BACKGROUND: Worldwide trends in health risks, lifestyle behaviors, health perceptions, and health-seeking patterns suggest alarming disparities among individuals from low- and middle-income countries. Such international comparisons are particularly troubling for older individuals (≥60 years). OBJECTIVES: This study aims to compare health risks, lifestyle behaviors, health perceptions, and health-seeking patterns between younger (<60) and older (≥60) Filipinos from rural communities in the Philippines. METHODS: A comparative cross-sectional study was employed with 863 younger and 427 older Filipinos. Data were analyzed using frequencies, chi-squares, and T-tests. RESULTS: Older participants were more likely to be single/widowed, ≤ high school education and had higher rates of hypertension, high cholesterol, diabetes, and depression. They reported poorer health status and went to the village health center when sick. Furthermore, they were less likely to drink alcohol and see a physician. CONCLUSION There were significant differences in modifiable health risks and lifestyle behaviors and differences in health perceptions between younger and older cohorts of Filipinos living in rural areas in the Philippines. Our findings suggest the need to design separate health promotion interventions that target older and younger Filipinos' unique needs from rural communities.
Low-Middle-Income Countries ; Aging ; Cross-sectional ; Population Health ; Philippines

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought additional strain to health workers in the Philippines, leading to a significant proportion of them leaving the workforce. The purpose of this study is to explore the impact of the pandemic on health workers, the support that they received and associated challenges; and identify relevant policies for better workplace conditions.

METHODS

An environmental scanning method was utilized. Particularly, a literature review and policy scan that were validated through key informant interviews with administrators and frontline health workers from selected urban and rural sites in the three main islands in the Philippines. These were framed into a background note to springboard the discussions during a national policy dialogue participated by representatives from key government organizations, professional organizations of physicians, nurses, and midwives, professional regulatory bodies, hospital administrators, frontline health workers, and donor agencies in the Philippines.

RESULTS

Deaths, burn-out, mental health problems, lack of personal protective equipment and poor allocation of vaccines were reported in the early phases of the pandemic. Support varied across settings but included additional allowance, free meals, accomodation, transportation, training and psychosocial services. Furthermore, pre-pandemic issues such as as low salaries and heavy workload continue to be the main reasons for leaving the workforce or the country. The proposed solutions are as follows: (1) creating policies and strategies for appropriate production, recruitment, and retention of human resources for health; (2) allocating regular permanent positions for both the education and health sector; (3) augmenting and continuation of deployment programs; (3) expanding roles of nurses to push for advanced practice nursing; (4) providing fair compensation along with risk allowances, non-financial incentives, and expanded benefits; (5) supporting mental health wellness by providing an appropriate work-rest balance and safe work environment; (6) providing opportunities for professional development and scholarships with accompanying return-service agreement; and (7) strengthening the reintegration programs for returning overseas health workers.

CONCLUSION

The pandemic has affected the well-being of health workers and disparities in support were reported due to longstanding workplace issues and policy implementation gaps. Stakeholder commitments require sustained monitoring while policies that are in place and yet to be developed demand stronger support from the government, members of Congress, the private sector, and other key decision-makers.

Covid-19 ; Health Policy ; Philippines

Objective: To describe the trend and landscape of Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19)-related publications in nursing authored by at least one Philippine-based author. Methods: This study is a bibliometric analysis of documents retrieved from Scopus using the search terms “COVID-19” and “nurs*” in the article title, abstract, and keywords. The documents were limited to those published in English, affiliated with Philippine-based authors, and those published from 2020 to 2023. We used the ‘analyze report’ function in Scopus to analyze the data including the number of publications, types, sources, authors, and affiliations. We used VOSViewer for the co-authorship analysis of countries and co-occurrence analysis of author keywords. Results: A total of 136 documents were found. Majority of these documents were classified as original articles (83%). There was a rapid increase in COVID-19 publications in nursing authored by at least one Philippine-based researcher published from 2020 to 2021 and plateaued from 2022-2023. Co-authorship analysis showed that Philippine-based authors have written documents with authors from 111 countries most notably from Saudi Arabia, the United States, Indonesia, and Australia. Most documents were published in the Belitung Nursing Journal. Authors from the University of Santo Tomas had the most publications. The most cited articles focused on psychosocial impacts, resilience, workplace stress, and online education. Author keywords commonly used in the documents were COVID-19, nursing, and nursing students, covering topics such as pandemic impacts, workplace impacts, nurse well-being, psychosocial impacts, and nursing education. Keywords have evolved through the pandemic period with a recent focus on stress and professional values. Conclusion Philippine-based authors actively contributed in understanding the impact of COVID-19 on nurses and nursing education. Their scientific productivity was driven partly by their collaboration with foreign-based researchers. To sustain this trend in productivity and collaboration, policies, programs, and strategies are needed to promote, support, and foster research collaboration among local and international nursing researchers and institutions.
Human ; bibliometrics ; COVID-19 ; nursing ; Philippines