Impact of Social Service Expenditures on the Suicide Rate: The Cases of Asia Countries

An empirical study reported that the economic crisis in European countries affected their suicide rates and described that an increase in social services expenditures of US$10 per person in labor market programs impacted the decrease in unemployment suicides by 0.038%. However, there has no study that the economic crisis in Asia countries affected their suicide rates. Since 2008, South Korea has been ranked first for suicide rate in the OECD countries. Many studies have blamed the economic crisis that followed from the US financial crisis in 2007 as the critical cause. However, in the case of Japan, the suicide rate decreased in the same time period (2008–2011) even though they faced the same financial crisis. The purpose of this study was to examine why the different situations in Korea and Japan occurred with the economic crisis through testing whether the government’s social service expenditure affects the people’s suicide rate in Asia countries. These efforts will contribute to understanding the critical role of social service.     

An emerging model of maternity care: Smartphone,midwife, doctor?

BackgroundMobile technology in the form of the smartphone is widely used, particularly in pregnancy and they are an increasing and influential source of information.AimTo describe the diverse nature of pregnancy related applications (apps) for the smartphone and to flag that these apps can potentially affect maternity care and should be considered in future planning of care provision.MethodsThe 2 smartphone platforms, Apple and Android, were searched for pregnancy related apps and reviewed for their purpose and popularity.FindingsiTunes and Google Play returned 1059 and 497 pregnancy related apps respectively. Forty percent of the apps were informative, 13% interactive, 19% had features of a medical tool and 11% were social media apps. By far the most popular apps, calculated as the number of reviews multiplied by average reviewer rating, were those with interactive features.DiscussionThe popularity of pregnancy-related apps could indicate a shift towards patient empowerment within maternity care provision. The traditional model of ‘shared maternity care’ needs to accommodate electronic devices into its functioning. Reliance on healthcare professionals may be reduced by the availability of interactive and personalised information delivered via a smartphone. This combined with the fact that smartphones are widely used by many women of childbearing age, has the potential to modify maternity care and experiences of pregnancy. Therefore it is important that healthcare professionals and policy-makers are more aware of these new developments, which are likely to influence healthcare and alter health-seeking behaviour. In addition healthcare professionals need to consider whether to discuss the use of apps in pregnancy with the women in their care.