The column this week brings advice on making workplaces COVID-safe and applause for COVID communications in Aotearoa/New Zealand, and also highlights inequalities in medical research, a new global commitment to refugee health, and #AusPol action on the commercial determinants of health.
We introduce a champion for the wellbeing economy, review the evidence about integrating pharmacy into general practice, and highlight some mixed messages from the Victorian Government.
Meanwhile, the Ngayubah Gadan Consensus Statement was officially launched this week as “a unified call from rural and remote health stakeholders to support, fund and enable Rural and Remote Multidisciplinary Health Teams to deliver high quality care to the communities they serve”.
Scroll to the end for news of upcoming events, opportunities and award recipients.
The quotable?
Employers can take immediate action to improve workplace air quality, providing health benefits to employees now and in another pandemic.
Building operators should attempt to increase fresh airflow and filtration of the air already in workplaces through improved filtration. If current ventilation systems can’t be upgraded, employers can use stationary filtration devices to clean indoor air.”
Conference watch
The importance of a multidisciplinary and diverse public health workforce was in focus at the Communicable Diseases & Immunisation Conference 2023 this week.
Croakey is pleased to see the role of journalists acknowledged…
According to a statement released by the Department of Health and Aged Care:
Ngayubah Gadan means “coming together” in the Yidinji language. The Minjil Indigenous cultural group in Gimuy (Cairns) have given their permission to use these words as the name for the Consensus Statement.
The Ngayubah Gadan Consensus Statement describes the meaning of the term Rural and Remote Multidisciplinary Health Team and the system enablers that allow these teams to be sustained and function to deliver high-quality health care to rural and remote communities.
The Ngayubah Gadan Consensus Statement is a unified call from rural and remote health stakeholders to support, fund and enable Rural and Remote Multidisciplinary Health Teams to deliver high quality care to the communities they serve.
The statement is a key reference document for governments, policy makers and fund holders, workforce planners, training, service and peak organisations, health professionals and workers, and communities, when addressing rural and remote health workforce, training and service needs.
COVID calls for action
From JAMA, ‘Lessons From COVID-19 for Protecting Workers in the Next Pandemic’: “Employers can take immediate action to improve workplace air quality, providing health benefits to employees now and in another pandemic. Building operators should attempt to increase fresh airflow and filtration of the air already in workplaces through improved filtration. If current ventilation systems can’t be upgraded, employers can use stationary filtration devices to clean indoor air.”
From The New England Journal of Medicine, ‘Strategic Masking to Protect Patients from All Respiratory Viral Infections’: “We acknowledge that there is widespread masking fatigue among health care workers, that many workers are keen to return to prepandemic practices, and that masks can be uncomfortable or impair communication.
“We believe the solution is to apply masking requirements judiciously by tying them to levels of virus transmission in the community, the activities that workers are engaged in at a particular time, and individual patients’ risk of severe disease…
“Rather than abandoning universal masking for protection against SARS-CoV-2, health care facilities could reimagine masking polices to protect patients from the full array of nosocomial respiratory viral infections, using masking to protect all patients from all viruses when viral activity is elevated and the most vulnerable patients year-round.”
A news report in the BMJ of a pre-print study – Long covid: Damage to multiple organs presents in young, low risk patient
Research matters
In case you didn’t already realise, reality TV is a health hazard. For further evidence, see this study published in the Journal of Public Health, ‘Exposure to tobacco, alcohol and ‘Junk food’ content in reality TV programmes broadcast in the UK between August 2019–2020’.
Read the BMJ article, ‘Unveiling hidden inequalities in diversity and inclusion in medical research’
Read this letter by Dr Scott Avery,‘Dear Reviewer: An Open Letter on Academic Culture, Structural Racism, and the Place of Indigenous Knowledges, With a Question From One Indigenous Academic to the Decolonising Academics Who Are Not’.
Global health
Read the Rabat Declaration, aiming to strengthen the global commitment to improve the health of refugees and migrants. Amongst other things, it notes that investing in the health of refugees and migrants contributes to meeting key targets set in the Sustainable Development Goals.
AusPol
Mixed messages
The Victorian Government is promoting the state as a leader for medical research while slashing public health and health promotion programs.
Health reform
As the Pharmacy Guild continues with its well-worn tactics, others are focusing on evidence and community interests. See the CHF website. 
Integration and impact of pharmacists in general practice internationally: A rapid review
The review found that:
Efforts to integrate pharmacists into general practices have taken place in several countries since the late 1990s. In most studies, pharmacists were reported to work part-time in their general practice-based role spending the rest of their working time on parallel affiliations such as community pharmacy, hospitals, specialist services, and other clinical and non-clinical bodies, including academia
Both face-to-face (within general practices or patient homes or residential aged-care facilities) and note-based medication reviews (without the physical presence of the patient) were described in the included studies.
Our findings validate the usefulness of GPBP services for patients and practices, by demonstrating positive quantifiable outcomes, especially in relation to medication use. Moreover, this review shows that there are many GPBP models and ways of identifying GPBP impact. Government funding is worth considering when large-scale and long-term integration of pharmacists into general practices is desired.
Read the article on AI 
Read the article from Health Services Daily
See the transcript where workforce issues are detailed.
Media
Some failures and also positive steps forward…
Events, opportunities and awards
