The Institute of Preventive Medicine (IMP) of the Faculty of Medicine of Lisbon (FML) / University of Lisbon (UL), in partnership with the Doutor Ricardo Jorge National Health Institute, IP (INSA) and the High Commission for Health (ACS), is carrying out a multi-year project (2009-2014) with the following stages: • Identify health determinants connected to employment and work-family balance; • Study health and social inequalities; • Carry out risk assessments in a psycho-social context to ascertain the relative weight of health determinants targeted at risk and protection factors; • Make recommendations and develop a risk management programme in the context […]

1. INTRODUCTION Epidemiology, a basic health science, is characterized by concepts that are defined by specific terms (terminology), principles, methods and topics that have varied over time under the influence of demographic, cultural, social, and economic factors, among others. However, knowledge advances and new problems arise. Accordingly, epidemiology, like other scientific areas, is facing new challenges and must evolve. As Richard Doll put it, “Classical methods of epidemiological research are proving less and less productive as the simple problems are being successfully solved. They will doubtless continue to be used to make new discoveries from time to time… but without […]

31 MAY 2011 – A WORLD TREATY THAT SAVES LIVES  On 31 May of each year, the World Health Organization (WHO) celebrates “World No Tobacco Day“. This year the WHO chose the “Framework Convention on Tobacco Control” as its theme. This Convention was the first international treaty negotiated under the auspices of the WHO, representing a milestone in the history of public health worldwide. Unanimously approved in May 2003 at the World Health Assembly, it came into force on 27 February 2005 and so far it has been ratified by over 170 Parties. Portugal is part of this Convention, following […]

  Identifying hazardous and harmful alcohol consumption  There are several individual and social consequences brought about by harmful alcohol consumption: death, disability (due to accidents and the diseases it causes), lack of productivity at work, and family violence and crime, among others. Therefore, it is necessary to detect both hazardous and harmful consumption, with Primary Health Care being the best environment to enable the identification of these situations, alongside intervention targeted according to the level of complexity and severity of the problem. With regard to cases of addiction that fall within a certain established criteria, they should be appropriately referred […]

Pharmacovigilance is an essential tool in the protection of Public Health and plays a unique role in monitoring the risk-benefit relationship and, consequently, in ensuring the safety for human consumption of drugs introduced in the market. The National Authority of Medicines and Health Products, IP (Infarmed IP) is the entity responsible for the implementation, monitoring and coordination of the National Pharmacovigilance System (SNF). Created in 1992, the SNF aims to prevent, detect and assess adverse reactions to drugs, in constant collaboration with health professionals, the pharmaceutical industry and the health services. The SNF has developed over time and currently is […]

The ÍCARO (Importância do Calor: Repercussão nos Óbitos – The Importance of Heat: Repercussion on Deaths) Project began as a simple model that registered the occurrence of heat waves and corresponding relationship to mortality in the district of Lisbon. It ended up inspiring a surveillance system of heat waves with the purpose of reducing the well-known substantial impact on mortality. Fifteen years later, the ÍCARO Project, based at INSA (Dr. Ricardo Jorge National Health Institute), continues to have the same mission, which is to contribute to reducing the impact of heat on health. However, since its inception, many steps have […]

In the impact of economic crisis on the health of populations, the direct or indirect consequences of health policies, and, above all, those of other sectors, are clear. Thus, Health Impact Assessment becomes a pressing need to monitor, predict and correct potentially serious effects for the health of the population at large and of risk groups in particular. In 2009, Dr. Margaret Chan, Director General of WHO, stated that “the crisis would vary from country to country, but there was a growing consensus about what should be done”: “to ensure quality information in real time” to inform decision making, “to […]

The spread of scientific culture based on knowledge resulting from research in the health sciences is seen as an instrument and as a social movement (mobilization of target-groups) capable of mediating the enhancement of the level of health literacy and, consequently, of providing health gains for the population. Reflection regarding the integration of the concept of dissemination of health science (based on factors that encompass science, education, language, and communication), in addition to understanding, knowledge, and, consequently, the field of health sciences, is hereby advanced for reflection. The aspects related to the role of those who generate and disseminate health […]

Drugs: an individual and collective asset  The technological development of medicine in recent decades has created expectations among patients and the population at large about new diagnostic and therapeutical interventions. In health technologies, drugs are the ones with a more favourable cost-effectiveness profile, accounting for about ¼ of total health spending in developed countries. The growing use of new drugs, increasingly more effective but also more expensive, by populations of patients who are progressively older, suffering from multiple pathologies and on several types of medication, raises complex issues which have implications on safety, accessibility and sustainability of health systems. Therefore, […]

Is Health Policy taught? Is there research in Health Policy? Michael Hill (1997) identified four ways of approaching the study and analysis of health policy: policy analysis; analysis for policy decision-making; analysis related to the results of health policies and, finally, the analysis of the political process. The approaches that are normally taken focus on organizations and structure of the National Health Service, and sometimes in relation to public health. Many of the studies carried out have aggregate economic assessments that introduce standardized decision formulations. The scope of health policy analysis extends beyond the study and knowledge of formal health […]

Abstract: The author searches for the roots of the act of researching in order to establish routes and apply them to the field of epidemiology, from an applied viewpoint and from the stance of the health professional. Quotes are used to increase the dialectic capacity of the discourse. PARTIDAS  It is interesting how the word ‘investigate’ is used to solve crimes, to describe meditative insights, artistic creations, journalistic inquiries and applications of the scientific method. I believe that to investigate, ‘to look out for traces’, endeavour to discover the truth (external, interior), a language, a social representation or knowledge, answers […]

The development of Environmental Health and Occupational Health at the Institute of Preventive Medicine (IPM) at the end of the 1990s is the fulfilment of an earlier idea about “Environmental Studies” as part of the topic of prevention and which started ten years earlier with the allocation of an “Environmental Studies Laboratory” in the project of the Egas Moniz Building. Activity in these areas started with an environmental epidemiological surveillance project on an urban solid waste treatment plant, which is still underway a decade later, and whose main goal is to safeguard the health of the population who live or […]

  The Institute of Preventive Medicine (IPM), as a Research Unit (RU), is a multidisciplinary unit hosted by the Faculty of Medicine of Lisbon and which has been part of the National Scientific and Technological System[1] for the past 5 years, through a multi-year contract with the Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT). In fulfilling its mission and as part of its “Health Determinants Research Centre (CIDS)”, it promotes, conducts and supports scientific research and technological development projects (SR&TD) with the aim of producing and advancing scientific knowledge on unknown or less known factors that affect health (health determinants) , […]

Eating and nutrition are two primary determinants of some non-communicable diseases (NCDs), including cardiovascular disease, diabetes mellitus, cancer and obesity (1,2). Obesity, and childhood obesity in particular, stands as one of the most serious public health challenges of the 21st century (3-5). Unbalanced eating habits and low levels of physical activity seem to be the main culprits in the development of this illness (6). Recent data confirms that 1/3 of Portuguese children between the ages of 6 and 8 are overweight, and 14.6% are obese (7). Accordingly, Portugal stands out as one of the EU countries with the highest prevalence […]