Supplying power to remote areas may be a challenge, even for those communities already connected to the main grid. Power is often transmitted from long distances, under adverse weather conditions, and with aged equipment. As a rule, modernizing grid infrastructure in such areas to make it more resilient faces certain financial limitations. Local distribution may face stability issues and disrup...

journal of law, medicine & ethics Introduction State health departments are at the core of the United States (U.S.) public health infrastructure. Surveillance to monitor trends in disease and injury; the development, coordination, and delivery of services; and public education are some of the core functions health department employees oversee every day. As such, agencies and their employees are...

BACKGROUND Childhood obesity is a 'wicked' public health problem that is best tackled by an integrated approach, which is enabled by integrated public health policies. The development and implementation of such policies have in practice proven to be difficult, however, and studying why this is the case requires a tool that may assist local policy-makers and those assisting them. A comprehensive...

This article takes an interdisciplinary qualitative approach to the problem of traffic accidents in Campinas, São Paulo, Brazil. The authors begin by analyzing the "municipalization" (i.e., decentralization to the municipal level) of transport and traffic management in Campinas based on social representations by members of the local government's technical staff. Data demonstrate a significant d...

The Commission on the Social Determinants of Health brought the reduction of avoidable health inequalities between social groups to the centre of the political stage. Its three key recommendations—to improve daily living conditions; to tackle the inequitable distribution of power, money, and resources; and to measure and understand the problem—have been widely welcomed. As the commission itself...

Background Norway is internationally known today for its political and socio-economic prioritization of equity. The 2012 Public Health Act (PHA) aimed to further equity in the domain of health by addressing the social gradient in health. The PHA’s main policy measures were (1) delegation to the municipal level of responsibility for identifying and targeting underserved groups and (2) the imposi...

As an increased number of measures (Swiss or European level) aim at developing more sustainable policies for energy management and reduction of CO2 emissions in particular (for example, the 3x20 policy), very few tools currently exist at the regional/cantonal level to monitor the multiple existing energy flows. Energy issues at local and territorial level have become considerably more complex i...