Opportunity costs are other uses of resources Essay

The opportunity cost of any action is defined as the next best alternative to that action. The concept of opportunity costs explain that for every opportunity pursued, there is a cost associated with that opportunity. Every choice has a trade-off because one would usually give up something in favor of the first choice, given one’s limited resources. Limited resources imply scarcity, and a scarce resource used for one thing means that some other thing is foregone. Opportunity costs are usually assessed in terms of money, but it can also be considered in terms of anything that is deemed of value to the company, such as time, production or mechanical output, or any other kind of limited resource. The opportunity cost is usually the difference of value between the first choice and the alternative—for example, the difference between the actual performance of one’s current investment and some other desired investment is considered the opportunity cost of that investment. Another opportunity cost that should be considered includes the cost investing a company’s resources in new capital goods in lieu of its current production of consumer goods. Other kind of opportunities that would have associated opportunity costs include investing, supplying capital, purchasing goods, saving money, and specialization.

New Public Health Measures

THE NEW PUBLIC HEALTH Stephen R Leeder 7 March 2005 James Cook University, Townsville Introduction All of us here today are public health enthusiasts. If we weren’t we would be somehwere else, maybe helping sick people to get better. That is a worthy calling and thank goodness for all the people who do it. But so too is prevention, so too is keeping society healthy, so too is protecting the environment, so too is keeping food and water safe, so too is attending to immunization and child health.When we talk about public health these latter things, that focus on the whole community, or groups within society and the things that determine their health, are what we are talking about. This is big picture stuff. This is about asking why some communities are healthy and some are ill. Why do some communities have such high rates of diabetes, like the Pacific Islands, while other countries have no diabetes but lots of HIV and TB? These are the kind of interests and enthusiasms that have led people into public health as a career for as long as it has been around.These are the kind of questions that were asked ages ago and which are still appropriate to be asked now. So what is this thing called the ‘new’ public health? How has it come about and does it have added value? In brief, the new public health has come about because of growing interest in the subtle interaction of the environment with people living in affluent societies. The old public health remains the public health that most of the world needs, quite frankly, because communicable disease, malnutrition and other scourges are still the major killers worldwide.These are more or less the same as those that led people in the fifteenth century to look at how things such as the plague and cholera could be controlled through sanitation, clean water and quarantine. The new public health But the new public health is much more concerned with the interplay between affluence, social well being, education and health, social capital and health. These are not hard and fast things, like having no system for waste water disposal or using contaminated drinking water. They are more subtle, but in societies like ours where the basic public health engineering and mmunization and food safety are well in place and require surveillance but not reinvention, these new factors – the social, economic and community quality factors – are rising in importance as determinants of health and causes of illness. 1 For example, Michael Marmot has done studies with Geoffrey Rose and others in the UK examining coronary disease rates among civil servants, known as the Whitehall studies. They found that things like a sense of social control and cohesiveness were important determinants of whether people develop coronary disease.Money wasn’t everything. In the Whitehall II study, Marmot (Director of the International Centre for Health and Society at the University College London) and his col leagues examined the psychological characteristic of work termed â€Å"low control† – meaning that an individual worker had little control over his or her daily activities in the workplace. The results showed that it was an important predictor of the risk of cardiovascular disease and that it had an important role in accounting for the social gradient in coronary disease. 1 The origins of the new public healthThe Canadians have been very active over many years in promoting our understanding about the interplay between society and social environmental factors and health. This started in 1974 when Marc Lalonde, who was then the Canadian health minister, commissioned a report on the health of Canadians which proposed four sets of factors that were important to keep in mind when thinking about the health of the public. The Lalonde Report2 refers to these four factors collectively as â€Å"The Health Field Concept†. The four elements are human biology, environment, l ifestyle and health care organization.The human biology element includes all those aspects of health, both physical and mental, which are developed within the human body as a consequence of the basic biology of man and the organic make-up of the individual. The environment category includes all those matters related to health which are external to the human body and over which the individual has little or no control (for example, foods, water supply, etc). The lifestyle category consists of the aggregation of decisions by individuals which affect their health and over which they more or less have control.The fourth category in the concept is health care organisation, which consists of the quantity, quality, arrangement, nature and relationships of people and resources in the provision of health care – the health care system. The Lalonde Report was ground breaking in its day and provoked widespread international interest. Implementation proved to be far harder than was expecte d and the resilience of the health-care system to drain resources away from the first three fields was spectacular.Nevertheless, Canada has had a more lively interest in the contribution of the first three fields to health and has preserved a degree of control over health care, including rigid enforcement of a restriction on numbers of doctors trained and practicing, ever since. Although perhaps not a direct consequence of the Lalonde Report, Canada has also 2 played a leading role in the evolution of health promotion as a discipline. Several of the leaders in the field, now nearly 30 years on from the Report, are Canadians.They have had a special sensitivity to the potential for health gain by examining not only what can be done to encourage and sustain changes in individual human behaviour that will contribute to better health, but also those changes that can be effected in the natural and built environment that can assist in achieving this goal. Health promotion and the new publi c health In Australia, the new public health has been reflected in the steady rise of health promotion, expressed such ways as the formation of the Australian Health Promotion Association.The Association’s major objectives include providing opportunities for members’ professional development, increasing public and professional awareness of the roles and functions of health promotion practitioners, and contributing to discussion, debate and decision making on health promotion policy and programs. Since its incorporation in 1990, the Health Promotion Association has grown and developed such that it now has an established function and a central place in Australia’s health promotion landscape.Health promotion is an active form of public health in which an agenda is set with communities and individuals to affirm positively the value of health and push towards high levels of health, seeing it rather as the WHO does as a positive state of well being and not simply the absence of illness. Health promotion uses a range of tactics and methods to achieve its ends, including community participation, development and skill strengthening, advocacy (where health professionals and others lobby for health to be taken seriously at political and commercial levels), and education.Something of a contrast has come to be drawn between the activist promotion end and the formal epidemiological end of the public health spectrum, the former hoeing in boots and all to effect change and the latter taking careful steps, using rigorous studies and statistics, to establish cause and effect relationships before acting. Both groups tend to drive one another nuts. This is a lively tension and not one that is likely to go away.Professor Fran Baum who is head of the Department of Public Health at Flinders University in Adelaide has written a book entitled The new public health: an Australian perspective, that I commend to you. In it the idea of the new public health is given e xtensive coverage. 3 Source: Baume, F (1988) The new public health: an Australian perspective The new public health overlaps and interacts with other health movements of the past decade – particularly health promotion, primary health care, community health, women’s health, Aboriginal health, workers’ health and health education. History of the new public health The new public health started to develop in the 1980s. It was in the mid-1980s that there was a significant shift in public health when the WHO’s first international conference on health promotion was held in Ottawa, Canada. There were two driving forces behind the Ottawa Charter. It was clear that the Health for All by the Year 2000 strategy was not being adopted by industrialised countries, and the limitations of the lifestyle and behavioural approaches were increasingly being seen as requiring a new conceptualization for health promotion.Also the time was opportune for a more health promotion st atement. The Ottawa Charter managed to integrate many of the different perspectives of health promotion. While being seen as the foundation of the new public health, it did not reject behavioural and lifestyle approaches, but saw them as part of the acquisition of personal skills for health. The Charter is based on the belief that health requires peace, shelter, education, food, income, a stable ecosystem, social justice and equity as prerequisites. 4 Box 3. 1: The Ottawa Charter for Health Promotion, 1986 The Development of healthy public policy, which recognises that most of the private and public sector policies that affect health lie outside the conventional concerns of health agencies. Rather they are in policies such as environmental protection legislation, progressive taxation, welfare, occupational health and safety legislation and enforcement, land rights legislation and control of the sale and distribution of substances such as alcohol and tobacco. Health becomes, therefor e, a concern and responsibility of each sector of government. The creation of supportive environments in which people can realise their full potential as healthy individuals. The Charter recognises the importance of social, economic and physical environmental factors in shaping people’s experiences of health. †¢ Strengthening community action refers to those activities that increase the ability of communities to achieve change in their physical environmental factors in shaping people’s experience of health. †¢ The development of personal skills acknowledges the role that behaviour and lifestyles plays in promoting health.The skills called for are those that enable people to make healthy choices. It also extends the skills base for health to those associated with community organisation, lobbying and advocacy, and the ability to analyse individual problems within a structural framework. †¢ Reorientation of health services is a call for health systems to sh ift their emphasis from (in most industrialised countries) an almost total concentration on hospital-based care and extensive technological diagnostic and intervention to a system that is community-based, more user-friendly and controlled, which focuses on health.The Ottawa Charter stresses the importance of, and recommends: †¢ Advocacy for health †¢ Enabling people to achieve their full health potential †¢ Mediation between different interests in society for the pursuit of health Source: Baume, F (1988) The new public health: an Australian perspective Following in the spirit of the Ottawa Charter, in 1986 the Better Health Commission (BHC), a group established by the then Commonwealth Minister for Health, Neal Blewett, published Looking Forward to Better Health. Its brief was to recommend ways in which health in Australia might be promoted, especially though ways that were 5 nconventional for the medical and public health professions. It was part of Australia’ s response to the World Health Organization’s commitment to achieve equitable levels of health for all people, according tot the political and economic possibilities of each country, by 2000. This report contained proposals for achieving greater equity in health in Australia together with strategies to address several major preventable contributors to death and disease. Task forces established goals and targets for three priority health topics: cardiovascular disease, nutrition and injury. In making these choices the Commission was concerned to identify not only big problems, but also problems potentially amenable to prevention. Heart disease, the principal cause of death, was also chosen because of its multiple modifiable causes (e. g. diet, smoking an sedentary living), nutrition because of its multiple consequences (e. g. diabetes, heart disease and cancer) and injury because it cannot be dealt with preventively by efforts confined to health care but must involve industry, transport, law enforcement and industrial relations.These three major health problems in contemporary Australian society are priorities for health promotion by virtually any criterion. The work of the BHC was taken further in the National Better Health Program and led to the formulation of national health goals and then national health priorities which remain in place today. By the end of the 1980s, despite success, there was some Australian scepticism about the new directions in public health. Some questioned whether the new public health was really ‘new’ or simply old ideas in new clothing.This criticism is somewhat harsh as one of the features of the Ottawa Charter is that it does not ignore public health history but rather builds on it. The Ottawa Charter reflected numerous social and health movements of the previous 120 or so years. Its claims to be ‘new’ derives from how it pulled together numerous and diverse movements to present a package which gav e public health a more radical and cohesive direction than had been the case for some time.Today, public health is alive and well and confronting in this country the challenges that it can assist ameliorate. We are an astonishingly healthy nation – on average. We have the second longest healthy life expectancy of all nations, a fraction behind Japan. But within our country we have communities including those of some of our Indigenous people where these privileged are far from being available. It is here that a combination of old and new public health measures is required.Good work is being done and more is needed. This is the mission of public health. 6 References 1. Marmot, M ‘Inequalities in Health’, The New England Journal of Medicine 2001;345(2):134-136 2. Lalonde, M (1974) A New Perspective on the Health of Canadians. Ottawa: National Ministry of Health and Welfare 3. Baume, F (1998) The new public health: an Australian perspective Publisher: Oxford Universi ty Press 4. Leeder S R (1999) Healthy Medicine, Challenges facing Australia’s health services Publisher: Allen & Unwin 7

An ethical decision that I had to make Essay

An ethical decision that I had to make in my personal life. Was to choose between getting in education or staying in this post secondary school for adults with disabilities. After being there for two years I have not seen any progress that. I had to choose to give up going to the school that I was comfortable in with not having to put forth much effort. So my mother asks me did I want to try college online since I was not accomplishing anything at the post secondary school. Well I was scared to try because of my educational background with me being disable not knowing if I would be able to achieve getting a college degree. Come to find that I could accomplish getting a college education like any one else I would just have to work twice as hard to achieve my goal. So now that I’m I my second year of college I feel so good about doing it I do not think twice I would do it again. I’m really happy that my mother had enough faith in me. If it was not for her I would not be my second year of college. Now I feel like I can accomplish anything that I put my mind to no matter anyone else says. I’m also looking forward not only to receiving my associates degree but my bachelors as well. Even though sometimes it is a struggle I still keep in the back of my mind that I can do it I made it this far so I can finish. As well as having my family there to support me as well. Another big impact for me is when I saw my mother graduated with her associate’s degree in business and finances. That made me so proud then I thought about this could be me in another year. Which also made me began to work much harder to reach my goal so I can be where she is. One of my values is to live for what’s right no matter what may be gained or lost.

Critically evaluate the literature relating to the role of coaching in Essay

Critically evaluate the literature relating to the role of coaching in developing leadership capabilities and reflect on your ab - Essay Example 12). As compared to other leadership techniques, coaching is more focused on improving employees’ learning (Lee, 2003, p. 60). Over the past few decades, the role of coaching in the study of leadership has developed to the extent that coaching has been considered one of the most significant components in the development of executive leadership. Using relevant theories, this report will focus on evaluating the literature behind the role of coaching in the development of effective leadership capabilities. Aside from appraising the characteristics of effective leaders, this report will critically review the role of coaches in the development of leadership characteristics by comparing the leadership approaches of different authors in terms of achieving these outcomes. Working as a part-time sales supervisor in one of the well-known insurance companies in UK, coaching leadership is important in terms of making me able to effectively facilitate a positive business outcome with my cl ients. Because of the importance of developing coaching leadership when managing a group of people (i.e. ... Since employees can be self-sufficient, improvements in the customer service quality is also possible. Leadership Leadership is often mistaken as a management skill. Despite the close similarities between leadership and management skills, there are still some clear differences between the two. In line with this, Winston and Patterson (2006, p. 7) explained that leadership is actually referring to the ability of the corporate leaders to â€Å"influence, select, equip, and train† employees in order to improve their existing skills and work performances aside from encouraging this group of people to be willing in participating in the guidance of the corporate leaders. By encouraging employees to work towards a single organizational goal, there is a higher chance for them to improve the overall work performance of the group. On the other hand, management skills are referring to the corporate managers’ ability to handle the actual business affairs (Merriam-Webster 2011). It is easy to appoint any person to be a corporate manager. However, not all corporate managers are good leaders. Corporate leadership is an important skill that managers should develop. According to van Maurik (1994, p. 121), a competitive corporate leader should have â€Å"wisdom, integrity, sensitivity, and tenacity (WITS)†. By having these special characteristics, a good leader will be able to develop and implement a clear organizational vision that can make managers easily make business decisions that are heavily based on facts. Given that leadership is a learnt and acquired skill, it is a wrong belief to think that â€Å"leaders are born leaders† (Cox 2010). As stated by Adair (2005, p. 7),

How Media Coverage of War Affects Presidents and Their Policy Making Research Paper

How Media Coverage of War Affects Presidents and Their Policy Making - Research Paper Example The media has played an enormous role in the war on terror. The intricate and detailed coverage of the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center were seen by the entire world and led to an extremely emotional response from the American people. The images were associated with terrorism and the knee jerk response of most Americans called for bombing anyone who was responsible for such a hideous act, thus forming the base for any violent response from the US government. This paper shall underline the importance of the media in the coverage and conduct of Warfare, how terrorist groups use the media to spread their message, how the media uses terrorists to further their objectives and the impact of these events on government policy matters. The importance of Media in the Coverage and Conduct of the War: The media has become an important factor in the war on terrorism. The war not only takes place in Afghanistan, but has repercussions for the millions of viewers witnessing the events first ha nd(Shpiro 2002). The 9/11 attacks have dramatically changed the perceptions of millions around the world on terrorism and perceived threats. Modern wars take place as much on TV screens as on the battlefield. Media coverage not only influences public opinion, it also has a lasting impact on national government policy decisions(Shpiro 2002). The technological enhancement that has taken place in the latter half of the 20th century and the 21st century has enabled the media to broadcast, report and inform the masses of what is happening on ground immediately after the occurrence of the event. While the events of the world wars could be censored, abandoned or edited significantly before they reached audiences, such actions are not possible with the advent of modern technology and the race for ratings between media outlets that demands immediate coverage. An important impact of the increase in the influence of media is that military operations have significant elements of media policy. T he speed of the coverage of events means that policy decisions regarding the media need to be made ahead of the event. These policies are the ways in which the military and political leadership handle media aspects of conflicts. The range of these policies encompasses decisions on matters such as censorship, legal restrictions, abandonment of coverage, etc. This policy sets to further the political aims of warfare. Warfare media policies have been a subject of considerable research throughout the 20th century. These policies developed in several phases throughout the last three decades of the 20th century. Before the tremendous technological enhancements, governments sought to censor the flow of any form of information from the battlefields. Both of the world wars saw censorship and controlled coverage rule the flow of information. The purpose of this strategy was to identify the specific news that could be covered and avoid embarrassments. The media was also used for propaganda to justify government actions. The impact of the Vietnam War: The Vietnam War was the first major conflict that brought the bloodshed on the TV screens of the common man. The coverage of the war was very close to real time and Americans felt the pain that the people of Vietnam went through throughout the conflict. The policy set at the outset of the conflict sought to give journalists free access to the entire conflict. The policy was set without due consideration to the political repercussions of comprehensive

Analysis of Accounts Case Study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Analysis of Accounts - Case Study Example This report presents an analysis of Margate plc’s financial performance in the past five years while comparing it with industry peer, Herne Bay Ltd. In addition to this, the report also presents an analysis of cash flows of the company during the past 2 years and at the same time states how financial ratio analysis may not be effective enough for presenting an accurate and useful financial analysis for analysts and investors. At the end of the report, conclusion and recommendations are presented for High Deen plc as far as investment in Margate plc is concerned. Financial Ratio Analysis Based on the information provided in relation to the financial performance of Margate plc in 2012 and 2011, following is an analysis of it performance through selected financial ratios. The financial ratios presented below also take into consideration the ratios determined for the company for the financial years 2010, 2009 and 2008. In addition to this, for conducting a comparative analysis of the company with its competitor, ratios for Herne Bay Ltd have also been determined for the years 2012 and 2011. Return on Capital Employed The return on capital employed for Margate plc increased in 2011 due to significant increase in the revenues but then in 2012 with a decline in revenue, the ratio declined. On the other hand, one other reason for this decline is increase in the total capital employed by the company, which ultimately reduced this ratio. However, while comparing Margate plc’s return on capital employed with the Herne Bay Ltd’s ROCE, it can be observed that the company has almost maintained its position in relation to its competitor (Peterson & Fabozzi, 2012; Jiambalvo, 2010; Helfert, 2001). Ratio Margate plc Herne Bay Ltd

Omnivore's dilemma Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Omnivore's dilemma - Essay Example However, the subject encompassing this model is controversial. Indeed, the practice has raised concerns that demand critical examination (Duram 123). Commercialized farming has destructed and polluted surroundings the consequences that the environment has suffered out of our wicked practices, which alter genuine farming. Therefore, there is need of restructuring the trend meaning that persons need to shun consuming non-organics and adopt organics to conserve the remains and prevent further harm. (Preserve the remaining non-organics to safeguard the environment) Efforts to non-organic farming initiated with introduction of chemicals in the practice to fight pests and weeds. The procedure reduced crops infestations substantially and successfully addressed the challenge of weeds. However, the practice has led to introduction of toxic residuals in the crops. Subsequently, the method engaged the use of sewage sludge as a fertilizer. This idea appeared sustainable since the approach provided a method of utilizing human waste for fertilizer production. As such, cheaper fertilizers were accessible hence the productivity augmented (Harper & Aikaterini 288). However, studies have identified that residues from some of these fertilizers have detrimental effects on human health. Later advancements in the non-organic scheme led to introduction of technologies that incorporated hormones and antibiotics in farming procedures (Duram 145). The use of hormones meant hurrying crops and animals growth rate, an aspect that boosted productivity. Indeed, antibiot ics provide superb food preservation schemes. However, consuming antibiotic-preserved products meant introducing agents into our systems (Lockie 318). This is detrimental since antibiotics lead to resistances hence weakening the defense system. Recently, non-organic procedures have adopted a plan of irradiating products to eliminate any agents