Anton Pak

James Cook University | JCU · Australian Institute of Tropical Health and Medicine

African party systems vary considerably in their patterns of stability and change over time. This article examines how economic growth has been shaped by such party system fluidity—in particular, the frequency, scope and variety of change—while taking account of the constitutional regime (i.e., level of democracy) within which these party system dy...

Purpose of Review This review discusses the trends of bacteraemia and their outcomes in tropical regions of Australia. Bacteraemia can frequently lead to severe sepsis and potentially life-threatening consequences. Epidemiology of bacteraemia is ever evolving. Recent Findings This review outlines the current patterns of bacteraemia in tropical reg...

Monkeypox (mpox), a zoonotic disease caused by the monkeypox virus (MPXV), poses a significant public health threat with the potential for global dissemination beyond its endemic regions in Central and West Africa. This study explores the multifaceted aspects of monkeypox, covering its epidemiology, genomics, travel-related spread, mass gathering i...

Background: The resurgence of measles, a highly contagious infectious disease, has risen to a global public health emergency of international concern. Methods: A stochastic meta-population model, adapted from the Susceptible-Exposed-Infectious-Recovered compartment model, was employed to assess the risk of measles importation. This model was adjus...

Bovine respiratory disease (BRD) is a major cause of illness and death in cattle; however, its global extent and distribution remain unclear. As climate change continues to impact the environment, it is important to understand the environmental factors contributing to BRD’s emergence and re-emergence. In this study, we used machine-learning models...

Several neglected infectious pathogens, such as the monkeypox virus (MPXV), have re-emerged in the last few decades, becoming a global health burden. Despite the incipient vaccine against MPXV infection, the global incidence of travel-related outbreaks continues to rise. About 472 confirmed cases have been reported in 27 countries as of 31 May 2022...

This paper attempts to provide new evidence on the indirect cost of neighbourhood crime rates on mental wellbeing of residents. Crime places a heavy burden on the economy, and it receives significant attention from the public. Yet, the connection between crime and health for victims and non-victims is not well captured in the literature. Using spat...

Essential skills required for both statistical consulting and collaboration are mostly informal and are rarely taught in the training institutions in developing countries. These critical skills constitute a significant missing gap and a major hindrance to the growth and development of capacity in statistics and data science practice in developing c...

Objective: To investigate the admission characteristics and hospital outcomes for patients admitted with lower respiratory tract infections (LRTI) in Northern Queensland. Methods: We perform a retrospective analysis of the data covering an 11‐year period, 2006–2016. Length of hospital stay (LOS) is modelled by negative binomial regression and hete...

Acute respiratory infections appear to precipitate vascular events. Acute myocardial infarction (AMI) and stroke are the leading cause of death and disability globally. This study was based on a cohort of patients admitted to Townsville University Hospital between January 2006 and December 2016. Using a self-controlled case series design, we invest...

Background . The outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) that was first detected in the city of Wuhan, China has now spread to every inhabitable continent, but now the attention has shifted from China to other epicentres. This study explored early assessment of the influence of spatial proximities and travel pattern...

Limited access, poor experience, and high out-of-pocket (OOP) costs of primary care services may lead to avoidable emergency department (ED) presentations. But, the evidence has been limited with most of the studies using surveys conducted in EDs. Using detailed health survey data of Australian women linked to multiple administrative datasets, we e...

Purpose: To examine how public trust mediates the people's adherence to levels of stringent government health policies and to establish if these effects vary across the political regimes. Methods: This study utilizes data from two large-scale surveys: the global behaviors and perceptions at the onset of COVID-19 pandemic and the Oxford COVID-19...

Background The current systems of reporting waiting time to patients in public emergency departments (EDs) has largely relied on rolling average or median estimators which have limited accuracy. This study proposes to use machine learning (ML) algorithms that significantly improve waiting time forecasts. Methods By implementing ML algorithms and u...

Models have played an important role in policy development to address the COVID-19 outbreak from its emergence in China to the current global pandemic. Early projections of international spread influenced travel restrictions and border closures. Model projections based on the virus’s infectiousness demonstrated its pandemic potential, which guided...

COVID-19 is not only a global pandemic and public health crisis; it has also severely affected the global economy and financial markets. Significant reductions in income, a rise in unemployment, and disruptions in the transportation, service, and manufacturing industries are among the consequences of the disease mitigation measures that have been i...

This commentary highlights the importance of public’s trust for government decision-making during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, and the issue is of high relevance to the effectiveness of public health response in both developed and developing countries. Developing nations, having lower trust levels in governments and its institutions, may be parti...

Problem definition. The current systems of reporting waiting time to patients in public emergency departments (EDs) has largely relied on rolling average or median estimators which have limited accuracy. This paper proposes to use the statistical learning algorithms that significantly improve waiting time forecasts.Practical Relevance. Generating a...

COVID-19 has not only become global pandemic and a public health crisis but also affected the global economy and financial markets. Significant reductions in income, rise of unemployment and disruptions in transportation, service and manufacturing industries are among the consequences of governments’ disease mitigation measures. It has become clear...

The outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) that originated in the city of Wuhan, China has now spread to every inhabitable continent, but now theattention has shifted from China to other epicenters, especially Italy. This study explored the influence of spatial proximities and travel patterns from Italy on the furt...

In addition to their theoretical analysis of the joint determination of oil futures prices and oil spot prices, Alquist and Kilian (Journal of Applied Econometrics, 2010, 25(4), 539–573) compare the out-of-sample accuracy of the random walk forecast with that of forecasts based on oil futures prices and other predictors. The results of my replicati...

The paper investigates the determinants of bribery in sub-Saharan Africa by using probit models and data from the World Bank's Enterprise Survey of 10,457 firms in 30 countries in sub-Saharan Africa from 2009 to 2013. By doing so we find that securing a government contract is the most significant motivation for bribery and that overall, the propens...