Future of Global Cancer From the Perspective of Young Oncology Leaders

Background: Oncology organizations and professional associations (OA) across the cancer control continuum have developed Young Leader (YL) programs to engage promising members of their organizations and to facilitate opportunities for their advancement. Although these groups share common aims, there has been little synergy across YL programs and limited understanding of the shared perspectives, experiences, and challenges of YLs. Aim: To understand the profile, activities and challenges facing YLs worldwide from the perspective of global cancer control. Methods: The survey was generated by a task force of YLs and was pilot-tested among 10 international physicians. The final survey was composed of four sections: baseline characteristics, challenges in cancer control, building a career in cancer control and networking in cancer control. The survey was sent out in 2018 to 867 people, who were identified as potential YLs by 7 OA, with 2 reminder e-mails within 2-4 weeks interval. The final responses were summarized using descriptive analysis method. Results: A total of 139 survey responses were received from 61 countries (per region - 38.4% Europe, 29.6% America, 22% Asia-Pacific, and 10% Africa). Median response rate was 62.2% (range 5%-100% per organizational group, overall 16%). The majority of respondents were < 39 years old (64%), female (53.6%), with a higher degree (Ph.D. 43.1%), and in academic positions (68.1%). Clinicians made up 65.2% of the sample, followed by researchers (20.2%), and advocacy leaders (5.1%). YLs believed that the most important priorities to the future of cancer control were 1) to make cancer care available globally (47.5%), 2) to provide value based cancer care (27.5%) and 3) to transform cancer care through technology (10.5%). To address these aims, 70% of YLs believed that the most important next step was to improve screening and early diagnosis. YLs identified the lack of financial resources (65.2%), increasing treatment costs (64.5%) and late diagnosis (61.6%) as important barriers to achieving these aims. YLs reported that their greatest obstacles to engaging in global cancer control were lack of funding (46%), lack of opportunities (42%) and toxic political/academic environments (46%). 70% reported that mentorship and network development followed by academic success (51.4%) and leadership training (42%) were the most important factors in support of their future goals. Conclusion: YL experience similar challenges and aspiration concerning global cancer control. The need to make cancer care available globally, and to receive mentorship and training were highlighted. Our findings also suggest that oncology groups should aim to ensure a global agenda, promote collaboration and mentorship and rediscuss program objectives to guarantee sustainability of current organizational plans and to better support the YLs’ future goals.

Attitude of medical students towards occupational safety and health: a multi-national study

BACKGROUND

Work-related diseases contribute immensely to the global burden of diseases. Better understanding of attitudes of health care workers towards occupational safety and health (OSH) is important for planning.

OBJECTIVE

To assess the attitude of medical students towards OSH around the globe.

METHODS

A questionnaire assessing the attitude towards OSH was administered to medical and paramedical students of 21 Medical Universities across the globe. In the current study 1895 students, aged 18-36 years, from 17 countries were included. After having performed a principal components analysis, the associations of interest between the identified components and other socio demographic characteristics were assessed by multivariate linear regression.

RESULTS

Principal component analysis revealed 3 components. Students from lower and lower-middle-income countries had a more positive attitude towards OSH, but the importance of OSH was still rated higher by students from upper-income countries. Although students from Asian and African continents showed high interest for OSH, European and South-Central American students comparatively rated importance of OSH to be higher. Paramedical students had more positive attitude towards OSH than medical students.

CONCLUSION

The attitude of students from lower-income and lower-middle-income towards importance of OSH is negative. This attitude could be changed by recommending modifications to OSH courses that reflect the importance of OSH. Since paramedical students showed more interest in OSH than medical students, modifications in existing health care system with major role of paramedics in OSH service delivery is recommended.

Time-resolved measurements of PM2.5 carbonaceous aerosols at Gosan, Korea

In order to better understand the characteristics of atmospheric carbonaceous aerosol at a background site in Northeast Asia, semicontinuous organic carbon (OC) and elemental carbon (EC), and time-resolved water-soluble organic carbon (WSOC) were measured by a Sunset OC/ EC and a PILS-TOC (particle-into-liquid sampler coupled with an online total organic carbon) analyzer, respectively, at the Gosan supersite on Jeju Island, Korea, in the summer (May 28-June 17) and fall (August 24-September 30) of 2009. Hourly average OC concentration varied in the range of approximately 0.87-28.38 microgC m-3, with a mean of 4.07+/- 2.60 microgC m-3, while the hourly average EC concentration ranged approximately from 0.04 to 8.19 .microgC m-3, with a mean of 1.35 +/- 0.71 microgC m-3, from May 28 to June 17, 2009. During the fall season, OC varied in the approximate range 0.9-9.6 microgC m-3, with a mean of 2.30 +/-0.80 microgC m-3, whereas EC ranged approximately from 0.01 to 5.40 microgC m-3, with a mean of 0.66 +/- 0.38 microgC m-3. Average contributions of EC to TC and WSOC to OC were 26.0% +/- 9.7% and 20.6% +/-7.4%, and 37.6% +/- 23.5% and 57.2% +/- 22.2% during summer and fall seasons, respectively. As expected, clear diurnal variation of WSOC/OC was found in summer, varying from 0.22 during the nighttime up to 0.72 during the daytime, mainly due to the photo-oxidation process. In order to investigate the effect of air mass pathway on the characteristics of carbonaceous aerosol, 5-day back-trajectory analysis was conducted using the HYSPLIT model. The air mass pathways were classified into four types: Continental (CC), Marine (M), East Sea (ES) and Korean Peninsula (KP). The highest OC/EC ratio of 3.63 was observed when air mass originated from the Continental area (CC). The lowest OC/EC ratio of 0.79 was measured when air mass originated from the Marine area (M). A high OC concentration was occasionally observed at Gosan due to local biomass burning activities. The contribution of secondary OC to total OC varied approximately between 8.4% and 32.2% and depended on air mass type.