China's First Global Health Bachelor Curriculum
With rapid development and growing health inequalities, China is facing an increasing demand for a highly-trained public health workforce. Yuanan Lu PhD, with UH Public Health, recently collaborated with other global health experts to create the first global health bachelor curriculum in China. The experts conducted a consensus-building process to construct the program, which will include modules in global health issues, intercultural communication, and health policy and program management. The program is now offered at Wuhan University and can serve as a guide for developing similar programs in China. More such programs are needed to help the country to address health issues and conduct research to provide evidence for policy-making decisions. The researchers reported (https://bit.ly/2TbMd9V) the outline of the curriculum and the process that they used to design it in BMJ Open.
‘Partner Services’ Strategy Is Effective in Finding Undiagnosed HIV Cases
An effective way to find people with undiagnosed HIV infections is to use a strategy called partner services, new research shows. Partner services involves interviewing people newly diagnosed with HIV to find information about their sex and needle-sharing partners, and then confidentially contacting those partners and offering testing and other services. In a test of implementing partner services in Hawai‘i and New Mexico, researchers including Michelle Wozniak MPH, of the Hawai‘i State Department of Health, found that 18% of people tested as the result of partner services were diagnosed with new cases of HIV. Along with the high testing yield, the project also improved collaboration between the health departments, providers, and HIV services organziations, the researchers reported (https://bit.ly/2zinA2M) in the Journal of Public Health Management and Practice.
The Lokahi Wheel Offers a Culturally-Sensitive Approach for Social Workers
Social work researchers have developed a culturally-sensitive approach to use in family assessments by adding natural imagery to a Lokahi Wheel, which is a diagram depicting the Native Hawaiian worldview of interrelationships between humanity, the spiritual realm, and the environment. Researchers including senior author Meripa Godinet PhD, with the Myron B. Thompson School of Social Work, said social workers could use the wheel when assessing Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander families receiving involuntary services, such as child protective services, that are often seen as stigmatizing. The approach was designed to help engage families in an egalitarian manner that acknowledges their narrative. In early work, graduate students reported the tool was useful in fostering communication. The study is published (https://bit.ly/2MsGk5C) in the Journal of Indigenous Social Development.
Racial and Ethnic Differences in Mental Health Sevices in Hawai‘i
Asians and Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islanders (NHPIs) in Hawai‘i are less likely than whites to use health services for mental health reasons, new research of Medicaid data suggests. Researchers led by Eunjung Lim PhD, MS, of the John A. Burns School of Medicine, investigated differences in the use of services for mental health disorders using 2010 claims data from Hawai‘i residents ages 21 to 64. They found that Asians were 44% less likely and NHPIs were 39% less likely to have a mental health outpatient visit compared with whites. For inpatient visits, Asians had 70% and NHPIs had 79% of the expected number of visits compared with whites. Further research is needed to evaluate whether these data reflect an unmet need, the researchers wrote in their study (https://bit.ly/2TgGQGI) published in the Journal of Mental Health.
Nurse-Led Projects in Hawai‘i Improve Outcomes and Save Money
The Hawai‘i State Center for Nursing is working to educate nurses on conducting evidence-based practice (EBP) projects, and a new paper highlights some recent accomplishments of the program. Senior author Katherine Finn Davis PhD, APRN, with the School of Nursing and Dental Hygiene, and colleagues report that the program teaches nurses to use the Iowa Model of EBP and includes a two-day workshop and a one-year internship. In one project, nurses saved their hospital $25,000 and freed up 380 nursing hours annually by demonstrating that a procedure to prepare the perineum with iodine prior to vaginal deliveries was not routinely needed. In another project, nurses developed a new extubation readiness protocol and successfully lowered their unit's rate of failed extubations, which occur when patients do not begin breathing spontaneously after an artificial airway is removed. The paper (https://bit.ly/2Bdvpsd) is published in the Journal of Hospital Librarianship.
How to Manage Soft Tissue Sarcomas
Soft tissue sarcomas (STSs) are very rare tumors that arise in tissue such as muscle, fat, and blood vessels. In a new review, Shane Y. Morita MD, PhD, with the UH Cancer Center, writes that the key to managing STSs that involve the trunk is a multi-disciplinary team that includes pathologists and radiologists, along with medical, radiation, and surgical oncologists. Surgery to remove the sarcoma is the cornerstone treatment for STS, and it is important to achieve negative margins around the tumor (meaning that there are no cancer cells left behind), but still preserve the patient's function as much as possible. There is a trend in the field toward treating patients who have high-grade STSs with chemotherapy or radiation prior to surgery. The paper (https://bit.ly/2Sdf54z) is published in Chinese Clinical Oncology.