The report describes an ecodesign thesis performed by the author at the ÅF EcoDesign Center. The basic idea of ecodesign is to develop products with a minimized environmental load, without neglecting other significant product aspects such as function and price. During the last couple of years the public interest in environmental friendly products has increased, which has made it possible for companies to make a profit from their investments in ecodesign. To meet the increasing market for ecodesign services ÅF started the ÅF EcoDesign Center, where the company has gathered all of their competence in ecodesign in order to help companies to become greener. The task was to develop a tool for an Eco Screening.

A publicly funded elderly care that is widely available at people?s homes has been described as unique for the Nordic countries. There is much research that focuses on the relationship between caregivers and care receivers, and also about how work is organized in these organizations. However, research into how care work is organized in organizations that have implemented a salutogenic approach is limited. This is a qualitative study aimed to examine how caregivers feel that the organization of work in elderly care change after implementation of salutogenic elements in their daily work.

This paper aims to investigate whether a small organization with small development teams can find a value in leaving a functioning development process to follow a formal systems development methodology, if these organizations can find support in an agile systems development method and in such case the method needs to be adjusted according to the organizations unique conditions.A traditional plan-driven system development methodology includes a number of phases that are carried out sequentially and a completed phase can basically not be resumed. All requirements are specified at the beginning of a project and at the end of the project only one delivery of software take place. This can cause difficulties in for example dealing with changing requirements. Agile system development methods intend to deal with changing requirements and to enable continuous delivery of valuable, working software.In this paper, both the traditional plan-driven methods and agile methods will be explained. Research methodology and existing system development theories will be discussed and a company where the study has been conducted will be presented.

Background: With increasing age follows higher risks of conditions and illnesses which can cause a decrease in health and wellbeing. A meaningful social environment can positively impact the physical health of older people. Dogs are increasingly being used for different purposes within health care and animal assisted therapy aims to improve people?s physical, social, emotional and cognitive function.Aim: The purpose of this study was to determine the effects of animal assisted therapy on older people?s health and wellbeing.Methods: A literature review where searches for academic articles in databases PubMed, Cinahl and PsychInfo were performed. The searches resulted in 14 articles which were selected for further review.

This candidate essay aims to examine the possibilities occupational therapists (OT) have in order to support refugee children in Sweden. The authors find the subject of current interest because there is a constant and frequently debate in our society concerning refugees, which makes us question what role the OT could have with this group. Method: This study has a qualitative approach with focus group methodology as method. At two occasions, four respectively three OTs met to discuss an in advance given interview guide. The discussions were coded on the basis of person-, group- and society perspectives.

Background: Documents and legislation inform us that parts of the public health service of Sweden, at a political level, aim to support people?s sexual health. Statistics show there has been an increase among young woman, seeking help for sexual pain during intercourse. The diagnosis that the media has come to observe lately is vulvar vestibulitis. In general there is a lack of knowledge about the existence of this state of pain and its causes, which impacts woman to get appropriate help and support in time.

Background: Female circumcision or female genital mutilation is a tradition that is carried out mainly in Africa. The intervention refers to that part of- or all of the girl?s external genital organs are removed. Aim: The study's purpose was to highlight the consequences of female circumcision in the encounter with western health care.Method: A systematic literature reviews was performed as a method. Twelve articles were selected for the study and these were sought in Chinal, PubMed and PsycINFO. Analysis and interpretation was done according to qualitative content analysis, inspired by Lundman and Granheim.

This thesis deals with co-operation between municipalities viewed from the perspectiveof the small municipality. It poses two questions: How and why doessmall municipalities co-operate? and Which is the place of the small municipalityin a larger organization?. To examine this three Scanian municipalities have beenstudied and one Norwegian municipality is used to provide a perspective on theSwedish discussion.Four theoretical topics guide the thesis. Firstly the core values of municipalities;democracy, autonomy and efficiency.

Abstract Emma BergdahlObstacles and opportunities among occupational health nurses when implementing healthy eating habits.C thesis in Public Health. Faculty of Health and Occupational Studies. University of Gävle. Autumn 2012 Objective: The purpose of this study was to investigate which obstacles and opportunities nurses within occupational health find when trying to implement healthy eating habits among the employees in their respective company. Another objective was to see if the nurses worked according to the Guidelines, issued by the National Board of Health and Welfare.Method: The study was a quantitative study and conducted among nurses in central Sweden.

The relatively poor economy in European dairy farming might be improved from efficient feeding systems and dietary management. Increasing herd sizes and transition to loose housing systems in Sweden, increases the possibilities for other feeding systems than separate feeding that is the traditional feeding system in Sweden. Other possible feeding systems are partial mixed ration (PMR) and total mixed ration (TMR), where the TMR system sometimes is associated with overfeeding and thereby increased environmental impact and high feed cost. Diets providing nutrients above or below animal requirements are considered as unbalanced, which in turn are associated with reductions in health, fertility and milk production. On the other hand, a balanced feed ration improves feed efficiency, nitrogen utilization and profitability.

When the local authorities establish a plan for land use planning, they have to judge if the influence on the environment could be of such a grade that they have to make a special Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA), following national laws and EU-directives. The laws for the process in Sweden is set by the Swedish Parliament, with advisory given by the central government authority, the National Board of Housing, Building and Planning, Boverket. For EU, the laws is set by the European Parliament and the Council. The laws and directions for this process have been changed for Sweden in recent years, and the aim of this study was to compare the contents of three different Environmental Impact Assess¬ments to see if there has been any change in appearances and content in later years, as well as to see if different municipalities and authors have effect on the EIAs. According to different studies some of the EIA done are without insufficient focus on main environmental issues in the EIA, or even that some information is missing.

The purpose of this dissertation is to describe and analyse the effects of tourism in developing countries and the attitudes and working methods of Swedish tour operators towards sustainable tourism. We have chosen to use a qualitative research according to a hermeneutical view. We have carried through in-depth interviews with eight tour operators. The theories have been divided into the effects of tourism and sustainable tourism goals which have social, economic and environmental starting points. The empiricism describes the work and activities of the tour operators and compiles the interview material divided into attitudes on tourism effects and responsibilities.

Den här studien tar fasta på kontexten och betydelsen av 2008 års svenska vårdstrejk och utreder dess motivationer. Studien utgår från tre kvinnliga sjuksköterskor, som alla deltog aktivt i strejken..

The purpose with this essay is to examine if the Swedish government?s intentions regarding to the mental health care reform, have been fulfilled. We have classified the intentions into three categories, regulation, financing and responsibility for organizing the policy. The intentions have then been compared with the results of the reform.Our theoretical framework starts with a model, developed by Evert Vedung (1998). We use this model as a tool to examine the fulfillment of the mental health care reform.

De flesta är överens om medarbetarnas viktiga roll i ett företag. Det är personalen som kan påverka företagets ekonomiska situation, då personalens välmående på arbetsplatsen påverkar företagets lönsamhet och effektivitet. Många ställer sig frågan varför inte personalen tas upp i redovisningen? Den här uppsatsens syfte är att undersöka vad som gjorts inom redovisning av personalhälsa samt diskutera en ny infallsvinkel i arbetet med hälsa i företag..