Page 40 - College of Health Sciences Magazine AY 22-23

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Scientific Corner
Overcoming Career Challenges after Covid-19
Dr. Afaf Kamal Hassan، Assistant Professor of Environmental Health and Safety،
The COVID-19 pandemic has been widely considered as a health and economic crisis, as it led to
significant losses of lives and jobs. Some of the lost jobs might never return, which could have short-
and long-term consequences related to the future of work and the economic security of employees. In
turn, this requires organization not only to understand the possible challenges that could occur after the
pandemic but also adapt to changes.
COVID-19 has proven to be different from any other health-related issues in recent memories. It has
brought some workplaces to a standstill while leading others to exceed the limits of their capacity, it has
expressively altered numerous work settings and affected people in multiple fields. After the pandemic,
many practices and concepts have changed. For instance, nowadays, individuals prefer to meet online, as
it is safer and more cost-effective than traveling to another part of the country or the world. On the other
side, other challenges caused by the pandemic could be job insecurity, precarious work, intensification
of work, excessive use of technology, new techniques for work completion, blurring work boundaries, or
work-life conflicts would have significant impacts on employees and organizations. Hence, this has led
to creating a career shock, which an extraordinary event that could be a result of some factors outside
people’s control and that could trigger inadequate thought processes about individuals’ careers. The
career shock has recently appeared due to the great uncertainty in a rapidly changing career culture and
environment. Accordingly, some jobs and career plans are expected to disappear and others would be
altered to satisfy the new needs and demands of various workplaces.
In recent years, career resilience has been introduced to be very effective to overcome majority of the
challenges caused by this pandemic. In specific, career resilience refers to the ability to adapt and persist
when confronted with disruptions and acknowledging the importance of current careers in a turbulent
economic environment. In this concern, there are many stories about individuals’ resilience during the
pandemic. For example, some people have worked remotely, front-line employees have risked their
lives by doing their work in close contact with others, or those who had to limit their lifestyles due to
unemployment. Ultimately, it is important to focus on encouraging individuals’ resilience, rather than
focusing on changing the environment which might often be the root cause of the problem.
References:
• Akkermans, J., Richardson, J., & Kraimer, M. L. (2020). The Covid-19 crisis as a career shock: Implications for careers and
vocational behavior. Journal of vocational behavior, 119, 103434. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jvb.2020.103434
• Hite, L. M., & McDonald, K. S. (2020). Careers after COVID-19: Challenges and changes. Human Resource Development
International, 23(4), 427-437. https://doi.org/10.1080/13678868.2020.1779576
• Kossek, E. E., & Perrigino, M. B. (2016). Resilience: A review using a grounded integrated occupational approach. Academy of
Management Annals, 10(1), 729–797. https://doi.org/10.5465/19416520.2016.1159878
Abu Dhabi University | The College of Health Sciences E-Magazine | Issue 3 2022-2023 Academic Year
41
Immunotherapies for neurodegenerative disease
Dr. Joanne Sadier، Associate Professor of Genetics and Biomedical Sciences،
Inflammation of nervous tissue, termed neuroinflammation, occurs in response to diverse cues, such
as infection, traumatic brain injury, toxic metabolites, or autoimmunity. Neuroinflammation, which is an
important process for maintaining healthy central nervous system (CNS) function following injuries such
as physical trauma and infections, is a highly regulated process. It also constitutes a major component
of many neurodegenerative (Gordon & Woodruff, 2017) and psychiatric disorders (Prinz & Priller, 2014).
Neurodegenerative diseases are characterized by a progressive loss of neurons in several areas of the
CNS; and are associated with cognitive, psychiatric, and motor deficits due to atrophy of the affected
regions (Jeffrey L. Cummings & Pillai, 2017). Together, neurodegenerative diseases exert a major global
disease burden, with dementia being a public health challenge in many developed countries. As aging is
a strong risk factor for the most common neurodegenerative conditions, the global economic and social
impact of these diseases on healthcare systems will likely continue to surge significantly in the coming
decades due to increasingly aging populations and longer life spans (Ward, Zucca, Duyn, Crichton, &
Zecca, 2014). It has been projected that by the year 2050, the population of individuals over the age of 60
will rise from 901 million in 2015 to 2.1 billion people worldwide (United Nations, 2015). The increased life
expectancy will be accompanied by higher age-related diseases, with the elderly expected to spend most
of their later years in ill-health. . In fact, a main cause of disability in the elderly is dementia, affecting 44
million people globally, and expected to surpass 135 million people by the year 2050 (Prince, 2014). Over
36 million people worldwide are diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease (AD) or Parkinson’s disease (PD), the
two most common neurodegenerative disorders. The absence of effective disease-modifying treatments
and the failure of most clinical trials for new therapies highlight the need to identify new therapeutic
targets to halt disease progression. An important challenge in the developing treatment strategies for
most progressive neurodegenerative diseases is their multi-factorial etiology and diverse disease course
(M. T. Heneka, M. P. Kummer, & E. Latz, 2014; Obeso et al., 2010; Sulzer, 2007). Most articles in the
literature describing immunotherapies for neurodegenerative diseases have typically focused on auto-
immune neurodegenerative disorders such as multiple sclerosis (Liang et al., 2017). Until recently, little
was known about immunotherapeutic interventions targeting aging-associated as well as other non-
auto-immune neurodegenerative diseases.
Dr. Joanne Sadier, Associate Professor in Biomedical Sciences at our college, has summarized in her
recently published article in Frontiers in Neurology on June 7th, 2020, all recent immunotherapeutic
strategies being developed to treat neuroinflammation-induced neurodegeneration, with a focus on
immunotherapies.
Abu Dhabi University | The College of Health Sciences E-Magazine | Issue 3 2022-2023 Academic Year