Public Health Workforce Professional Development Analysis: A Human-Systems Integration for Healthy Communities.

Objectives: The healthcare landscape is challenged by emerging and severe public health threats, and fast shifting priorities. There is an urgent need to build public health workforce capacity to enable rapid adaptation and effective responses to these threats. We outline a whole system's learning approach for analyzing public health systems in collaboration with public health leaders.

IHR amendments and the "pandemic agreement" an Israeli perspective.

Background: The 77th World Health Assembly in May 2024 agreed on several key amendments to the International Health Regulations (IHR) (2005), which are set to enhance global public health preparedness and response mechanisms. These amendments are part of a broader effort to integrate the lessons learned from the COVID-19 pandemic, seeking to create a more globally interconnected and rapid global response mechanism for future health crises, including a new Pandemic Agreement.

Main Body: Globally and in Israel, some voice their concern that the IHR amendments and the Pandemic Agreement could undermine a nation's sovereign right to manage its public health response, infringe on national autonomy, or impose obligations such as sharing resources like diagnostics, medicines, technology, or vaccines, which could be seen as detrimental to national interests.

Older Adults' Experiences of Institutional Eating and Dining: A Qualitative Study on Mealtimes in Adult Day Centers.

As the global population ages, it is becoming increasingly important to create sustainable, health-promoting environments that support healthy aging. This study explores seniors' mealtime experiences in adult day centers (ADCs) in southern Israel, focusing on identifying health and well-being needs related to eating and dining behaviors through the lens of the healthy placemaking approach. Thematic analysis was used to analyze data from focus groups and interviews with ADC attendees and leaders across a multicultural sample of ADCs in southern Israel between April and November 2022.

Success and failure in establishing national physician databases: a comparison between Canada and Israel.

Physician databases constitute an essential component of health workforce planning. However, while some countries have established functioning national physician databases, others have failed to do so. We compared the healthcare systems of two technologically and economically developed countries, Canada and Israel, which represent cases of respective success and failure in establishing physician databases.

Collective Forgetting of American Vaginal Breech Delivery.

When asked why nearly all doctors refer their breech cases to surgery, despite non-surgical breech birth being permitted throughout the United States, an obstetrician will likely cite the Term Breech Trial (TBT). This study, conducted in 2000, decisively concluded that planned cesarean delivery is safer than vaginal breech delivery. However, a review of the literature suggests that the decline of vaginal breech deliveries was a long time in the making.

Towards Equitable Diabetes Care: A Global Perspective on Quality Measurement Exchange.

In the pursuit of equitable diabetes care, international knowledge exchange (iKE) serves as a crucial mechanism for narrowing the gaps in quality within and between countries. Little is known about the process of quality measurement exchange among stakeholders from high-income countries (HICs), low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), and international organizations. This study aims to analyze recent international exchanges of quality measures in diabetes care and propose a framework for enhancing quality, focusing on LMICs.

Professional development: a mixed methods study of Masters of Public Health alumni.

Introduction: We examined the perceptions of the Master of Public Health (MPH) degree graduates regarding their personal competencies, job performance and professional development using a mixed method, explanatory sequential design.

Methods: A cross-sectional, self-administered questionnaire of the Haifa School of Public Health alumni who graduated between 2005 and 2022 was disseminated to 849 graduates between March and June 2022, from which 127 responded (response rate: 14.90%).

Relational One Health: A more-than-biomedical framework for more-than-human health, and lessons learned from Brazil, Ethiopia, and Israel.

The One Health conceptual framework envisions human, animal, and environmental health as interconnected. This framework has achieved remarkable progress in the control of zoonotic diseases, but it commonly neglects the environmental domain, implicitly prioritizes human life over the life of other beings, and fails to consider the political, cultural, social, historical, and economic contexts that shape the health of multispecies collectives. We have developed a novel theoretical framework, Relational One Health, which expands the boundaries of One Health, clearly defines the environmental domain, and provides an avenue for engagement with critical theory.

Emotional Eating among College Students in Israel: A Study during Times of War.

Emotional eating, the act of consuming food to cope with negative emotions rather than responding to hunger cues, can lead to overeating in an attempt to regulate and alleviate these emotions. This study aimed to assess emotional eating among college students in Israel, specifically during times of war, which present unique and heightened stressors that accumulate on top. A total of 575 participants from the Ashkelon Academic College completed an online questionnaire examining background information, stress levels, and emotional eating symptoms.

The influenza landscape and vaccination coverage in older adults during the SARS-Cov-2 pandemic: data from Several European Countries and Israel.

Introduction: The Raise Awareness of Influenza Strategies in Europe (RAISE) group gathered information about the healthcare burden of influenza (hospitalizations, intensive care unit [ICU] admissions, and excess deaths), surveillance systems, and the vaccine coverage rate (VCR) in older adults in 18 European countries and Israel.

Areas Covered: Published medical literature and official medical documentation on the influenza disease burden in the participating countries were reviewed from 2010/11 until the 2022/23 influenza seasons. Information on the framework for monitoring the disease burden and the provision for ensuring older adults had access to vaccination in their respective countries was provided.

Role of Grassroots Public Health Leadership in Bedouin Society in Israel in Reducing Health Disparities.

Introduction: Negev Bedouin settlements suffer from poor infrastructure, and the population's health status is low across all indicators. While it is difficult for Bedouin citizens of Israel to integrate into the Israeli employment market, integrating this population into the health system is far-reaching. The aim of this study is to analyze the barriers and motivational factors experienced by Bedouin doctors to promote public health in the Bedouin community in southern Israel and to examine the perceptions these doctors have around the concept of leadership in a public health setting.

Managing a Mega Mass Casualty Event by a Civilian Emergency Medical Services Agency: Lessons From the First Day of the 2023 Hamas-Israel War.

On 7 October 2023, Israel faced an unexpected attack by Hamas, causing over 1,200 deaths and injuring more than 9,000 individuals. This report delves into the rapid medical response spearheaded by Israel's civilian Emergency Medical Service, Magen David Adom (MDA), during this crisis. Utilizing data from MDA's electronic database, 4,097 dispatch records from the day were analyzed.

Evaluation of an automated feedback intervention to improve antibiotic prescribing among primary care physicians (OPEN Stewardship): a multinational controlled interrupted time-series study.

Tools to advance antimicrobial stewardship in the primary health care setting, where most antimicrobials are prescribed, are urgently needed. The aim of this study was to evaluate OPEN Stewarship (Online Platform for Expanding aNtibiotic Stewardship), an automated feedback intervention, among a cohort of primary care physicians. We performed a controlled, interrupted time-series study of 32 intervention and 725 control participants, consisting of primary care physicians from Ontario, Canada and Southern Israel, from October 2020 to December 2021.