciones comunitarias y atención integral en salud para personas viviendo con VIH / Ethics mainstreaming in community interventions and integral health care to people living with HIV

En este artículo se presenta una reflexión sobre la vinculación de las intervenciones comunitarias y la atención integral en salud, para personas infectadas por el virus de la inmunodeficiencia humana (VIH), desde una perspectiva ética. Se parte de revisar los conceptos sobre moral, ética y bioética, además del escenario de las intervenciones comunitarias como estrategia final en la mejora de la salud de una comunidad. La atención integral en salud se valora con acciones de vigilancia, tales como: promoción de salud, prevención de enfermedades, vigilar y controlar el daño, así como brindar una atención dirigida a la recuperación y rehabilitación de la salud de las personas, con pertinencia cultural y enfoques de género, con un componente ético que asegure el adecuado funcionamiento de las intervenciones comunitarias y la atención integral en salud (AU).

This article offers a reflection, from an ethical point of view, on the linking of the community interventions and the comprehensive health care for people living with HIV. It begins reviewing the concepts of moral, ethics and bioethics, and also the surroundings of the community interventions as a final strategy in improving the community health. The comprehensive health care is assessed through surveillance actions as health promotion, disease prevention, monitoring and damage control; it also includes providing care aimed to people´s health recovery and rehabilitation, with cultural pertinence and gender approach and an ethic component, ensuring the adequate functioning of the community interventions and the comprehensive health care (AU).

Bioética para la comunidad: identificación y transmisión de nociones relevantes de bioética para la comunidad / Bioethics for the community: identification and transmission of relevant notions of bioethics for the community / Bioètica per a la comunitat: identificació i transmissió de nocions rellevants de bioètica per a la comunitat

Se presenta el marco, desarrollo y resultados de un estudio en el que se concluye que los asuntos bioéticos pueden ser tratados con interés y aprovechamiento (con las adaptaciones y metodologías adecuadas) en actividades comunitarias. Se concluye también que la bioética debe impulsar y permear una acción comunitaria desde los centros de atención primaria, imbricada con la atención individual, promotora de la participación y el empoderamiento ciudadano, integrada intersectorialmente con otros sistemas en el territorio y comprometida con la justicia

The article presents the framework, development and results of a study which concludes that bioethical issues can be treated with interest and profit (with appropriate adaptations and methodologies) in community activities. Above all, bioethics must promote and permeate a community action developed by primary care centres, imbricated with individual attention, promoting participation and citizen empowerment, integrated intersectorally with other systems in the territory and committed to justice

Es presenta el marc, el desenvolupament i els resultats d'un estudi en el qual es conclou que els temes bioètics poden ser tractats amb interès i aprofitament (amb les adaptacions i metodologies adequades) en activitats comunitàries. Es conclou que la bioètica ha d'impulsar i transcendir a una acció comunitària des dels centres d'atenció primària, imbricada amb l'atenció individual, promotora de la participació i l'empoderament del ciutadà, integrada intersectorialment amb altres sistemes al territori i compromesa amb la justícia