How This Hookup App Is Helping Black Women Have Better Sex Lives

This hookup app, Black Sex App, is helping black women have better sex lives. Black women are an interesting group of people. You have to look at things from a different perspective — you’re in a pool of so many black women on the dating app. But if you think you’re just going to get lucky, guess again.

Being black and dating is tricky. If you are a black woman, dating is complicated, and that’s because of racism. But, if you think that you are just a person with the same morals, and you can just get with anyone, you’re wrong. In most cases, black women are expected to be faithful and to only hook up with people they’ve been dating for some time.

However, there are still many times when black women date non-black men. And, if you are one of those women, then this hookup app is for you.

In this article, we will discuss why this hookup app is helping black women have better sex lives.

Why is This Hookup App For Black Women?

So, let’s get into it. This dating app is helping black women, like many others, get better sex lives.

In this day and age, online dating is getting harder for black women. Here are some of the reasons why this dating app is helping black women have better sex lives:

It lets them find hook ups without judgement.

Now, I know you’re thinking this is going to be a place for cheating. But, it’s not. This app is a hook up app for women who are looking for something casual and just want to fuck. In some cases, this can be someone of the opposite sex, but that’s not the case most of the time.

This app allows you to hook up with people who you haven’t met. Here’s the thing, black women are expected to date people they’ve been seeing for a long time before they get with someone new. The women you meet here are real people, and they are actually looking for casual sex.

In this hook up app, you won’t find fake profiles of people who are just out to get a fuck. Most of the people here are single and looking for sex. Some of them are single, and they’re willing to date someone. And, other people might be in a relationship and looking for a fuck with a casual hook up.

You don’t need to worry about your picture or your body. It’s funny that a lot of people have a problem with pictures on a dating site. But, this is a hookup app, so you don’t need to worry about that. Also, people are not going to judge you based on your appearance or your body size. No matter how you look, someone here will find you attractive and want to hook up.

Final Thoughts

I think this dating app is helping black women have better sex lives. And, I think there are many reasons why this dating app is doing so.

If you’re a black woman who is looking for casual hook ups, you will be happy that you chose this hookup app.

The best part is that you don’t have to worry about your looks or your body. The people here are not judging you, and they want to get into some casual sex.

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Improving Sexual Health In Africa

Africa accounts for a tenth of the world’s population, 20% of the world’s births and half of the mothers who die during pregnancy and childbirth come from Africa. 

One of the fundamental causes of this situation is the lack of access to important interventions to improve reproductive health, such as family planning. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that poor reproductive health accounts for 18% of the global disease burden and 32% of the total disease burden in women of reproductive age. The failure to target men with reproductive health interventions weakens the impact of reproductive health programs. 

This has had a devastating impact on the reproductive health of mothers, newborns and adolescents in Africa. Interruption of access to sexual and reproductive health services in Africa puts pregnant women and their families at greater risk. More unsafe births, less access to contraception, and an increased risk of sexually transmitted diseases have long-term effects on women, their families, and society.

Women need men and partners in the field of reproductive health to understand the risks to which they are exposed and strategies to prevent women. Initiatives and information on preventive reproductive health must go beyond the all-female gender. Issues of gender identity and tolerance for the expression of sexuality and reproduction must be strengthened in the context of the current risks to reproductive health. 

Knowledge of sexual and reproductive health services and access to appropriate care have the power to improve people’s lives. Raising awareness and informing people about sexual or reproductive health and related services is crucial. 

Midwives must be able to visit women and information campaigns must continue to wear face masks. Sexual and reproductive health covers a wide variety of topics including contraception methods, consequences of sexual and intimate partner violence, female genital mutilation and transmission of HIV and other sexually transmitted infections. This means that at the very least, the public health sector should be better equipped to deal with complications in pregnancy and childbirth, the transmission of sexually transmitted infections including HIV / AIDS and the sexual / reproductive health of young people and to ensure access to condoms and other contraceptives. 

UNHCR attaches great importance to providing high quality sexual and reproductive health services to refugees and other affected persons. Regular assessments of sexual / reproductive health and legal services are carried out in the context of the fight against COVID-19 and its adverse effects on African regions, countries and health systems. These assessments aim to identify gaps in the availability of essential SRHR services to the population. 

Regular assessments of the provision of sexual and reproductive health and rights services can serve as a decision-making tool and resource mobilisation tool to ensure that all people in the African region have access to these services at all times. The study and implementation of scientific, policy and health policy changes is crucial to accelerate the impact of interventions and programs to improve sexual and reproductive health outcomes for young people in South Africa. 

In order to achieve the best possible results in the field of sexual and reproductive health for young people in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), effective interventions and technologies need to be implemented quickly. There are several effective intervention programmes in the region to improve the sexual / reproductive health and well-being of young people. However, there are still significant gaps in the implementation of these interventions in practice and in policing. 

There is broad agreement that the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) relating to maternal and newborn health will be unattainable unless serious efforts are made. The lack of youth-friendly health services and insufficient policy guidance to meet health needs is a priority issue that all countries in the region should address. Experts argue that a major global convergence of health-care countries by 2030 to reduce infectious diseases and child and maternal mortality, as found in high-performing middle-income countries, can only be achieved by addressing preventable and treatable health problems in adolescents. 

The COVID 19 pandemic has become a major global public health crisis, leading to interruptions in the supply and use of health services and the potential risk of adverse effects on maternal and child health. The Regional Office for Africa is carrying out a rapid assessment of the continuity of essential sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) in the African region under COVID -19. Popular dating sites like https://benaughty.app have also contributed, promising to donate a percent of their membership fees to the cause.

Adolescent sexual and reproductive health in Sub-Saharan Africa remains a major public health problem, particularly for adolescent girls. Although there has been progress on indicators relating to adolescent sexual behavior, marriage, fertility, family planning, and HIV as a whole, most differences between urban and rural settings, education levels, and between poor and rich households persist and require greater attention. In sub-Africa, there are major differences in the sexual / reproductive health of adolescents between West and Central Africa, East and South Africa and between countries in these regions, demonstrating the importance of country-specific data as a guide for policies and programs to improve adolescents sexual and reproductive health for all adolescents. 

Youth health services in Tanzania: Community and school-based provision of youth-friendly health services as part of a package that includes education on reproductive health in primary schools, youth-friendly sexual and reproductive health services, promotion and distribution of condoms at the community level and community-wide activities. 

Effectiveness of a short curriculum to promote the use of condoms in schools among young adult men. Effects of a community-based sex education and reproductive health program on contraceptive use among unmarried adolescents in Shanghai. In this study, in addition to routine programs and activities offered at control centers, the program should also increase awareness of sexuality and reproduction and provide counseling and services to unmarried adolescents. 

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In a Perfect World

For former U.S. Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill, good enough doesn’t cut it.
Interviewed by Brett Krzykowski

Listen to the interview

Anyone looking for proof that quality has a place in all aspects of society can make the search a short one by examining the professional career of Paul O’Neill. Relying on transparency, systems thinking and—most importantly—the pursuit of the theoretical limit of perfect performance, O’Neill has cut a swath through myriad industries.

At manufacturing giant Alcoa, he helped reduce workdays lost to injury to almost zero.1 During his time at the U.S. Treasury, he whittled the process of closing the financial books from five months to three days.2 But his current passion is healthcare, an industry in which he has already made his mark via the Pittsburgh Regional Health Initiative (PRHI).

During a recent interview with Brett Krzykowski, QP’s assistant editor, O’Neill spoke about the ills of—and cures for—the U.S. healthcare system, the signs of economic calamity everyone ignored, and the U.S. government’s resistance to the quality way of thinking.

QP: A big focus of yours has been this idea of the pursuit of the theoretical limit—that organizations shouldn’t settle for anything less than perfection in everything they do. During your time at Alcoa, you met some resistance from people who thought this was a ridiculous pursuit. But the results certainly indicate that this works, as far as a zero-loss workday and the number of safety incidents dropping to miniscule proportions (see sidebar, “Taking Alcoa to the Limit”). Do you think businesses are hurting themselves by settling for being good rather than striving for perfection?

Paul O’Neill: I do, because when you establish goals using the concept of a theoretical limit, effectively it lets you identify the complete spread between where you are at any particular time and perfection.

Identifying the size of the opportunity doesn’t mean you can capture it all. But it’s the right kind of a thought process so that you don’t effectively compromise yourself into a position where you’re satisfied with something that’s clearly short of the possibility.

I’ve found, when you’re talking about workplace safety as the area of attention, it’s easier to get substantial agreement that the organization and the people in it should strive to eliminate incidents in the workplace. When you’re dealing with manufacturing processes, there are more people who can explain to you a thousand reasons why we can’t be close to perfect.

Taking Alcoa to the Limit

When Paul O’Neill became chairman and CEO of Pittsburgh-based aluminum manufacturer Alcoa in 1987, he wasted little time showing how serious he was about the pursuit of the theoretical limit. “I said the first day I was there, no one who works at Alcoa should ever be hurt at work.”1

Even after it was explained to him that the lost-workday average rate at Alcoa was 1.87 cases per 100 employees per year—compared to the national average of five cases—O’Neill was undeterred. During a tour of the company’s manufacturing sites, he told one management group in Tennessee not to budget for safety—when there’s a risk, fix it. Then he told hourly workers “Here’s my direct home phone number. If they don’t do what I just told them, I want you to call me.”2

Later, a companywide system that relayed real-time safety information was put in place, giving 140,000 people access to incident reports so they could see for themselves what happened and how it could be fixed. By the time O’Neill left Alcoa in 2000, the lost workday rate was 0.15. As of April 2009, it was 0.114.3

“I believe that the pursuit of excellence is a habit like breathing if it’s really well developed,” O’Neill said. “It’s not something that can be taken away from the arrival of someone who’s supposedly the new leader, because the fundamental ideas will govern the institution on and on and on.”4

QP: But there certainly seems to be applications of this pursuit of perfection outside of manufacturing, and you’ve spoken about that.

O’Neill: There are applications in everything we do.

QP: In particular, you’ve made comments about healthcare and how the pursuit of the theoretical limit could help cut costs by as much as 50%. Maybe you can flesh that out a little bit and also talk about how those ideas have been met in the healthcare community.

O’Neill: It’s useful to break this up into a microdimension, which means at the local level, and to differentiate that from the macrolevel.

At the microlevel, with the work that [the PRHI has] done, we’ve demonstrated in places, particularly at Allegheny General Hospital in Pittsburgh, that it’s possible to eliminate hospital-acquired infections that occur in intensive care units by setting the goal at zero, and then establishing a process of continuous learning and continuous improvement so that when there is an infection, you learn where there was a break in protocol so you can go back and eliminate the possibility that you’re going to have breaks in protocol going forward (see sidebar, “Perfecting Healthcare”).

At the microlevel, at Allegheny General Hospital and other places we’ve worked with, we’ve demonstrated that it’s possible to do this and, in effect, to break the conceit that it’s a God-given fact that 2% of the people who go through intensive care units are going to get an infection.

At the macrolevel, it’s been much more difficult to get people to observe what’s been demonstrated at the microlevel and to adopt the concept of a theoretical limit and the practices that lead toward it. In things like central line infections, bloodstream infections and, more broadly, nosocomial infections [for example, staph infections], it’s possible and it’s been demonstrated, particularly in the workplace safety area at Alcoa, what can be done in an entire institution with 350 operations in 43 countries. It’s much more difficult to find the application of those ideas and principles across the whole of society.

Perfecting Healthcare

In 1997, Karen Wolk Feinstein, president of the Jewish Healthcare Foundation, approached Paul O’Neill, then at Alcoa, with an idea to create an organization that would bring improvement methods traditionally found in the manufacturing realm to the healthcare industry. The result of their efforts is the Pittsburgh Regional Health Initiative (PRHI), which in the decade since has proven that improving quality and safety saves dollars and—more importantly—lives.1

The mission of the organization is to improve healthcare in Southwestern Pennsylvania, but PRHI’s focus on continuous improvement and standardization to eliminate errors, inefficiency and waste—what it calls Perfecting Patient Care (PPC) principles—has attracted national attention due to its numerous success stories, including the following:

Between 2003 and 2006, Allegheny General Hospital reduced central line infections by 95% and deaths caused by central-line infections to zero. And, between February 2006 and February 2007, the hospital didn’t have a single central-line infection.2
The Veteran Affairs (VA) Pittsburgh Health System used PPC methods to find dozens of improvement opportunities that reduced its rate of methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus infections from 0.97 per 1,000 days of bed care in 2002 to 0.27 in 2004.3
In a separate initiative, the VA Pittsburgh Health System employed a team-based model for diabetes care and increased the number of patients it served while also improving patient satisfaction rates.4

Battling benchmarks

QP: You’ve also talked about benchmarking, which you see a lot of in healthcare. Hospitals track mortality rates, which are low and may be improving, but they aren’t perfect. Is benchmarking an obstacle to the pursuit of the theoretical limit in that people seem to be settling?

O’Neill: I think that’s right. The convention, for example, in health and medical care is to have measures across the country and measures for individual institutions to find out how they compare to the national averages. It’s very routine to find institutions that say, “We’re better than the national average, and it’s not possible to be better than we are.” So the establishment of the idea of national norms is the enemy of continuous improvement.

QP: Is it just that people have gotten used to the idea of having built-in excuses?

O’Neill: I think it’s a phenomenon … I’m tempted to say it’s a worldwide phenomenon. It’s particularly a phenomenon in the United States, I think, that people have a mind-set of, “We don’t want to set goals that we’re not sure we can attain.” So if you set goals that are referenced against some national level of performance, in effect you’ve set yourself a barrier that’s not too difficult to get over, and then can declare yourself superior.

QP: What do you think it’s going to take for people to get past that mentality?

O’Neill: I think in health and medical care, it takes enough demonstration of performance close to the theoretical limit in enough places of different sizes and scales across the country, so that it’s undeniable that we can achieve much better results.

As is often the case in health and medical care, people say when they’re confronted with what seems to be a huge difference in levels of performance, “Well, we take sicker patients, and so while our mortality and morbidity rates may be higher than the places you’re pointing to, it’s because they screen out the really complicated cases, and the really complicated cases come here. And of course the rates of failure are going to be higher, but it’s because we start with a more difficult pool.” People can rationalize almost anything.

QP: Another aspect of quality you’ve advocated is transparency. When you were at Alcoa—and now still—there was an emphasis on each person understanding all the inputs and all the outputs of a process. How can transparency contribute to this understanding, and is it crucial to this pursuit of perfection?

O’Neill: I think the identification, first of all, of everything that went wrong—and, even better, at the great institutions, of things that almost went wrong—is the pathway to moving ever closer to the theoretical limit of perfect performance.

One of the reasons why I think health and medical care performance is such a jumble is because there’s such huge pressure against identification of things gone wrong and sharing of things gone wrong so people can learn from them. That’s because of the fear of malpractice suits and other legal pursuits. It makes it much more likely that people will not report and share things gone wrong, because there’s a financial reason not to.

QP: Is there a way to insulate healthcare and hospitals from that (financial responsibility), or is that always going to be a risk?

O’Neill: What I’ve advocated is that we get rid of the idea of medical malpractice. It’s virtually impossible to find people in the healthcare system that intentionally hurt people, right? There are some flagrant individuals, isolated examples where people decided to make life-and-death decisions. But I guess I would say, at the 99.999% level, people who are delivering medical care do not intentionally hurt people.

At the same time, we know that people are inadvertently injured, or their hospitalization is longer than it ideally should be. I think we need to recognize the circumstances for what they are, and we need to say to people, “We’re not going to have medical malpractice insurance anymore, and we’re going to abolish the idea of medical malpractice.”

When someone is injured, we’re going to create an expectation that the injury or the length of hospital stay will be recorded in cyberspace within 24 hours so we can do a root cause analysis, and everyone in the world can learn from it in a short cycle of time. And in exchange for that, we’re going to have an economic arbitration process so that people who are inadvertently injured will be compensated to the extent of their economic loss, and we’ll pay for it out of general revenues of the federal government, because that’s the broadest base for tax support.

In exchange for that, we expect the people in the delivery system to report without fail, at a huge penalty if they fail to report, with an expectation that the professional societies will take a much more aggressive role than they typically have in disciplining and withdrawing privileges from people who have repeatedly failed to deliver the expected level of performance.

QP: Obviously, transparency is a crucial part of this whole concept. Can there be any real progress without total transparency?

O’Neill: It’s really difficult, and in fact one would like to have transparency that goes far beyond just identifying injuries to patients.

For example, we’ve found in the work that we’ve been doing that 50% of a nurse’s time is spent doing things that don’t add value, like looking for medications that aren’t where they’re supposed to be or looking for equipment that isn’t where it’s supposed to be. You want to identify and have the people in the process identify every aspect of waste every day, so that people can work on systems redesign to take out the waste.

A significant part of the $1 trillion out of the $2 trillion we’re currently spending on health and medical care—the trillion we believe can be taken out—is substantially related to waste rather than injuries or harm that’s caused to patients. Much like in a manufacturing process, where we’d work on quality improvement, if we brought those same ideas to health and medical care, we would question the whole idea of batch processing for medications. Because in the same sense that there’s an enormous waste that’s been discovered in manufacturing processes, the same kind of things exist across the breadth and depth of medical care.
Cashed out

QP: There’s no better cautionary tale for people who seem to resist this transparency movement than the current state of our financial system.

O’Neill: Exactly.

QP: How significant of an impact did that (transparency) have on the situation?

O’Neill: I think it was a huge factor. Beginning in 2005, it was possible to know—although no one seemed to do it—that with a very substantial fraction of newly admitted mortgages, the mortgage holders were failing to make their first payment. That was a tell-tale [sign] two years before we had a calamity. If we had real transparency and had collected data in the proper way so that we could see this growing volume of failed mortgages at the first payment, we could have avoided a huge calamity.

QP: Has anything been done to rectify that?

O’Neill: Not yet. I’ve been advocating that we implement a policy that requires a minimum 20% equity down payment for every new mortgage. So far, no one in the political process is willing to step up. It doesn’t seem like a very difficult concept.

QP: You can only hope that other industries are going to be a little bit smarter, because the theories and strategies you’ve put forth are relatable to food safety, product safety, environmental safety, worker safety. Do you see evidence that people are starting to catch on?

O’Neill: Not nearly as much as I would like. Right now, I would say it’s very difficult to find any of this conversation in what’s being proposed in Washington for health and medical care reform. If you look really hard, you can find a little bit, but it tends to be a very small part of the conversation.

Federal failings

QP: In comments you’ve made about the Bush administration, you stated there was a lack of transparency and a lack of communication. It went against the very specific things you’ve said about what leaders of successful organizations do: You treat people with dignity, you let people make a contribution, and you recognize their contribution (see sidebar, “No Room for Discussion at White House”). What lessons can leaders of the country take away from those failings?

O’Neill: There’s a big question. The idea of transparency, as you said, is essential to the prospect of better performance. To go back a little bit, there was never any evidence of weapons of mass destruction. And there was never enough transparency of what they were relying on as a basis for a preemptive war so that people could make an intelligent judgment. In fact, they shoved [former Secretary of State] Colin Powell out there in front of a pile of surmise and allegation as though that were evidence. It’s cost us dearly.

No Room for Discussion at the White House

On June 25, 2002, 18 months into his tenure as head of the U.S. Treasury, Paul O’Neill gave a speech that included an extensive discussion about leadership. During his keynote address, O’Neill outlined a trio of elements common in all humans that are recognized among effective leaders: Everyone wants to be treated with dignity and respect, wants to make a contribution to give his or her life meaning and wants someone else to notice his or her contribution.1

At the time, O’Neill was in a unique position to comment on the trilogy’s importance, because he was in the midst of a two-year stretch of serving a presidential administration he claimed ignored all three.

In 2000, President-elect George W. Bush tabbed O’Neill as his Treasury secretary-designate, the latest entry on a Washington, D.C., resume that reached back to 1961. A few weeks after the election, in December, the Associated Press ran an article about a two-day economic forum in Austin, TX, that was going to feature Bush and O’Neill, among others.

O’Neill first learned of his participation while reading the article in the New York Times.2

The disconnect turned out to be a precursor to what O’Neill later claimed was a regime headed by an uncommunicative leader.

In a 2004 interview with 60 Minutes, O’Neill said the president “did not make decisions in a methodical way. There was no free flow of ideas or open debate.” He added that Vice President Dick Cheney was “part of a praetorian guard that encircled the president” as a means of shielding him from contrary opinions.3

While O’Neill had his issues with the White House, the reverse was also true. Never one to temper his opinions, he made several comments that had significant consequences, including a remark in February 2001 that the United States was “not pursuing a policy of a strong dollar,” which sent the currency into a nosedive.4

Then, in November 2002, during a White House meeting of Bush’s economic advisers, O’Neill refused to offer public support for a significant tax cut already in the works. Nine days later, Cheney called and asked for O’Neill’s resignation.5

Those revelations appeared in a 2004 book, The Price of Loyalty, written by Wall Street Journal reporter Ron Suskind, who conducted extensive interviews with O’Neill and was provided more than 19,000 internal documents from O’Neill’s time as Treasury secretary.

When asked about the book and the allegations made within, then-White House spokesman Scott McClellan said, “The president is someone that leads and acts decisively on our biggest priorities, and this is exactly what he’ll continue to do.”6

QP: President Obama has created a new position [chief performance officer] to serve as an overseer of sorts. Does that represent a change in thinking, even a minute one?

O’Neill: That’s what I was going to say about shifting forward to the current time. I’ve been advocating so far, without any progress, that if we’re ever going to fix our economic situation, we’re going to first have to stabilize the financial system. I don’t think it’s possible to do that without truth and transparency.

I’ve been advocating that each of the 19 major financial institutions be required to post on the internet the layers of the assets they’re currently holding by financial rating categories, beginning with AAA down through –BBB, which is the end of the investment grade rating category. And then for those assets they claim can’t be valued, they ought to be put into what I would label a quarantine account, with an understanding the institutions would hold them until maturity, when their value would be revealed.

Absent that, I think what they’re talking about now—doing this stress test—kind of stretches the imagination beyond the breaking point. If you think about it, if you can’t value assets on a financial institution’s balance sheet, then it’s impossible to stress test them.

QP: Is that evidence that while there is a new administration, they still don’t seem to be moving in the right direction?

O’Neill: Unfortunately, I think it is.

QP: Is the pursuit of perfection something that has to come from the top down, or is it going to be a bottom-up phenomenon?

O’Neill: I think in order to have an institution that has a shot at being the best in the world, it has to come from the top. It doesn’t mean that you can’t keep pushing away and try to get people who are in leadership positions to adopt the ideas. But I don’t think you can do it from the bottom up.

As many rocks as you throw at an institution, unless the leadership adopts the ideas, there’s no hope for that individual institution. That’s why it’s so important, I think, for the new president to show leadership on these issues.

QP: Is his creation of the new post within the government evidence of that?

O’Neill: I don’t think so. I think it’s more political posturing than it is a systemic determination to use the idea of the theoretical limit as a structuring device for thinking about and making policy.

QP: With all of that said, is there hope for this line of thinking?

O’Neill: Some of the people that are being discussed as major appointees in HHS [Department of Health and Human Services] know a lot about this. And so I still have some hope that the people at the subsecretary level in HHS are going to bring these ideas with them. But we’ll see. They haven’t been publicly identified yet.

QP: That has to be a little bit heartening for you. You have to hope that if healthcare can prove this can work, then other industries are going to take notice.

O’Neill: Absolutely.

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Homeostasis

Homeostasis in a general sense refers to stability, balance or equilibrium. Maintaining a stable internal environment requires constant monitoring and adjustments as conditions change. This adjusting of physiological systems within the body is called homeostatic regulation.
Homeostatic regulation involves three parts or mechanisms: 1) the receptor, 2) the control center and 3) the effector.

The receptor receives information that something in the environment is changing. The control center or integration center receives and processes information from the receptor. And lastly, the effector responds to the commands of the control center by either opposing or enhancing the stimulus.

Positive and Negative Feedback

When a change of variable occurs, there are two main types of feedback to which the system reacts:

Negative feedback: a reaction in which the system responds in such a way as to reverse the direction of change. Since this tends to keep things constant, it allows the maintenance of homeostasis. For instance, when the concentration of carbon dioxide in the human body increases, the lungs are signaled to increase their activity and expel more carbon dioxide. Thermoregulation is another example of negative feedback. When body temperature rises (or falls), receptors in the skin and the hypothalamus sense a change, triggering a command from the brain. This command, in turn, effects the correct response, in this case a decrease in body temperature.

Positive feedback: a response is to amplify the change in the variable. This has a destabilizing effect, so does not result in homeostasis. Positive feedback is less common in naturally occurring systems than negative feedback, but it has its applications. For example, in nerves, a threshold electric potential triggers the generation of a much larger action potential. Blood clotting and events in childbirth are other types of positive feedback.

Homeostatic systems have several properties

They are ultra-stable, meaning the system is capable of testing which way its variables should be adjusted.

maintenance of balance

Physiology is largely a study of processes related to homeostasis. Some of the functions you will learn about in this book are not specifically about homeostasis (e.g. how muscles contract), but in order for all bodily processes to function there must be a suitable internal environment. Homeostasis is, therefore, a fitting framework for the introductory study of physiology.

Pathways That Alter Homeostasis

Nutrition: If your diet is lacking in a specific vitamin or mineral your cells will function poorly, possibly resulting in a disease condition. For example, a menstruating woman with inadequate dietary intake of iron will become anemic. Lack of hemoglobin, a molecule that requires iron, will result in reduced oxygen-carrying capacity. In mild cases symptoms may be vague (e.g. fatigue), but if the anemia is severe the body will try to compensate by increasing cardiac output, leading to palpitations and sweatiness, and possibly to heart failure.

Toxins: Any substance that interferes with cellular function, causing cellular malfunction. This is done through a variety of ways; chemical, plant, insecticides, and or bites. A commonly seen example of this is drug overdoses. When a person takes too much of a drug their vital signs begin to waver; either increasing or decreasing, these vital signs can cause problems including coma, brain damage and even death.

Psychological: Your physical health and mental health are inseparable. Our thoughts and emotions cause chemical changes to take place either for better as with meditation, or worse as with stress.

Physical: Physical maintenance is essential for our cells and bodies. Adequate rest, sunlight, and exercise are examples of physical mechanisms for influencing homeostasis. Lack of sleep is related to a number of ailments such as irregular cardiac rhythms, fatigue, anxiety and headaches.

Genetic/Reproductive: Inheriting strengths and weaknesses can be part of our genetic makeup. Genes are sometimes turned off or on due to external factors which we can have some control over, but at other times little can be done to correct or improve genetic diseases. Beginning at the cellular level a variety of diseases come from mutated genes. For example, cancer can be genetically inherited or can be caused due to a mutation from an external source such as radiation or genes altered in a fetus when the mother uses drugs.

Medical: Because of genetic differences some bodies need help in gaining or maintaining homeostasis. Through modern medicine our bodies can be given different aids -from anti-bodies to help fight infections or chemotherapy to kill harmful cancer cells. Traditional and alternative medical practices have many benefits, but the potential for harmful effects is also present. Whether by nosocomial infections, or wrong dosage of medication, homeostasis can be altered by that which is trying to fix it. Trial and error with medications can cause potential harmful reactions and possibly death if not caught soon enough.
The factors listed above all have their effects at the cellular level, whether harmful or beneficial. Inadequate beneficial pathways (deficiency) will almost always result in a harmful waiver in homeostasis. Too much toxicity also causes homeostatic imbalance, resulting in cellular malfunction. By removing negative health influences, and providing adequate positive health influences, your body is better able to self-regulate and self-repair, thus maintaining homeostasis.

Examples of Homeostasis Throughout the Body
Endocrine System

The endocrine system consists of glands which secrete hormones into the bloodstream. Each hormone has an effect on one or more target tissues. In this way the endocrine system regulates the metabolism and development of most body cells and body systems. To be more specific, the Endocrine system has sex hormones that can activate sebaceous glands, development of mammary glands, alter dermal blood flow and release lipids from adipocytes and MSH can stimulate melanocytes on our skin. Our bone growth is regulated by several hormones, and the endocrine system helps with the mobilization of calcitonin and calcium. In the muscular system hormones adjust muscle metabolism, energy production, and growth. In the nervous system hormones affect neural metabolism, regulate fluid/electrolyte balance and help with reproductive hormones that influence CNS development and behaviors. In the Cardiovascular system we need hormones that regulate the production of RBC’s, elevate and lower blood pressure. Hormones also have anti-inflammatory affects as well as stimulates the lymphatic system. In summary, the endocrine system has a regulatory effect on basically every other body system.

Cardiovascular System

The cardiovascular system, in addition to needing to maintain itself within certain levels, plays a role in maintenance of other body systems by transporting hormones (heart secretes ANP and BNP) and nutrients (oxygen, EPO to bones,etc.), taking away waste products, and providing all living body cells with a fresh supply of oxygen and removing carbon dioxide. Homeostasis is disturbed if the cardiovascular or lymphatic systems are not functioning correctly. Our skin, bones, muscles, nervous system, endocrine, lymphatic system, lungs, digestive tract, urinary system and reproductive use the cardiovascular system as its “road” or “highway” as far as distribution of things that go on in our body. There are many risk factors for an unhealthy cardiovascular system. Some diseases associated are typically labeled “uncontrollable” or “controllable.” The main uncontrollable risk factors are age, gender, and a family history of heart disease, especially at an early age.

Respiratory System

The respiratory system works in conjunction with the cardiovascular system to provide oxygen to cells within every body system for cellular metabolism. The respiratory system also removes carbon dioxide. Since CO2 is mainly transported in the plasma as bicarbonate ions, which act as a chemical buffer, the respiratory system also helps maintain proper blood pH levels a fact that is very important for homeostasis. As a result of hyperventilation, CO2 is decreased in blood levels. This causes the pH of body fluids to increase. If acid levels rise above 7.45, the result is respiratory alkalosis. On the other hand, too much CO2 causes pH to fall below 7.35 which results in respiratory acidosis. The respiratory system also helps the lymphatic system by trapping pathogens and protecting deeper tissues within. Note that when you have increased thoracic space it can provide abdominal pressure through the contraction of respiratory muscles. This can assist in defecation. Remember the lungs are the gateway for our breath of life.

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List of all Infectious Diseases in Africa

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Continuing Education for Physicians and Other Health Professionals

Welcome to ASQH Continuing Education website . Online CE is a tool enabling health employees to come to the homes and offices of health care professionals throughout the world, helping make the pursuit of lifelong learning accessible and affordable.

Our continuing education mission is to optimize patient care. To this end, our programs are designed to provide the most up to date information and strategies for physicians and allied health professionals.

We currently offer the following multimedia enriched, comprehensive, and interactive courses. Click on a course title to learn more.

We encourage everyone to join our project to improve quality in Healthcare in Africa.

Dr. Mahmoud Nassar
Chairman and CEO of ASQH
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list of all Ministries of Health in Africa

Benin Ministère de la Santé Publique
Botswana Ministry of Health

Burkina Faso Ministère de la Santé

Directory of Goverment members- Cape Verde

République du Congo (Congo-Brazzaville) Ministre de la Santé et de la Population

République Démocratique du Congo (Congo-Kinshasa) Ministère de la Santé

République de Djibouti

Egypt Ministry of Population and Health (in Arabic)

Contact information for Ministries of Eritrea

Gabon: Présidence et Ministères

The Gambia Department of State for Health and Social Welfare

Ghana Minisry of Health

Kenya Ministry of Health

Lesotho Ministry of Health and Social Welfare

Malawi Ministry of Health and Population

Mali Ministere de la Sante, des Personnes Agees et de la Solidarite

Mauritius Ministry of Health and Quality of Life

Morocco Le Ministre de la Santé

Mozambique Ministry of Health

Namibia Ministry of Health and Social Services

Nigeria Ministry of Health

Rwanda CNLS (Commission Nationale de Lutte contre le SIDA)

Sénégal Ministère de la Santé

Republic of Seychelles- Ministry of Health

The Rebulic of Sierra Leone- Ministry of Health and Sanitation

Somalia- Ministry of Health Contact Information

South Africa Department of Health

Sudan- Ministry of Health Contact Information

Swaziland Ministry of Health and Social Welfare

Tanzania Ministry of Health

Republique Togolaise- Ministry of Health Contact Information

Tunisian Government Website

Uganda Ministry of Health

Zambian Government Pages

Zimbabwe Ministry of Health and Child Welfare Home Page
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Non Profit Organizations work in Africa

African Society for Quality in Healthcare ASQH
Aging with Dignity: Five Wishes Living Will
American Hospice Foundation
American International Health Alliance (AIHA) [US health institution partnerships with counterparts in Central & Eastern Europe and independent states of former Soviet Union]
American Society of Association Executives – Gateway to Associations
Americans for Better Care of the Dying (ABCD) [end of life, palliative care]
Center for Health Care Strategies
Center for Health Design
Center for Policy Alternatives (CPA)
Center for Studying Health System Change
Center for Telemedicine Law (CTL)
Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP)
Center to Advance Palliative Care (CAPC) [end-of-life care, pain management]
Changes in Health Care Financing and Organization (HCFO) [health system, health policy]
Commonwealth Fund
Community Leadership Association (CLA)
Connecting for Health – Markle Foundation [information infrastructure, standards, data security, electronic health record]
Cliqued Media
Delmarva Foundation
ECRI [technology assessment, risk management, safety, quality, equipment, supplies]
Economic & Social Research Institute (ESRI)
Families USA
Foundation for Accountability (FACCT) [quality, consumer decision making]
Galen Institute [health policy]
Grantmakers in Health (GIF) [philanthropy]
Growth House, Inc. [death & dying, end of life, palliative & hospice care]
GM Carpenter
Idea Central – Health Policy
Institute for Health Policy Solutions/Academy of Consumer-Choice Health Purchasing Groups (IHPS/ACHPG)
Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) [quality]
Institute for Medical Knowledge Implementation (IMKI) [information technology, clinical quality standards]
Institute for Safe Medication Practices (ISMP)
Institute of Medicine
International Network for Interfaith Health Program (IHP-NET)
Kaiser Family Foundation
Kaisernet.com [Healthcast, health policy news]
Last Acts Partnership (merger of Last Acts and Partnership for Caring) [end of life, palliative care; death and dying, advance directives, living wills]
Mathematica Policy Research
MedicAlert Foundation [Medic Alert]
Medical Outcomes Trust
National Academy for State Health Policy (NASHP)
National Academy of Social Insurance (NASI) [Medicare]
National Institute for Health Care Management Research and Educational Foundation (NIHCM Foundation)
National Minority Health Month Foundation (NMHMF) [health disparities]
National Patient Safety Foundation of the AMA
Panel on the Nonprofit Sector
Partnership for Solutions [chronic care]
Patient Advocate Foundation (PAF) [consumers, insurance coverage issues, uninsured, financial relief]
Planetree [patient-focused care]
Project Hope / Center for Health Affairs
Public Forum Institute [health policy]
Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
Royal African Society
Rural Health Resource Center
Urban Institute
W.K. Kellogg Foundation
Women Business Leaders of the U.S. Health Care Industry (WBL) [executives]
Wye River Group on Healthcare (WRGH)
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Medical Schools in Africa

University of Zimbabwe, Faculty of Medicine
http://uzweb.uz.ac.zw/medicine/
P.O. Box A 178, Avondale, …

University of Zambia, School of Medicine

http://www.unza.zm/
P.O. Box 50110, Lusaka
Tel: +260 1 …
Kigezi International School of Medicine *

http://www.kigezi.edu/
P.O. Box 7, Kabale
Tel: +256 248 …

Faculté de médecine de Tunis

http://www.fmt.rnu.tn/
9 Rue Zouhaïer Essafi, 1000 Tunis
Tel: +216 …

Université du Bénin au Togo, Faculté de Médecine de Lomé

http://www.ub.tg/ub/facultes/fmmp/fmmp.htm
Boîte …

Hubert Kairuki Memorial University (HKMU), Faculty of Medicine

Academy of Medical Sciences and Technology, Faculty of Medical Sciences

P.O. Box 12810, Khartoum State

South Africa

Medical University of Southern Africa (MEDUNSA), Faculty of Medicine
http://www.medunsa.ac.za/
P.O. Box …

Amoud University, College of Medicine and Medical Sciences

http://www.amoud-University.borama.ac.so/

Sierra Leone

University of Sierra Leone, Faculty of Medicine and Pharmacy

Private Mail Bag
Freetown
Tel: +232 …

Université Cheikh Anta Diop, Faculty of Médecin, de Pharmacie Et D’odontoStomatologie

National University of Rwanda, Faculty of Medicine

http://www.nur.ac.rw/
B.P. 117
Butare

Nigeria

Abia State University, Faculty of Health Sciences

http://www.abia-state-uni.net/
Private Mail Bag 2000, …

Abdou Moumouni University of Niamey, Faculty of Medical Sciences

http://www.uni-hohenheim.de/~atlas308/ …

Université Cadi Ayyad, Faculté de Médecine et de Pharmacie de Marrakech

http://www.ucam.ac.ma/
B.P. 7010, Sidi Abbad, 40000 Marrakech
Tel: +212 44 437 031, Fax: +212 44 432 887Université de Marrakech, Faculté …

Universidade Eduardo Mondlane, Faculdade de Medicina

http://www.uem.mz/
Avenida Dr Salvador Allende …

University of Conakry, Faculty of Medical Sciences

Route de Dixinn, B.P. 1017, Conakry
Tel: +224 414 689, Fax: +224 414 …

University of Mali, School of Medicine, Pharmacy and of Ondotostomatology

B.P. 1805, Bamako 223
Tel: …

University of Malawi, College of Medicine

http://www.unima.mw/
Private Bag 360, Chichiri, Blantyre 3 …
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CME

The Biggest Library of online Continuous Medical Education (CME)
more than 30 000 hours of CME credit


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