Development of a water-related disaster decision model for nurses in Thailand.

Background: Disasters, be they natural or manmade, are catastrophic events that confront nursing managers with the challenge of acting to reduce the impact of such events upon society as a whole.

Objective: Provide nursing management personnel with a guide organized in such a fashion as to facilitate the decision making process in water related disasters. To develop a model to guide the decision-making process regarding water-related disaster management.

The effects on population health status of using dedicated property taxes to fund local public health agencies.

Background: In the United States, a dedicated property tax describes the legal authority given to a local jurisdiction to levy and collect a tax for a specific purpose. We investigated for an association of locally dedicated property taxes to fund local public health agencies and improved health status in the eight states designated as the Mississippi Delta Region.

Methods: We analyzed the difference in health outcomes of counties with and without a dedicated public health tax after adjusting for a set of control variables using regression models for county level data from 720 counties of the Mississippi Delta Region.

Decision science: a scientific approach to enhance public health budgeting.

The allocation of resources for public health programming is a complicated and daunting responsibility. Financial decision-making processes within public health agencies are especially difficult when not supported with techniques for prioritizing and ranking alternatives. This article presents a case study of a decision analysis software model that was applied to the process of identifying funding priorities for public health services in the Spokane Regional Health District.

Multi-criteria assessment of county public health capability disparities.

Objective: This paper proposes an analytical approach to the assessment of geographic population health disparities that are measured as the consolidation of public health related indicators into geographic-specific scores, and are representative of the level of public health capability within counties in the state of Mississippi.

Study Design: A multi-criteria decision model was employed to develop an additive scoring system that assigns a numerical score of public health capability disparities for a geographical area (county).

Methods: Routinely collected indicators were used to measure each county's current public health related concerns.

Body mass index and health related quality of life in elementary school children: a pilot study.

Background: We investigated the relationship between Body Mass Index (BMI) and health-related quality of life (HRQOL) indicated by baseline health status in elementary school children.

Methods: Data were obtained via parents whose children enrolled in an elementary school, kindergarten to fourth grade, in southern Mississippi in spring 2004. Parents completed the SF-10 for Children, a brief 10-item questionnaire designed to measure children's HRQOL on a voluntary basis.