Derek P. T. H. Christie- PhD MPH
- Head of Faculty at HES-SO University of Applied Sciences and Arts Western Switzerland
Derek P. T. H. Christie
- PhD MPH
- Head of Faculty at HES-SO University of Applied Sciences and Arts Western Switzerland
About
46
Publications
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Introduction
Dean of research at the University of Applied Sciences and Arts Western Switzerland (Fribourg/Freiburg campus).
Member of the University of Geneva's Institute of Global Health and of the Swiss School of Public Health (SSPH+).
Topic areas: urban and environmental health; health promotion; community nursing; osteopathy.
Current institution
Additional affiliations
March 2012 - December 2020
Position
- Scientific Officer
Description
- Several collaborative projects around urban health, environnmental health, One Health, WHO Healthy Cities, etc.
December 2011 - April 2018
Position
- PhD Student
Description
- Training in mixed methods: statistical analysis (SPSS), qualitative interviewing and GPS/GIS tracking. Specialised in daily walking, a healthy individual activity with potential to help transform urban transportation systems towards more sustainability.
May 2010 - November 2011
Position
- Consultant
Description
- Highly technical position with work across almost all aspects of HIV prevention: pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP), male circumcision, treatment for prevention, ethical considerations for HIV prevention trials, etc.
Education
May 2014 - April 2018
October 2006 - June 2009
September 2002 - June 2003
Publications
Publications (46)
Mountain regions are under-represented in transport research, which tends to concentrate on urban areas. This study investigates transport mode choice in 22 locations in the Alps, using data from the 2010 Swiss transport micro-survey (hereafter: MRMT2010) which has detailed information from 68'868 people in a representative national sample who desc...
Promoting physical activity and active transport strategies are among the “best buys” for tackling the risk factors of noncommunicable diseases (WHO Global status report on noncommunicable diseases, 2010). Operationalising such insights requires policies favourable to health in the transport sector. In Switzerland and many other countries, the tran...
From the point of view of public health and the environment, it can be argued that people who spontaneously walk great distances display a desirable behaviour, whereas those who drive a car without any walking in public space do not. A suggested metric can describe the relationship between these two behaviours within a conurbation, with a view to i...
The purpose of this article is to review the status of Health Impact Assessment (HIA) in Switzerland and assess whether HIA can be used to implement Health in All Policies (HiAP) in this highly decentralized country. The methods include expert opinion and an extensive literature review, as well as targeted interviews with key informers in the canto...
Background
Walking is the focus of increasing interest for reasons linked to public health, the environment, climate change and transport policy. However, the phenomenon of people who spontaneously walk great distances has not been investigated. Our group defines “frequent walkers” as people who walk at least 5 km in public space on an average day,...
Aim
To compare student nurses' expectations and newly qualified nurses' experiences regarding clinical practice in Switzerland 1 year after graduation.
Design
A secondary explorative analysis of a cross‐sectional survey.
Methods
The data were sourced from the Swiss National Graduate Survey of Health Professionals covering six universities of appl...
As the world’s population grows in cities, urban dwellers spend a large amount of time inside their home, making housing health ever more important. Critical for residents’ health, the interactions between indoor residential environments and outdoor environmental conditions (e.g. air pollution, noise, heat) are mediated by the controversial and evo...
Health Impact Assessment (HIA), an inherently trans-disciplinary approach, is used to help evaluate and improve projects or programmes in sectors such as transportation, where new infrastructure is likely to have effects on health. This article describes the screening, scoping, appraisal, and recommendation steps of an HIA on a new 24 km highway ar...
There are many areas of convergence and mutual growth between health impact assessment (HIA) and health promotion. However, HIA is often considered a practical implementation tool and therefore not particularly suited for research. In fact, HIA is more than a tool, it is a health promotion approach and a means to effectively implement Health in All...
The integration of self-management education and support into the routine diabetes care is essential in preventing complications. Currently, however, there is no consensus on how to conceptualise integration in relation to self-management education and support. Therefore, this synthesis presents a framework conceptualising integration and self-mana...
Background
The COVID-19 pandemic has caused overwhelming changes in individual and community daily-life, resulting from the public health measures implemented to contain it, and also from its psychological and socio-economic consequences. These shifts and consequences impacted the entire population, but some groups are more likely to be affected by...
Das Forschungsprojekt «Co-Creating Mobility Hubs» leistet einen Beitrag zur Umsetzung der Strategie 2030 der SBB, die festhält, dass Bahnhöfe zu Verkehrsdrehscheiben und das Bahnhofumfeld zu lebenswerten und nachhaltigen Stadtquartieren entwickelt werden sollen. Somit unterstützt die SBB die gewünschte Verdichtung nach innen und leisten einen Beitr...
Globally, every 30 seconds a lower limb amputation is carried out due to diabetes, in 85 % of cases preceded by a foot ulcer. One of the main causes of foot ulcer formation is abnormal mechanical pressure and shear, the alleviation of which is therefore a key element in the management of diabetic foot ulcers. The toes, often neglected in routine cl...
Clinical experience of an offloading orthosis to prevent and heal diabetic foot ulcers of the digits
Globally, every 30 seconds a lower limb amputation is carried out due to diabetes, in 85 % of cases preceded by a foot ulcer. One of the main causes of foot ulcer formation is abnormal mechanical pressure and shear, the alleviation of which is there...
Issue
In 2018-2019, HIA was carried out on a projected 24-km north-south motorway bypass in a rural area west of Strasbourg, intended to alleviate pressure on a pre-existing motorway that cuts through the city centre. Although transport is a major source of impacts on health, HIA is rarely performed on new road construction projects, globally.
Des...
Wind energy has considerable potential worldwide; however, several health concerns are associated with its development. Based on a structured search of the international scientific literature, this review investigates the main health concerns, grouped into the following categories: noise, infrasound and low-frequency sounds, wind turbine syndrome,...
![The syndemic model. Reproduced with permission from [41]](publication/327778301/figure/fig4/AS:11431281170232483@1687659438956/The-syndemic-model-Reproduced-with-permission-from-41_Q320.jpg)
Abstract The 2015–2017 global migratory crisis saw unprecedented numbers of people on the move and tremendous diversity in terms of age, gender and medical requirements. This article focuses on key emerging public health issues around migrant populations and their interactions with host populations. Basic needs and rights of migrants and refugees a...
The aim of this study is to investigate the integration of the health dimension within existing impact assessments such as environmental impact assessment (EIA), strategic environmental assessment (SEA) and sustainability assessment (SA). This work focuses on the canton of Geneva (Switzerland) and was carried out using the following methodology: a...
Background
Every year, the Health Bus (Bus Santé) enables a representative sample of around 1000 members of the non-institutionalised adult population of Geneva, Switzerland, to undergo a health evaluation including physical measurements, blood tests and questionnaires. A published study using 1999-2009 Health Bus data found that body-mass index (B...
This study aims to understand how the health dimension is integrated into four impact assessment tools used in Geneva, Switzerland: environmental impact assessment (EIA), strategic environmental assessment (SEA), sustainability assessment (SA) and health impact assessment (HIA). We have chosen as a case study greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reductio...
The City Automated Transport System (CATS) was a collaborative FP7 European project that lasted from 2010 to 2014. Its objective was to evaluate the feasibility and acceptability of driverless electric vehicles in European cities. This contribution explains how the project was implemented by 11 teams in five countries, culminating with practical tr...
The International Consortium for Prevention and Infection Control (ICPIC) organises a biannual conference (ICPIC) on various subjects related to infection prevention, treatment and control. During ICPIC 2015, held in Geneva in June 2015, a full one-day session focused on the 2014–2015 Ebola virus disease (EVD) outbreak in West Africa. This article...
This report is part of a six-city research series, Europe’s White Working Class Communities, which examines the realities of people from majority populations in Aarhus, Amsterdam, Berlin, Lyon, Manchester, and Stockholm.
White Working Class Communities in Lyon explores the views and experiences of the majority population in the 8th arrondissement...
This strategic research agenda is the product of an enthusiastic year-long collaboration
between researchers based in centres of excellence, across many different
disciplines and European countries. Our primary goal is to highlight the importance
of mountains in providing insights and solutions to many of Europe’s pressing challenges.
To this end,...
Attitudes and utilization of the car and of public transportation between 1994 and 2011
Case studies in Berne, Geneva and Lausanne
Mode shift from the car towards public transport is an explicit public policy objective in many urban areas across Europe. Despite some progress over the past decade, such a transformation has long been thwarted by ing...
In many countries including Switzerland, public policy encourages people to walk for reasons linked to health, the environment, and transport. However, the distribution of walking in the population is not known. This project uses the Swiss transport micro-survey (MRMT2010), a complex database whose 13 inter-related sub-files include information on...
Health impact assessment (HIA) is a prospective decision-making aid tool that aims to improve the quality of policies, programmes or projects through recommendations that promote health. It identifies how and through which pathways a decision can impact a wide range of health determinants and seeks to define the distribution of effects within popul...
In many countries including Switzerland, public policy encourages people to walk for reasons linked to health, the environment, and transport. However, the distribution of walking in the population is not known. People who walk great distances have not been investigated, nor have people who do no walking in public spaces although they drive a motor...
This report is part of a six-city research series, Europe’s White Working Class Communities, which examines the realities of people from majority populations in Aarhus, Amsterdam, Berlin, Lyon, Manchester, and Stockholm.
White Working Class Communities in Lyon explores the views and experiences of the majority population in the 8th arrondissement...
This paper describes the evolution of modal choice in Geneva, Lausanne and Bern, between
1994 and 2011. Altogether, 1500 professionally active adults were interviewed by telephone in
1994, and 2198 in 2011. All respondents had access to efficient public transportation and a
private car. The image of the car remained positive over the period, but de...
Many European cities are experiencing an apparent shift in mobility patterns. Walking and cycling are becoming increasingly popular, while many households are deciding not to have a car. These trends feed into a new concept of urban proximity, within which walking is to be considered as a transport mode in its own right. However, little is known ab...
Un grand nombre de métropoles occidentales connait une évolution des mobilités quotidiennes dans leur centre, avec l’émergence d’un modèle associé à la proximité. Les modes doux, ou actifs, sont davantage pratiqués par des ménages ayant renoncé à l’automobile, et construisant leurs modes de vie à partir des aménités de leur quartier. Dans les mêmes...
This paper investigates the capacity of the World Health Organization (WHO)-REMPAN network in responding to radiological incidents
and nuclear emergencies. A survey developed by the WHO Secretariat and Nagasaki University was sent to all 40 WHO-REMPAN collaborating
centres and liaison institutes in order to verify the current situation of the netwo...
Objective:
To assess the acceptability and impact of anti-smoking policies in three prisons in Switzerland.
Methods:
A before-after intervention study in A) an open prison for sentenced prisoners, B) a closed prison for sentenced prisoners, and C) a prison for pretrial detainees. Prisoners and staff were surveyed before (2009, n=417) and after (...
For the public health management of radiation emergencies, one of the essential components of integrated risk assessment is to quickly and accurately assess and categorize the exposure. In addition to other methods, biodosimetry is instrumental to support decision-making for: 1) efficient secondary triage in a hospital response phase; 2) multi-para...
To assess the validity of English translations of three scales initially developed in French, measuring perception of the adverse effects of smoking, self-efficacy and the use of smoking cessation strategies.
Between 1999 and 2001, 5667 people from 97 countries (4724 smokers and 943 ex-smokers) answered the scales on the internet, of which 997 (18%...
The authors tested whether smokers would use cigarette pack covers illustrated with antismoking messages. In 2001, visitors to a smoking cessation Web site ordered cigarette pack covers and answered a follow-up questionnaire 52 days later. Participants received by mail cardboard boxes designed to contain cigarette packs and illustrated with antismo...
We have used a half-YAC containing the human chromosome 21 long-arm telomere to clone, map, and characterize a new dinucleotide repeat polymorphism (D21S1575) close to 21qter. This marker is < 120 kb from the telomeric (TTAGGG)n sequences and is the most distal highly polymorphic marker on chromosome 21q. This marker has a heterozygosity of 71% bec...
Questions
Questions (2)
An institution with which I am familiar is wondering how to devise the best possible workspace for its employees. Between the individual office (not feasible) and the openspace with scores of people in it (not healthy), what is the best solution? A recent publication (Pejtersen et al. 2011 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21528171) found that sickness absence was lower in offices with 3-6 people than in offices with either 2 or >6 people.
So is there a "magic number" somewhere between 3 and 6?
I have access to a database where people declare how far they walked on a reference day. Walking inside buildings or within facilities such as malls or campuses is not included in the estimate. Calculated in this way, the average distance walked per person is 1.7 km per day. I am creating categories and sub-categories based on the distance walked: 0-1 km, 1-2 km, etc. The question is if and where I should cap people's responses. Some seem unrealistic, around 50-70 km on the reference day, but I need to define a cut-off point based on something scientific. The setting is Switzerland (whole country: urban, surburban and rural) and the data are in kilometres. Of course, mile-based calculations or contributions are also welcome. Many thanks in advance for your help.
