Global public health
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Global public health · Jan 2012
Health care workers in Africa access a broad range of topics using evidence-based online medical information.
Health care workers (HCW) rely on Internet-based medical resources to obtain current evidence-based clinical guidelines. While such resources are being used with increasing frequency in developed countries, they have not been broadly employed in resource-limited settings (RLS). To investigate the feasibility and the types of medical content used by HCW in RLS, we studied one Internet-based medical resource used in the United States, (UpToDate©) in four hospitals in Africa. ⋯ This descriptive study suggests that Internet-based medical information resources are feasible in RLS and are accessed for a broad variety of medical topics. Supplemental content providing guidance when minimal diagnostic and therapeutic options exist could increase its relevance in RLS. With increased availability, Internet-based medical information could enhance current global health care initiatives to improve providers' knowledge, clinical practice and potentially patient outcomes.
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Global public health · Jan 2011
Battles on women's bodies: war, rape and traumatisation in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo.
Rape has been used as a weapon in the conflict in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) in unprecedented ways. Research into the phenomenon of war-rape is limited, particularly in this context. The aim of this study was to explore perceptions of local leaders in eastern DRC concerning rape and raped women in the war context. ⋯ Furthermore, an exclusive focus on raped women missed the extent of traumatisation entire communities suffered. More significantly, the lack of political will, corruption, greed and inappropriate aid creates a tangled web serving to intensify the war. This complexity has implications for humanitarian interventions including public health.
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Global public health · Jan 2011
Innovation to improve health care provision and health systems in sub-Saharan Africa - promoting agency in mid-level workers and district managers.
Initiatives to address the human resource crisis in African health systems have included expanded training of mid-level workers (MLWs). Currently, MLWs are the backbone of many health systems in Africa but they are often de-motivated and they often operate in circumstances in which providing high quality care is challenging. Therefore, assuming that introducing additional people will materially change health system performance is unrealistic. ⋯ The professionalisation of MLWs and district managers to address confidence, self-esteem and value is considered. The paper describes the thinking behind these interventions, which are currently being tested in Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa and Uganda for their acceptability and appropriateness. We offer the policy community a complementary repertoire to existing human resource strategies in order to effect real change in African health systems.
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Global public health · Jan 2011
A critical public-health ethics analysis of Canada's international response to HIV.
As interconnections between health, ideology and politics become increasingly acknowledged, gaps in the literature also become visible in terms of analytic frameworks to engage these issues and empirical studies to understand the complexities. 'Critical public-health ethics' provides such an analytic lens. This article presents the results of a critical public-health ethics analysis of the government of Canada's international response to HIV. ⋯ Related to this tension were four conspicuous areas of silence in the data: (1) The relative absence of moral vocabulary for discussing Canada's duty to respond to the global HIV pandemic. (2) Scant reference to solutions based on poverty reduction. (3) Little awareness about the dominance of neoliberal economic rationality and its impact on HIV. (4) Limited understanding of Canada's function within the international economic order in terms of its role in poverty creation. Our study has implications for Canada and other rich nations through its empirical contribution to the chorus of calls challenging the legitimised, institutionalised and normative practice of considering the economic growth of wealthy countries as the primary objective of global economic policy.
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Global public health · Jan 2011
UN resolution on the prevention and control of non-communicable diseases: an opportunity for global action.
In May 2010, the United Nations (UN) General Assembly unanimously adopted a resolution on non-communicable diseases (NCDs) that called for high-level meetings to address the global burden of NCDs. This paper highlights the growing global burden of NCDs (cardiovascular diseases, cancer, chronic obstructive pulmonary diseases and diabetes), provides a brief historical background on the adoption of the UN NCDs resolution and argues that the resolution provides a remarkable new opportunity for improved international collaboration to address NCDs. Additionally, the paper argues that while the existing World Health Organisation programme on NCDs be continued and expanded, the UN can provide the expanded political leadership that is necessary for multi-sectoral collaboration and can serve as a respected forum for dealing with the issue across numerous key UN agencies.