Global health action
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Non-communicable diseases (NCDs) (also known as socially transmitted diseases) were conspicuously absent from the Millennium Development Goals and seemed to miss out on the 'golden years' of health funding despite causing more death and disability than any other disease group worldwide. The share of 'development assistance for health' dedicated to NCDs has remained at 1-2% of the total since 2000. This level of funding is insufficient to attain the nine targets in the World Health Organization (WHO) Global Action Plan on NCDs. ⋯ There is a role for development assistance to increase in the interim as raising additional revenue from these sources will take time. In the medium term it may be appropriate for international NCD funding to remain low where LMICs successfully assume financial responsibility for preventing and controlling NCDs. Countries will have to manage blends of innovative and traditional funding sources, whilst finding ways to boost tax revenue for NCDs.
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Global health action · Jan 2016
Involvement of stakeholders in determining health priorities of adolescents in rural South Africa.
When developing intervention research, it is important to explore issues from the community perspective. Interventions that promote adolescent health in South Africa are urgently needed, and Project Ntshembo ('hope') aims to improve the health of young women and their offspring in the Agincourt sub-district of rural northeast South Africa, actively using stakeholder involvement throughout the research process. ⋯ The process brought researchers and stakeholders to consensus on the most important health issues facing adolescents, and a stakeholder forum was developed within which to address the issues. Stakeholder involvement as part of a research engagement strategy can be of mutual benefit to the researchers and the community in which the research is taking place.
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Global health action · Jan 2016
ReviewScoping review: national monitoring frameworks for social determinants of health and health equity.
The strategic importance of monitoring social determinants of health (SDH) and health equity and inequity has been a central focus in global discussions around the 2011 Rio Political Declaration on SDH and the Millennium Development Goals. This study is part of the World Health Organization (WHO) equity-oriented analysis of linkages between health and other sectors (EQuAL) project, which aims to define a framework for monitoring SDH and health equity. ⋯ Our review illustrates that the attention to SDH monitoring has grown in terms of its importance and complexity within the scientific health literature. We identified a need to make indicators more wide-ranging in order to include a broader range of social conditions. The WHO EQuAL framework can provide intersectoral and interdisciplinary means of building a more comprehensive standardised approach to monitoring the SDH and improving equity in health.
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Global health action · Jan 2016
Exploring models for the roles of health systems' responsiveness and social determinants in explaining universal health coverage and health outcomes.
Intersectoral perspectives of health are present in the rhetoric of the sustainable development goals. Yet its descriptions of systematic approaches for an intersectoral monitoring vision, joining determinants of health, and barriers or facilitators to accessing healthcare services are lacking. ⋯ This paper adds to the literature on comparative health systems research. National and international health monitoring frameworks need to incorporate indicators on trends in and impacts of other policy sectors on health. This will empower the health sector to carry out public health practices that promote health and health equity.
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Global health action · Jan 2016
ReviewDoubly blind: a systematic review of gender in randomised controlled trials.
Although observational data show social characteristics such as gender or socio-economic status to be strong predictors of health, their impact is seldom investigated in randomised controlled studies (RCTs). ⋯ Social characteristics like sex/gender remain hidden from analyses and interpretation in RCTs, with loss of information and embedding of error all along the path from design to interpretation, and therefore, to uptake in clinical practice. Our results suggest that to broaden external validity, in particular, more refined trial designs and analyses that account for sex/gender and other social characteristics are needed.