International Journal of Public Health

A while ago, we published a post about the use of games in Public Health education. As google analytics tell me, there are quite a lot of people who have been looking for “public health games” so I thought it would be useful to see if I can find some more!

Well, I was not as lucky as the first time around, but I do have something new for you! Bioterrorisk which is described as “a case-based, mini-course in hazard recognition, inter-agency communication, risk assessment, and risk communication for the public health workforce”.

This game (like some of the ones at the previous post) has been developed by the University of Illinois at Chicago and its objectives are to help you recognise a bioterrorist even, identify your role in dealing with it, establish communication, follow the appropriate protocol and communicate with the public.

Seem like a lot of targets, but I think it is a well designed “game” that at least offers a taste of all the above!At the start of the game you choose if you want to be a clinician, a lab professional or a public health official and I suppose that the game is afterwards sort of customised for each role. The game contains slide shows and quizes and there are explanations about why an answer was wrong (I answered wrong in purpose, just to test it…really….).

All in all simple, relatively fast, informative. A good way to spend some time online! What do you think?

In every issue, the Editors in Chief of the International Journal of Public Health, choose an article of outstanding scientific quality and public health relevance and offer it to the readers free of charge!

In the latest issue, our Editors chose the study by Dr. Nihaya Daoud and colleagues examining the neighborhood context and abuse among immigrant and non-immigrant women in Canada. This study linked data from the Maternity Experiences Survey to census data and compared the prevalence of abuse between immigrants living more than 5 years in Canada, immigrants living less than 5 years in Canada and non-immigrants.

The authors report that migrant women were less likely to experience abuse. This effect was more pronounced for migrant women living in low income and high immigration neighborhoods, irrespective of length of stay in the country.

The authors conclude that interventions to reduce abuse among immigrant women need to consider neighbourhood’s socioeconomic position and concentration of immigrants.

Download the full text of the paper in html or pdf format and let us know what you think!

Our August issue is out and you can find the table of contents here!

In this issue, you will find numerous papers on migrant health (ranging from health in migrant children in Switzerland to migration and depressive symptoms in China ) and physical activity (including a systematic review on the role of parental involvement in school-based interventions and a multilevel examination of factors of the school environment).

Two of the papers of this issue are available for you to download for FREE: Like in every issue, our Editors’ Choice article is published with Open Access! The current one is a very interesting study on neighborhood context and abuse among immigrant and non immigrant women in Canada. In addition, you can download for free a study discussing the contribution of school breaks to physical activity of young children!

Finally, do not miss a Letter to the Editor, discussing the use of Social Networks in Public Health and our Editorial by Prof. Harry Rutter, discussing the single most important intervention to tackle obesity.

We hope you will enjoy this issue and we very much welcome your feedback!