Bacterial Contamination of Children's Toys in Rural Day Care Centres and Households in South Africa

Worker Protection Scenarios for General Analytical Testing Facility under Several Infection Propagation Risks: Scoping Review, Epidemiological Model and ISO 31000

Infectious disease is a risk threating industrial operations and worker health. In gastrointestinal disease cases, outbreak is sporadic, and propagation is often terminated within certain populations, although cases in industrial sites are continuously reported. The ISO 31000 international standard for risk management, an epidemiological triad model, and a scoping review were the methods used to establish response procedures (scenarios) to protect workers from the risk of the propagation of a gastrointestinal disease. First, human reservoirs and transmission routes were identified as controllable risk sources based on a scoping review and the use of a triad model. Second, the possibility of fomite- or surface-mediated transmission appeared to be higher based on environmental characterization. Thus, the propagation could be suppressed using epidemiological measures categorized by reservoirs (workers) or transmission routes during a primary case occurrence. Next, using results of a matrix, a strengths-weaknesses-opportunities-threats analysis and a scoping review, the risk treatment option was determined as risk taking and sharing. According to epidemiology of gastrointestinal infections, systematic scenarios may ensure the efficacy of propagation control. Standardized procedures with practicality and applicability were established for categorized scenarios. This study converged ISO 31000 standards, an epidemiological model, and scoping review methods to construct a risk management scenario (non-pharmaceutical intervention) optimized for the unique characteristics of a specific occupational cluster.

Global Community Child Health

This special issue of IJERPH has published a range of studies in this developing field of Global Community Child Health research. A number of manuscripts submitted in response to our invitation describing 'community-based interventions which impact on child health and wellbeing around the globe. In addition to rural community-based initiatives given that most children now live in cities we are also interested to hear about urban initiatives….' We hope this issue will of great interest to the researchers and practitioners as well as academia from the fields of Global Health as well as Global Child Health because it comprised of 14 articles representing all five continents. Physical activity appears a key component of the scientific community's current conception of child well-being judging from the four papers published addressing this area. This issue also has papers on childhood obesity to rubella vaccination. Despite of the journal's strive for reaching out to a wider global child health community, this issue missed contributions relating to child safeguarding and social determinants of urban health.