Global health diplomacy may be thought of as a political activity that meets the dual goals of improving health while maintaining and strengthening international relations. As diplomacy is frequently referred to as the art and practice of conducting negotiations, the term 'global health diplomacy' aims to capture the multi-level and multi-actor negotiation processes that shape the global policy environment for health. It bridges the commitment to development and the need to define collective action in an interdependent world. This emerging field draws on a broad range of disciplines including international relations, medical anthropology, political science, history, and public health. Therefore it is important to understand some of the historical and conceptual underpinnings of this emerging field. Academic rigor applied to global health diplomacy is a critical leaven in a chaotic global health environment. This paper presents a brief review of the issues that provide a possible focus for future training, research, and service in global health diplomacy. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript
Good Night Yoga features deep-breathing exercises, yoga on the beach, yoga instructors, and various yoga poses including tree, triangle, cow, bridge, starfish, butterfly, balancing warrior, camel, fish, and more. Yoga isn’t just for grownups anymore. This charming board book presents yoga in a fun and kid-friendly way while exploring how to strengthen muscles and calm young souls.This book is part of the bestselling Good Night Our World series, which includes hundreds of titles exploring iconic locations and exciting themes.
This handbook explores mindfulness philosophy and practice as it functions in today’s socioeconomic, cultural, and political landscape. Chapters discuss the many ways in which classic concepts and practices of mindfulness clash, converge, and influence modern theories and methods, and vice versa. Experts across many disciplines address the secularization and commercialization of Buddhist concepts, the medicalizing of mindfulness in therapies, and progressive uses of mindfulness in education. The book addresses the rise of the, “mindfulness movement”, and the core concerns behind the critiques of the growing popularity of mindfulness. It covers a range of dichotomies, such as traditional versus modern, religious versus secular, and commodification versus critical thought and probes beyond the East/West binary to larger questions of economics, philosophy, ethics, and, ultimately, meaning.Featured topics include:A compilation of Buddhist meditative practices.Selling mindfulness and the marketing of mindful products.A meta-critique of mindfulness critiques - from McMindfulness to critical mindfulnessMindfulness-based interventions in clinical psychology and neuroscience.Corporate mindfulness and usage in the workplace.Community-engaged mindfulness and its role in social justice.The Handbook of Mindfulness is a must-have resource for clinical psychologists, complementary and alternative medicine professionals/practitioners, neuroscientists, and educational and business/management leaders and policymakers as well as related mental health, medical, and educational professionals/practitioners.
The article focuses on the study which aims to develop an informed consent process of Tibetan traditional medicine through a randomized placebo-controlled trial in Lhasa, China. The study reveals a process that enables the U.S. and Tibetan research team in meeting their ethical and logistical challenges, and examines the differences between the outcomes. Moreover, a step-by-step process on how participants would react to the research and informed consent process were presented.
BACKGROUND:: Many chronic conditions, including heart disease, cancer, and rheumatoid arthritis, are associated with underlying chronic inflammatory processes. Literature reviews have analyzed a variety of integrative therapies and their relationships with chronic inflammation. This systematic review is unique in reporting solely on yoga's relationship with inflammation. Its purpose was to synthesize current literature examining the impact of yoga interventions on inflammatory biomarkers in adults with chronic inflammatory-related disorders.METHOD:: Searches of several electronic databases were conducted. Inclusion criteria were (a) English language, (b) sample age >18 years old, (c) yoga interventions involving postures with or without yoga breathing and/or meditation, and (d) measured inflammatory biomarkers.
RESULTS:: The final review included 15 primary studies. Of these, seven were rated as excellent and eight as average or fair. There was considerable variability in yoga types, components, frequency, session length, intervention duration, and intensity. The most common biomarkers measured were interleukin-6 ( n = 11), C-reactive protein ( n = 10), and tumor necrosis factor ( n = 8). Most studies reported positive effects on inflammatory biomarkers ( n = 11) from baseline to post yoga intervention. Analysis of the dose showed higher total dose (>1,000 min) resulted in greater improvements in inflammation.
CONCLUSION:: This review suggests that yoga can be a viable intervention to reduce inflammation across a multitude of chronic conditions. Future studies with detailed descriptions of yoga interventions, measurement of new and well-established inflammatory biomarkers, and larger sample sizes are warranted to advance the science and corroborate results.
Procedures of Informed Consent are considered a high priority for international biomedical research. However, informed consent protocols are not necessarily transferable across cultural, national or ethnic groups. Recent debates identify the need for balancing ethical universals with practical and local conditions and paying attention to questions of cultural competence when it comes to the Informed Consent process for clinical biomedical research. This article reports on the results of a two-year effort to establish a culturally appropriate Informed Consent process for biomedical research in the Tibet Autonomous Region in the People's Republic of China. A team of Tibetan and American researchers, physicians, health professionals and medical anthropologists conducted the research. The Informed Consent was specifically for undertaking a triple-blind, double placebo-controlled randomized clinical trial of a Tibetan medicine compared with Misoprostol for reducing postpartum blood loss. The findings suggest greater need for flexibility and cooperation in establishing Informed Consent protocols across cultures and nations.
As most readers of this volume will already know, Tibetan medicine has beenintegrative, from the outset. Tibetan medicine, or what is sometimes called
The resurgence in interest in traditional medicine in the past decade has been paralleled by increasing attention to challenges posed by the co-existence of multiple, divergent forms of health care. In 2002 the World Health Organisation launched its first global strategy on traditional medicine, with an aim to integrate traditional medicine into national health systems globally (WHO 2002). Optimistic as the WHO strategy may be, it has served to highlight many of the obstacles and challenges facing an inclusive health system, where traditional or complementary and Western medicine co-exist. There is potential for looking to existing models of integration, such as the Tibetan health care system in Dharamsala, to learn from their experience (Bodeker 2001).
This investigation examined the interaction of disengagement coping with HIV/AIDS-related stigma and mindful-based attention and awareness in regard to anxiety and depressive symptoms among people with HIV/AIDS. There was a significant interaction in regard to anxiety symptoms. Higher levels of disengagement coping paired with lower levels of mindful-based attention and awareness was related to the greatest degrees of anxiety symptoms, while lower levels of disengagement coping paired with higher levels of mindful-based attention and awareness was related to the lowest levels of anxiety symptoms. Although the interaction for depressive symptoms was not significant, a similar pattern of results was observed.
Our nation's classrooms have become increasingly racially and ethnically diverse. Given these demographic changes, many policymakers and practitioners have expressed the need for increased attention to how teacher diversity might be linked to reducing racial/ethnic differences in teachers' ratings of social-emotional skills for students of color. Using the most recent nationally representative data, we investigated whether kindergarteners have different social-emotional ratings when they had a teacher whose racial/ethnic group was the same as their own. We found that having a teacher of the same race was unrelated to teachers' ratings of children's internalizing problem behaviors, interpersonal skills, approaches to learning, and self-control. However, students whose teachers' race/ethnicity matched their own had more favorable ratings of externalizing behaviors. Results are discussed in terms of implications for school disciplinary policies.
"The Legacy of Menla is a fresh portrayal of Tibetan Medicine through the eyes of three Indian women who have been diagnosed with different stages of cancer. Often acting against their families’ wishes or the advice of Western doctors, they chose to put their faith in Tibetan doctors and change their lives. In the intersection of Buddhism and science, Tibetan Medicine has a peculiar place in the field of healing that speaks to both believers and nonbelievers. Apart from the patients’ perspectives, the film takes us through the process of medicine making in the Himalayas and shows us the education of upcoming doctors. With the help of established Tibetan healers we will see the past, present and future of this healing system."--Synopsis from Arrabona Studio: http://arrabonastudio.hu/portfolio/legacyofmenla/
Dozens of studies in different nations have revealed that socioeconomic status only weakly predicts an individual's subjective well-being (SWB). These results imply that although the pursuit of social status is a fundamental human motivation, achieving high status has little impact on one's SWB. However, we propose that sociometric status-the respect and admiration one has in face-to-face groups (e.g., among friends or coworkers)-has a stronger effect on SWB than does socioeconomic status. Using correlational, experimental, and longitudinal methodologies, four studies found consistent evidence for a local-ladder effect: Sociometric status significantly predicted satisfaction with life and the experience of positive and negative emotions. Longitudinally, as sociometric status rose or fell, SWB rose or fell accordingly. Furthermore, these effects were driven by feelings of power and social acceptance. Overall, individuals' sociometric status matters more to their SWB than does their socioeconomic status.
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Objective—This study aimed to test the preliminary psychometric properties of the Scale of Body Connection (SBC), a 20-item self-report measure, designed to assess body awareness and bodily dissociation in mind–body intervention research.Methods—The SBC items were based on common expressions of awareness in body therapy. Content validity was established by a panel of experts. The validity and reliability of the scale was examined with an undergraduate sample. To assess the scale’s discriminant validity, the respondents were asked to indicate exposure to specific traumas.
Results—Confirmatory factor analysis, used to examine the scale’s construct validity, indicated acceptable goodness-of-fit indices, and revealed uncorrelated subscales, reflecting independent dimensions. Cronbach’s alpha revealed equal internal consistency reliability for each subscale for both men and women. Body awareness scores did not differ between individuals with and without reported trauma exposure. Bodily dissociation scores differed between individuals with and without past experience with physical trauma, suggesting the applicability of this subscale for use with populations with trauma histories.
Conclusions—The results provide preliminary evidence of the construct validity and internal consistency reliability of the SBC.
Mindfulness meditation has recently become mainstream, secular, and backed by evidence from neuroimaging studies about the benefits of “growing the brain through meditation.” Touted as the latest tool for educational curricula, psychotherapy, and intervention for at-risk or disenfranchised youth, it has garnered widespread excitement and investment for its promises to help cultivate self-regulation, empathy, and attentional focus, while being both non-invasive and empowering for young people. The mindfulness movement has, however, also been subject to skepticism, with critics raising caution about the “shadows” of mindfulness, pointing to its (often inadvertent) effects of depoliticizing social problems associated with inequality and poverty, occasional association with adverse behavioral effects, and its instrumental use as a technique for boosting productivity in the corporate workplace. In this paper, we present insights from a project on neuroscience and education, and illustrate some of the tensions surrounding mindfulness as seen from the perspectives of educators and policy makers. We apply a critical neuroscience framework to analyze the role of the brain in underpinning and undermining the mindfulness movement and to understand the reported challenges and promises of mindfulness. We point to a general ambivalence surrounding the potential of mindfulness meditation as an intervention for youth.
There is a growing interest in studies that document the relationship between science and medicine - as ideas, practices, technologies and outcomes - across cultural, national, geographic terrain. Tibetan medicine is not only known as a scholarly medical tradition among other Asian medical systems, with many centuries of technological, clinical, and pharmacological innovation; it also survives today as a complex medical resource across many Asian nations - from India and Bhutan to Mongolia, Tibet (TAR) and China, Buryatia - as well as in Western Europe and the Americas. The contributions to this volume explore, in equal measure, the impacts of western science and biomedicine on Tibetan grounds - i.e., among Tibetans across China, the Himalaya and exile communities as well as in relation to globalized Tibetan medicine - and the ways that local practices change how such “science” gets done, and how this continually hybridized medical knowledge is transmitted and put into practice. As such, this volume contributes to explorations into the bi-directional flows of medical knowledge and practice.
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