Objectives

  The Japan International Cooperation Agency, Japan Anti-Tuberculosis Association and the Lusaka district health office conducted Community Mobilization for TB/HIV Care Project at three health centres in Lusaka, Zambia from 2012 to 2015. This study describes the assessment of the factors associated with high participation rates of tuberculosis (TB) treatment

Methods

  A cross-sectional study was conducted for the evaluation. Information about individual participation to the weekly patient support activities at the health centres between September 2014 and February 2015 was drawn from the health centres’ administrative records. Data were collected between February and March 2015 via a structured questionnaire administered to TSs working at the health centres. Descriptive, univariate and multiple logistic regression analyses were done to identify factors associated with high participation of TSs.

Results

  For the 74 respondents, the average monthly participation rate between September 2014 and February 2015 was 83.2%. The rate was tended to be over 80% for the TSs who had temporary work or no work, or were housewives, and those who had experience as a group leader. The TSs who did not complete primary education were positively associated with participating over 80% of the time compared to those who had a secondary or higher education.

Conclusion

  The study provided information on the higher participation of TSs’ activities including their job, education status and leadership experiences. In recruiting TSs, priority should be given to those who have a temporary job or no work, or are housewives. Those who have lower education levels should not be excluded from the

People with special needs are at higher risk during a disaster than those without because of delayed disaster evacuation behaviors. Therefore, one of the top priorities in the field of disaster risk reduction is implementing evacuation support for the people with special needs. However, assistance is often limited, especially in areas with declining and aging populations. In addition, past evacuation activities for people with special needs have tended to focus on the barriers they face and assistance they need during evacuation rather than their utilizable capabilities. Therefore, this study considers evacuation drills that utilize the capabilities of people with special needs. An “indoor evacuation drill” was developed and the evacuation behaviors of residents with special needs were analyzed. An indoor evacuation drill is defined as an evacuation activity that participants carry out within their own homes – for example, evacuating from the bedroom to an exit. In coastal areas, such a drill helps residents prepare to evacuate their homes in case of a tsunami, while in mountainous regions, it helps them prepare for evacuation to the upper floors in case of a landslide. The study participants were residents of Hamamachi ward (a coastal area) and Kumai ward (a mountainous area) in Kuroshio town, Kōchi Prefecture, Japan. The results indicate that an indoor evacuation drill conducted in the participants’ living area, such as the entrance or second floor of their home, is easier to implement than usual disaster evacuation drills, and helps people with special needs regain autonomy in disaster risk reduction activities. Moreover, the participation rate of the target population in local evacuation drills increased after participating in the indoor evacuation drills. Existing evacuation drills often overlook people with special needs, and delays in disaster prevention for this population are often associated with their lack of interest in related activities. However, the results of this study suggest that disaster prevention activities themselves sometimes overlook the challenges faced by people with special needs and prevent them from participating.

The purpose of this study is to develop a support system for planning human resource allocation of shelter management by modeling the matching between the shelter and the staff on the basis of the set theory approach to enable sufficient days off, reduce long work hours, and consideration for appropriate rotation without causing the mental and physical deterioration of the shelter management staff. Using this matching model, a basic study was conducted to determine the appropriate human resource allocation to manage the shelter with a small number of staff members, free from unbalanced work days. The study results elucidate the relationship between the number of possible consecutive work days and that of required consecutive days off. In addition, the human resource allocations with experience in shelter management and the setting method of days off were modeled and their results are presented in this study.

Aim: This study aimed to clarify the type of support provided by dispatched public health nurses with experience in providing health activities, within 2 months after a large-scale earthquake in Japan.

Methods: Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 15 high-career prefectural public health nurses who had experience in providing health care within earthquake disaster areas. Data were analyzed using qualitative content analysis for support activities, as outlined by Maying (2014).

Results: The analysis included eight categories and 33 subcategories, which consisted of 306 codes. The following categories were found: (1) collection, organization, and reporting of information; (2) sharing of information and facilitating cooperation; (3) supporting leading public health nurses; (4) communicating measures used in past disasters; (5) responding to the situation and feelings of local public health nurses; (6) improvement of work systems to support long-term activities of local public health nurses; (7) improving the environment of shelters and preventing infection; and (8) supporting the mental and physical health of disaster victims.

Conclusions: Public health nurses in the managerial phase had sufficient experience in handling past disaster health activities. They provided both management support for the activities implemented by local public health nurses and direct support for the victims when they were dispatched to disaster-affected areas. Their efforts were mainly directed at creating an environment in which disaster-related health activities could be implemented appropriately and efficiently.

Integrated System Validation is performance-based assessment of integrated human-system interface（HSI） prior to loading in nuclear power plants. Appropriate integrated system validation scenario

Since a nuclear power plant design consists of hundreds or thousands of individual HSI devices and plant operations are complex and varied, ISV activities for all operating conditions and human tasks are neither practical nor necessary. Therefore an appropriate context

Recently, risks of natural disasters, such as storms and earthquakes, have increased due to climate change in various regions. In disasters, the supports for persons requiring special care have been out of proportion and retarded which may lead to secondary impairments especially among people with a disability, an intractable disease, or a chronic disease. In this study, as the solution to the problem, we constructed a system for people requiring special care to evacuation and welfare shelters by utilizing the Geographical Information System (GIS), verifying the effectiveness. The system established in this study provided the

The Socla Project supports high school students' career learning and uses social media to connect them with college students and working adults. The participants were 56 high school students (28 blended learners and 28 fully online learners) who pursued their own career-related topics such as the meaning of work and transitioning to college while receiving help from college students and working adults through Facebook. This study evaluates the project based on the results of using Facebook, a questionnaire given to the participants, and findings from their semi-structured interviews. Although 42.9% of fully online learners dropped out of the project (as opposed to 7.1% of blended online learners), the fully online learners who completed the project demonstrated higher levels of participation and enthusiasm for learning. Furthermore, the questionnaire indicated that learners’ career-related anxieties were alleviated, and their ability to make decisions about their careers and sense of self-efficacy were enhanced. Furthermore, the interviews suggested that conversations with