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The place of health and the health of place: dengue fever and urban governance in Putrajaya, Malaysia

Mulligan K, Elliott SJ, Schuster-Wallace C

Health Place, 2012 May;18(3):613-20.
PMID: 22310527 DOI: 10.1016/j.healthplace.2012.01.001

This case study investigates the connections among urban planning, governance and dengue fever in an emerging market context in the Global South. Key informant interviews were conducted with leading figures in public health, urban planning and governance in the planned city of Putrajaya, Malaysia. Drawing on theories of urban political ecology and ecosocial epidemiology, the qualitative study found the health of place - expressed as dengue-bearing mosquitoes and dengue fever in human bodies in the urban environment - was influenced by the place of health in a hierarchy of urban priorities.

Matched MeSH terms: Politics
For God (or) country: the hydraulic relation between government instability and belief in religious sources of control

Kay AC, Shepherd S, Blatz CW, Chua SN, Galinsky AD

J Pers Soc Psychol, 2010 Nov;99(5):725-39.
PMID: 20954784 DOI: 10.1037/a0021140

It has been recently proposed that people can flexibly rely on sources of control that are both internal and external to the self to satisfy the need to believe that their world is under control (i.e., that events do not unfold randomly or haphazardly). Consistent with this, past research demonstrates that, when personal control is threatened, people defend external systems of control, such as God and government. This theoretical perspective also suggests that belief in God and support for governmental systems, although seemingly disparate, will exhibit a hydraulic relationship with one another. Using both experimental and longitudinal designs in Eastern and Western cultures, the authors demonstrate that experimental manipulations or naturally occurring events (e.g., electoral instability) that lower faith in one of these external systems (e.g., the government) lead to subsequent increases in faith in the other (e.g., God). In addition, mediation and moderation analyses suggest that specific concerns with order and structure underlie these hydraulic effects. Implications for the psychological, sociocultural, and sociopolitical underpinnings of religious faith, as well as system justification theory, are discussed.

Matched MeSH terms: Politics
International Women's Day observed in Malaysia

CIRDAP Dev Dig, 1999 Dec.
PMID: 12157876

On the eve of International Women's Day, 80 women representing five women's groups in Malaysia, including Persatuan Sahabat Wanita, CAW's network member, marched from Petaling Jaya to Penang to attend the Women's Day celebration. The group had organized the visitation in order to strengthen its networking. During their meeting with some reporters before their departure to Penang, they demanded that the women's groups be consulted before any guideline on the prevention and handling of sexual harassment at the workplace is drawn up. They said that they have been handling several complaints and their input would help the Human Resource Ministry formulate a comprehensive set of guidelines. This demand by the women's group was in response to the announcement by the Human Resource Minister Datuk Lim Ah Lek that in a month time a code would be ready on guidelines about the establishment and implementation of in-house preventive and redress mechanisms for dealing with sexual harassment.

Matched MeSH terms: Politics
Multinational corporations, the politics of the world economy, and their effects on women's health in the developing world: a review

Hippert C

Health Care Women Int, 2002 Dec;23(8):861-9.
PMID: 12487701

Presently, globalization and the world economy maintain power relations that hamper the economic integrity and the political autonomy of the developing world. My paper addresses specific economic conditions that perpetuate poverty and poor health. I examine multinational corporations and their effects on women's health, particularly in Mexico and parts of Asia. The advent of multinational corporate business in Mexico, Malaysia, Philippines, India, and Indonesia has led to increased poverty and human rights abuses. Women bear the brunt of this because of specific international economic arrangements and their low social status, both locally and globally. As a result, their physical, mental, and emotional health is suffering. Solutions to these health problems have been proposed on multiple levels: international top-down approaches (i.e., employing international protectionist regulatory standards, exposing multinationals who infringe on their workers' human rights), as well as local grassroots organizational campaigns (i.e., conducting informational human rights workshops for factory workers). Ultimately, the answers lie in holding corporations accountable to their laborers while developing countries maintain their comparative advantage; this is the only way women's health will improve and the developing world can entice corporate investment.

Matched MeSH terms: Politics
Gay and lesbian couples in Malaysia

Baba I

J Homosex, 2001;40(3-4):143-63.
PMID: 11386331 DOI: 10.1300/J082v40n03_08
Matched MeSH terms: Politics
Ecology, economics and political will: the vicissitudes of malaria strategies in Asia

Kidson C, Indaratna K

Parassitologia, 1998 Jun;40(1-2):39-46.
PMID: 9653730

The documented history of malaria in parts of Asia goes back more than 2,000 years, during which the disease has been a major player on the socioeconomic stage in many nation states as they waxed and waned in power and prosperity. On a much shorter time scale, the last half century has seen in microcosm a history of large fluctuations in endemicity and impact of malaria across the spectrum of rice fields and rain forests, mountains and plains that reflect the vast ecological diversity inhabited by this majority aggregation of mankind. That period has seen some of the most dramatic changes in social and economic structure, in population size, density and mobility, and in political structure in history: all have played a part in the changing face of malaria in this extensive region of the world. While the majority of global malaria cases currently reside in Africa, greater numbers inhabited Asia earlier this century before malaria programs savored significant success, and now Asia harbors a global threat in the form of the epicenter of multidrug resistant Plasmodium falciparum which is gradually encompassing the tropical world. The latter reflects directly the vicissitudes of economic change over recent decades, particularly the mobility of populations in search of commerce, trade and personal fortunes, or caught in the misfortunes of physical conflicts. The period from the 1950s to the 1990s has witnessed near "eradication" followed by resurgence of malaria in Sri Lanka, control and resurgence in India, the influence of war and postwar instability on drug resistance in Cambodia, increase in severe and cerebral malaria in Myanmar during prolonged political turmoil, the essential disappearance of the disease from all but forested border areas of Thailand where it remains for the moment intractable, the basic elimination of vivax malaria from many provinces of central China. Both positive and negative experiences have lessons to teach in the debate between eradication and control as alternative strategies. China has for years held high the goal of "basic elimination", eradication by another name, in sensible semi-defiance of WHO dictates. The Chinese experience makes it clear that, given community organization, exhaustive attention to case detection, management and focus elimination, plus the political will at all levels of society, it is possible both to eliminate malaria from large areas of an expansive nation and to implement surveillance necessary to maintain something approaching eradication status in those areas. But China has not succeeded in the international border regions of the tropical south where unfettered population movement confounds the program. Thailand, Malaysia and to an extent Vietnam have also reached essential elimination in their rice field plains by vigorous vertical programs but fall short at their forested borders. Economics is central to the history of the rise and fall of nations, and to the history of disease in the people who constitute nations. The current love affair with free market economics as the main driving force for advance of national wealth puts severe limitations on the essential involvement of communities in malaria management. The task of malaria control or elimination needs to be clearly related to the basic macroeconomic process that preoccupies governments, not cloistered away in the health sector Historically malaria has had a severe, measurable, negative impact on the productivity of nations. Economic models need rehoning with political aplomb and integrating with technical and demographic strategies. Recent decades in Chinese malaria history carry some lessons that may be relevant in this context.

Matched MeSH terms: Politics
[The social status of women. For a new world order]

Gauffenic A

Tiers Monde, 1985 Apr-Jun;26(102):273-81.
PMID: 12340318
Matched MeSH terms: Politics
Nurturing professional identity through a community based education program: medical students experience

Ahmad A, Bahri Yusoff MS, Zahiruddin Wan Mohammad WM, Mat Nor MZ

J Taibah Univ Med Sci, 2018 Apr;13(2):113-122.
PMID: 31435313 DOI: 10.1016/j.jtumed.2017.12.001

Objectives: Community-based education (CBE) has an impact on the types of medical students produced at the end of medical training. However, its impact on professional identity development (PID) has not been clearly understood. This study thus explores the effect of the CBE program on PID.
Methods: A qualitative phenomenological study was conducted on a group of Universiti Sains Malaysia medical students who had finished the Community and Family Case Study (CFCS) program. Data were gathered through focused group discussions and student reflective journals. Participants were sampled using the maximal variation technique of purposive sampling. Three steps of thematic analysis using the Atlasti software were employed to identify categories, subthemes, and themes.
Results: Personal, role, social, and research identities were generated that contribute to the PID of medical students through the CFCS program. The results indicate that the CFCS program nurtured personal identity through the development of professional skills, soft skills, and personal values. Pertaining to role identity, this is related to patient care in terms of primary care and interprofessional awareness. Pertaining to social identity, the obvious feature was community awareness related to culture, society, and politics. A positive outcome of the CFCS program was found to be its fostering of research skills, which is related to the use of epidemiology and research methods.
Conclusion: The findings indicate that the CFCS program promotes PID among medical students. The current data highlight and provide insights into the importance of integrating CBE into medical curricula to prepare future doctors for their entry into the profession.

Matched MeSH terms: Politics
A New Simplified Visual Assessment Tool Describing Facial Morphotypes Observed and Desired in Asian Populations

Corduff N, Chao YY, Lam SC, Lim J, Lim TS, Lohia K, et al.

J Clin Aesthet Dermatol, 2020 Apr;13(4):23-34.
PMID: 33144908

OBJECTIVE: A group of established aesthetic physicians sought to develop treatment guidelines for assessing Asian face morphologies that reflect accurate and current beauty standards across Asia. DESIGN: Physicians completed surveys, debated, and voted on their clinical strategies and developed an alternative simplified visual tool of assessment (SVAT) that discerns between country variations in genetic and ideal morphotypes. SETTING: Electronic and paper surveys were followed by consensus debates and voting. PARTICIPANTS: Established aesthetic physicians practicing regularly on Asian patients. MEAUSUREMENTS: A clinically applicable SVAT was developed, which considered facial index, mid-face projection, upper and lower face shape, submalar contour, nose length and dorsal height, eye shape and brow shape, proportion of lips-to-lower face and ratio of upper-to-lower lip, and chin shape. RESULTS: For facial shape change, physicians always assessed the horizontal thirds, facial symmetry, and lip-chin complex profile, and also analyzed overall face shapes and Ogee curves. Criteria for creating oval-shaped faces was also defined and included treating indications, such as loss of angularity and bilateral masseter muscle hypertrophy, narrow jawlines, and longer and wider foreheads. Critical differences and similarities in country-specific aesthetic preferences, treatment requests, and considerations or strategies were uncovered, including the inadequacy of assessing overall peripheral facial shapes. CONCLUSION: This consensus establishes the assessment and treatment criteria for achieving ideal shapes for Asian patients. Specific descriptors are affected by variations; therefore, we present the visual criteria for Asian facial morphotypes. We hope that physicians new to treating Asian patients can use this clinical information to improve their practice.

Matched MeSH terms: Politics
Silver linings: a qualitative study of desirable changes to cancer care during the COVID-19 pandemic

Lombe D, Sullivan R, Caduff C, Ali Z, Bhoo-Pathy N, Cleary J, et al.

Ecancermedicalscience, 2021;15:1202.
PMID: 33889211 DOI: 10.3332/ecancer.2021.1202

Introduction: Public health emergencies and crises such as the current COVID-19 pandemic can accelerate innovation and place renewed focus on the value of health interventions. Capturing important lessons learnt, both positive and negative, is vital. We aimed to document the perceived positive changes (silver linings) in cancer care that emerged during the COVID-19 pandemic and identify challenges that may limit their long-term adoption.
Methods: This study employed a qualitative design. Semi-structured interviews (n = 20) were conducted with key opinion leaders from 14 countries. The participants were predominantly members of the International COVID-19 and Cancer Taskforce, who convened in March 2020 to address delivery of cancer care in the context of the pandemic. The Framework Method was employed to analyse the positive changes of the pandemic with corresponding challenges to their maintenance post-pandemic.
Results: Ten themes of positive changes were identified which included: value in cancer care, digital communication, convenience, inclusivity and cooperation, decentralisation of cancer care, acceleration of policy change, human interactions, hygiene practices, health awareness and promotion and systems improvement. Impediments to the scale-up of these positive changes included resource disparities and variation in legal frameworks across regions. Barriers were largely attributed to behaviours and attitudes of stakeholders.
Conclusion: The COVID-19 pandemic has led to important value-based innovations and changes for better cancer care across different health systems. The challenges to maintaining/implementing these changes vary by setting. Efforts are needed to implement improved elements of care that evolved during the pandemic.

Matched MeSH terms: Politics
Survey dataset on the level of sustainable consumption of Malaysian households from the perspective of income and consumption expenditure

Rashid NKA, Sulaiman NFC, Anang Z, Possumah BT, Muhamad S, Sa'at NH, et al.

Data Brief, 2021 Apr;35:106743.
PMID: 33553520 DOI: 10.1016/j.dib.2021.106743

Unsustainable consumption promotes discouraging patterns of consumption with negative impacts on society. It also contributes to inequalities and poverty. Unsustainable patterns of production and consumption undermine development goals in terms of inefficiency and overconsumption. This research explores the level of sustainable consumption of Malaysian households from the perspective of income and consumption expenditure. The analysis is based on cross-sectional data obtained from questionnaires distributed to 635 Malaysian households in eight districts in Terengganu (urban and rural areas) using stratified random sampling. The findings show that the level of sustainable consumption expenditure of Muslim households in Terengganu is still low. Achieving sustainable consumption patterns is more technically and politically complex than changing production patterns because it raises important issues such as human values, equity and lifestyle choices.

Matched MeSH terms: Politics
Hybrid Organizations in Health Systems: The Corporatization of Malaysia's National Heart Institute

Virk A, Croke K, Mohd Yusoff M, Mokhtaruddin K, Abdullah Z, Nadziha Mohd Hanafiah A, et al.

Health Syst Reform, 2020 12 01;6(1):e1833639.
PMID: 33314988 DOI: 10.1080/23288604.2020.1833639

Health system reforms across high- and middle-income countries often involve changes to public hospital governance. Corporatization is one such reform, in which public sector hospitals are granted greater functional independence while remaining publicly owned. In theory, this can improve public hospital efficiency, while retaining a public service ethos. However, the extent to which efficiency gains are realized and public purpose is maintained depends on policy choices about governance and payment systems. We present a case study of Malaysia's National Heart Institute (IJN), which was created in 1992 by corporatization of one department in a large public hospital. The aim of the paper is to examine whether IJN has achieved the goals for which it was created, and if so, whether it provides a potential model for further reforms in Malaysia and other similar health systems. Using a combination of document analysis and key informant interviews, we examine key governance, health financing and payment, and equity issues. For governance, we highlight the choice to have IJN owned by and answerable to a Ministry of Finance (MOF) holding company and MOF-appointed board, rather than the Ministry of Health (MOH). On financing and payment, we analyze the implications of IJN's combined role as fee-for-service provider to MOH as well as provider of care to private patients. For equity, we analyze the targeting of IJN care across publicly-referred and private patients. These issues demonstrate unresolved tensions between IJN's objectives and public service goals. As an institutional innovation that has endured for 28 years and grown dramatically in size and revenue, IJN's trajectory offers critical insights on the relevance of the hybrid public-private models for hospitals in Malaysia as well as in other middle-income countries. While IJN appears to have achieved its goal of establishing itself as a commercially viable, publicly owned center of clinical excellence in Malaysia, the value for money and equity of the services it provides to the Ministry of Health remain unclear. IJN is accountable to a small Ministry of Finance holding company, which means that detailed information required to evaluate these critical questions is not published. The case of IJN highlights that corporatization cannot achieve its stated goals of efficiency, innovation, and equity in isolation; rather it must be supported by broader reforms, including of health financing, payment, governance, and transparency, in order to ensure that autonomous hospitals improve quality and provide efficient care in an equitable way.

Matched MeSH terms: Politics
Fulltext Empowerment approach in community development : an analysis from theory to practice

Fauziah Ani, Asnarulkhadi Abu Samah, Ma'rof Redzuan, Norbaya Ahmad

Malaysian Journal of Social Sciences and Humanities, 2016;1(1):36-44.
MyJurnal

This paper seeks to illustrate how empowerment theory can be applied as a critical approach which
could heighten power and capacity in community development. This is because empowerment is not
just viewed through theory or philosophy only, but as an active approach which could be applied to
enhance individual, oganizational or even communal prosperity. Many communal issues discussed by
scholars such as poverty, health, women, people with disability, single mothers, youth, leadership, organization and many others utilises the empowerment approach. This is because it is the most
effective approach in resolving issues by empowering individual or target group to take effective action
through ability and potential, which have been developed. Discussion will ensue with definition of
empowerment, which will be elucidated, with the concept of power. In the context of community
development, empowerment refers to a mechanism where individual, organization and community will
amass control on life and related issues affecting them such as economy, social, psychology and
politics. To understand this concept clearly, discussion of empowerment concept will be closely
examined to view the definition from two different dimensions, which is whether empowerment can be
ascertained as a process, benefit or outcome. By using the qualitative approach, which is through
analysing content, books, journals and other references, a few steps or process have been unearthed to
apply empowerment as an approach, which could be practiced in the context of community
development specifically in rural areas.

Matched MeSH terms: Politics
Community Engagement in Support of Moving Toward Universal Health Coverage

Allotey P, Tan DT, Kirby T, Tan LH

Health Syst Reform, 2019;5(1):66-77.
PMID: 30924744 DOI: 10.1080/23288604.2018.1541497

Community engagement describes a complex political process with dynamic negotiation and renegotiation of power and authority between providers and recipients of health care in order to achieve a shared goal of universal health care coverage. Though examples exist of community engagement projects, there is very little guidance on how to implement and embed community engagement as a concerted, integrated, strategic, and sustained component of health systems. Through a series of case studies, this article explores the factors that enable community engagement particularly with a direct impact on health systems.

Matched MeSH terms: Politics
Fulltext Asian Organization for Crohn's and Colitis and Asia Pacific Association of Gastroenterology consensus on tuberculosis infection in patients with inflammatory bowel disease receiving anti-tumor necrosis factor treatment. Part 2: management

Park DI, Hisamatsu T, Chen M, Ng SC, Ooi CJ, Wei SC, et al.

Intest Res, 2018 Jan;16(1):17-25.
PMID: 29422794 DOI: 10.5217/ir.2018.16.1.17

Because anti-tumor necrosis factor (anti-TNF) therapy has become increasingly popular in many Asian countries, the risk of developing active tuberculosis (TB) among anti-TNF users may raise serious health problems in this region. Thus, the Asian Organization for Crohn's and Colitis and the Asia Pacific Association of Gastroenterology have developed a set of consensus statements about risk assessment, detection and prevention of latent TB infection, and management of active TB infection in patients with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) receiving anti-TNF treatment. Twenty-three consensus statements were initially drafted and then discussed by the committee members. The quality of evidence and the strength of recommendations were assessed by using the Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development, and Evaluation methodology. Web-based consensus voting was performed by 211 IBD specialists from 9 Asian countries concerning each statement. A consensus statement was accepted if at least 75% of the participants agreed. Part 2 of the statements comprised 3 parts: management of latent TB in preparation for anti-TNF therapy, monitoring during anti-TNF therapy, and management of an active TB infection after anti-TNF therapy. These consensus statements will help clinicians optimize patient outcomes by reducing the morbidity and mortality related to TB infections in patients with IBD receiving anti-TNF treatment.

Matched MeSH terms: Politics
Fulltext Asian Organization for Crohn's and Colitis and Asia Pacific Association of Gastroenterology consensus on tuberculosis infection in patients with inflammatory bowel disease receiving anti-tumor necrosis factor treatment. Part 1: risk assessment

Park DI, Hisamatsu T, Chen M, Ng SC, Ooi CJ, Wei SC, et al.

Intest Res, 2018 Jan;16(1):4-16.
PMID: 29422793 DOI: 10.5217/ir.2018.16.1.4

Because anti-tumor necrosis factor (anti-TNF) therapy has become increasingly popular in many Asian countries, the risk of developing active tuberculosis (TB) among anti-TNF users may raise serious health problems in this region. Thus, the Asian Organization for Crohn's and Colitis and the Asia Pacific Association of Gastroenterology have developed a set of consensus statements about risk assessment, detection and prevention of latent TB infection, and management of active TB infection in patients with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) receiving anti-TNF treatment. Twenty-three consensus statements were initially drafted and then discussed by the committee members. The quality of evidence and the strength of recommendations were assessed by using the Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development, and Evaluation methodology. Web-based consensus voting was performed by 211 IBD specialists from 9 Asian countries concerning each statement. A consensus statement was accepted if at least 75% of the participants agreed. Part 1 of the statements comprised 2 parts: risk of TB infection Recommendaduring anti-TNF therapy, and screening for TB infection prior to commencing anti-TNF therapy. These consensus statements will help clinicians optimize patient outcomes by reducing the morbidity and mortality related to TB infections in patients with IBD receiving anti-TNF treatment.

Matched MeSH terms: Politics
Public health developments in colonial Malaya: colonialism and the politics of prevention

Manderson L

Am J Public Health, 1999 Jan;89(1):102-7.
PMID: 9987478

In both African and Asian colonies until the late 19th century, colonial medicine operated pragmatically to meet the medical needs first of colonial officers and troops, immigrant settlers, and laborers responsible for economic development, then of indigenous populations when their ill health threatened the well-being of the expatriate population. Since the turn of the century, however, the consequences of colonial expansion and development for indigenous people's health had become increasingly apparent, and disease control and public health programs were expanded in this light. These programs increased government surveillance of populations at both community and household levels. As a consequence, colonial states extended institutional oversight and induced dependency through public health measures. Drawing on my own work on colonial Malaya, I illustrate developments in public health and their links to the moral logic of colonialism and its complementarity to the political economy.

Matched MeSH terms: Politics
Migration and Singapore: implications for the Asia Pacific

Low L

Asian Pac Migr J, 1994;3(2-3):251-63.
PMID: 12289774
Matched MeSH terms: Politics*
Asia needs political commitment to fight AIDS

AIDS Wkly Plus, 1997 Jun 2.
PMID: 12347936
Matched MeSH terms: Politics*
Asian student migration to Australia

Shu J, Hawthorne L

Int Migr, 1996;34(1):65-95.
PMID: 12291796

"This paper presents an overview of Asian student migration to Australia, together with an analysis of political and educational aspects of the overseas student programme. It focuses on some significant consequences of this flow for Australia. The characteristics of key student groups are contrasted to provide some perspective of the diversity of historical and cultural backgrounds, with the source countries of Malaysia, Indonesia and PRC [China] selected as case studies. Since the issue of PRC students in Australia has attracted considerable public attention and policy consideration, particular focus is placed on their experience." (SUMMARY IN FRE AND SPA)

Matched MeSH terms: Politics*

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