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Global Benefits Vision Author Team, are Expert journalists, dedicated to providing accurate, high value business information.

Nowadays, any discussion around healthcare for your employees will inevitably center around Covid. At a time when the pandemic and its challenges are still making headlines as outbreaks, infection rates and vaccines flood every news bulletin, it’s easy to overlook the impact on other areas of healthcare. Many of these involve complex or life-threatening illnesses, such as cancer. Global Benefits Vision recently spoke to Further Group CEO Frank Ahedo about the impact that Covid is having on the treatment of serious medical conditions, and how this changing landscape will affect the way employees have access to treatment.

Employee Health Matters: The Impact of Coronavirus on Cancer Treatment – Mental Wellbeing Can Lead to Lower Healthcare Costs – Eight Glasses of Water A Day? Your Kidneys Say ‘No’ – Cancer, how one type of RNA could be the future of treatment

In the May 2021 issue: Employee Health Matters: The Impact Of Coronavirus On Cancer Treatment – Frank Ahedo R&D: Mental Wellbeing Can Lead To Lower Healthcare Costs – Ziggi Ivan Santini, David McDaid, Sarah Stewart-Brown, Vibeke Jenny Koushede R&D: Eight Glasses Of Water A Day? Your Kidneys Say ‘No’ – Tamara Hew-Butler R&D: Cancer, How One Type of RNA Could Be The Future of Treatment – Francesco Crea, Azuma Kalu

There’s no shortage of weight loss programmes out there to choose from, each of which claim to have the key to shedding pounds. One of the latest popular weight loss programmes out there is Noom, which claims that behavioural psychology is the key to helping people lose weight for good – including those who haven’t had success in the past.

Staying in touch with loved ones without seeing them in person has become even more important during the pandemic. But for some people, making or receiving calls is a stressful experience. Phone anxiety – or telephobia – is the fear and avoidance of phone conversations and it’s common among those with social anxiety disorder.

COVID-19 has hijacked people’s lives, families and work. And, it has hijacked their bodies and minds in ways that they may not even be aware of. As we see it, SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, is a sort of zombie virus, turning people not into the undead but rather into the unsick. By interfering with our bodies’ normal immune response and blocking pain, the virus keeps the infected on their feet, spreading the virus.

As we pass the one-year anniversary of COVID-19 being declared a global pandemic, its impact on the mental health and well-being of children is undeniable. Indeed, news headlines on whether “the kids are alright” have frequently surfaced, bringing to light the immense challenges for kids, and their families, as they cope with ongoing changes during COVID-19, including online schooling and social distancing from friends..

Generali Employee Benefits recently onboarded network partner for the Belgian market, Vivium. Global Benefits Vision interviews Hans Callebaut, Commercial Director at Vivium and Thierry Mestach, Chief Network Officer at GEB, to learn more about the added value this pairing will bring to the Employee Benefits market and more specifically to the multinational corporate customer segment.

The Vital Importance of Strong Network Partners in Pooling – COVID-19 Stress Toll, A Family Affair? – The Coronavirus Messes with Our Minds Too – Phone Call Anxiety – Behavioral Psychology and Weight Loss

In the April 2021 issue: The Vital Importance of Strong Network Partners in Pooling – Hans Callebaut, Thierry Mestach R&D: COVID-19 Stress Toll, A Family Affair? – Nicole Racine, Erin Hetherington, Sheri Madigan, Suzanne Tough R&D: The Coronavirus Messes with Our Minds Too – Athena Aktipis, Joe Alcock R&D: Phone Call Anxiety – Ilham Sebah R&D: Behavioral Psychology and Weight Loss – Claire Madigan

What is a “great” workplace? Many might believe that organizations offering the best benefits, such as healthcare and free meals, automatically create the best office environments, but that’s not necessarily true. Whereas things like complimentary food and comprehensive healthcare are important to overall workforce health and happiness, they alone do not determine whether a workplace is objectively “great.”

Smallpox killed countless millions – 300 million people in the 20th century alone – before it was finally declared eradicated on May 8 1980. It was a momentous day, marking what the current director general of the World Health Organization, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, called the greatest “public health triumph in world history”.

It is often said that the only certainty in life is uncertainty. And never more so than over the last year. Not to mention for the foreseeable. What we do know for sure is that global mobility is not about to disappear in a (post) pandemic world, as has been suggested by some commentators. Opportunities abound and the richness of the global assignment will not be usurped by the remoteness of the virtual assignment any time soon.

Workers who communicate with their colleagues mainly through videoconferencing are far less effective at building relationships than when the communication is done face to face, according to a study we recently completed and just submitted for peer review. We also found two important ways employees can overcome the downside of video meetings.

The pandemic continues to pose huge challenges to health services worldwide. Hospitals are in crisis as the pace of new COVID-19 cases outstrips their capacity. What makes things particularly difficult is that the coronavirus doesn’t affect everyone in the same way.

Featured: Work Smart Now! – Vaccines Alone Are Not Enough – Predicting Severe COVID – Zoom Work Relationships Are Hard to Build – Featured: Global Mobility Teams Prepare for Remobilization

In the March 2021 issue: Work Smart Now! – Richard Polak Vaccines Alone Are Not Enough – Caitjan Gainty, Agnes Arnold-Forster Predicting Severe COVID – Rishi Gupta, Mahdad Noursadeghi Zoom Work Relationships Are Hard to Build – Nancy R. Buchan, Wendi L. Adair, Xiao-Ping Chen Global Mobility Teams Prepare for Remobilization – Generali Employee Benefits

As CEO of MAXIS GBN, Mattieu Rouot oversees relationships with more than 500 multinational companies in over 120 countries around the world. Global Benefits Vision: Mattieu, thank you for speaking to us – Can you share a few highlights of your career, perhaps with emphasis on global employee benefits?

Whether or not a person with COVID-19 develops severe disease depends a lot on how their immune system reacts to the coronavirus. But scientists still don’t know why some people develop severe disease while others suffer only mild symptoms – or no symptoms at all. Now, a new study from Yale University sheds some light on the issue.

After a year of toxic stress ignited by so much fear and uncertainty, now is a good time to reset, pay attention to your mental health and develop some healthy ways to manage the pressures going forward. Brain science has led to some drug-free techniques that you can put to use right now. I am health psychologist who developed a method that harnesses our rip-roaring emotions to rapidly switch off stress and activate positive emotions instead. This technique from emotional brain training is not perfect for everyone, but it can help many people break free of stress when they get stuck on negative thoughts.

For most people, infection with SARS-CoV-2 – the virus that causes COVID-19 – leads to mild, short-term symptoms, acute respiratory illness, or possibly no symptoms at all. But some people have long-lasting symptoms after their infection – this has been dubbed “long COVID”.

Featured: Interview of Mattieu Rouot, CEO, MAXIS GBN – Severe COVID May Be Caused by Autoantibodies – Long COVID, Who Is at Risk? – Outsmarting COVID-19 Fears

In the January 2021 issue: Featured: Interview of Mattieu Rouot, CEO, MAXIS Global Benefits Network Severe COVID May Be Caused by Autoantibodies – Rebecca Aicheler Long COVID – Who Is at Risk? – Frances Williams Outsmarting COVID-19 Fears – Laurel Mellin

Over the past nine months, the word “uncertainty” has cropped up time and time again across the news and social media worldwide. The pandemic has created uncertainty in nearly every aspect of daily life. This is not only down to worries over exposure to COVID-19 and access to medical care, but also concerns about the stability of the economy, job security, the availability of food and household supplies – and even when to book a holiday. We have needed to adjust and readjust our behaviour continually in response to changing risks and government guidelines.

In our daily life, we unfortunately have become used to seeing images of tumors and melanomas. You may have noticed that they’re are not entirely symmetric. This asymmetry is useful to doctors in their diagnoses, but why are they asymmetric?

As the weather cools, the number of infections of the COVID-19 pandemic are rising sharply. Hamstrung by pandemic fatigue, economic constraints and political discord, public health officials have struggled to control the surging pandemic. But now, a rush of interim analyses from pharmaceutical companies Moderna and Pfizer/BioNTech have spurred optimism that a novel type of vaccine made from messenger RNA, known as mRNA, can offer high levels of protection by preventing COVID-19 among people who are vaccinated.

Paolo Lippi is the founder of consulting firm, LongueVue Analytics. Global Benefits Vision: Tell us about yourself – your career to date in a nutshell.