Globalization Health
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Globalization Health · Jan 2014
ReviewNoncommunicable diseases among urban refugees and asylum-seekers in developing countries: a neglected health care need.
With the increasing trend in refugee urbanisation, growing numbers of refugees are diagnosed with chronic noncommunicable diseases (NCDs). However, with few exceptions, the local and international communities prioritise communicable diseases. The aim of this study is to review the literature to determine the prevalence and distribution of chronic NCDs among urban refugees living in developing countries, to report refugee access to health care for NCDs and to compare the prevalence of NCDs among urban refugees with the prevalence in their home countries. ⋯ Hypertension, musculoskeletal disease, diabetes and chronic respiratory disease were the major diseases observed. In general, most urban refugees in developing countries have adequate access to primary health care services. Further investigations are needed to document the burden of NCDs among urban refugees and to identify their need for health care in developing countries.
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Globalization Health · Jan 2014
Enhancing medicine price transparency through price information mechanisms.
Medicine price information mechanisms provide an essential tool to countries that seek a better understanding of product availability, market prices and price compositions of individual medicines. To be effective and contribute to cost savings, these mechanisms need to consider prices in their particular contexts when comparing between countries. This article discusses in what ways medicine price information mechanisms can contribute to increased price transparency and how this may affect access to medicines for developing countries. ⋯ The reviewed mechanisms avoid the methodological challenges observed for medicine price comparisons that only use national price databases. They work with high quality data and display prices in the appropriate context of procurement modalities as well as the peculiarities of purchasing countries. Medicine price information mechanisms respond to the need for increased medicine price transparency and have the potential to contribute to improved access to medicines in developing countries.Additional research is required to explore more specific aspects. These include the market effects of dedicated donor funds for certain medicines to explain the driving force of user demands, and the effects of increased price transparency on different groups of medicines in context of the maturity of their markets.
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Globalization Health · Jan 2014
Back to the future: what would the post-2015 global development goals look like if we replicated methods used to construct the Millennium Development Goals?
The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) were 'top-down' goals formulated by policy elites drawing from targets within United Nations (UN) summits and conferences in the 1990s. Contemporary processes shaping the new post-2015 development agenda are more collaborative and participatory, markedly different to the pre-MDG era. This study examines what would the outcome be if a methodology similar to that used for the MDGs were applied to the formulation of the post-2015 development goals (Post-2015DGs), identifying those targets arising from UN summits and conferences since the declaration of the MDGs, and aggregating them into goals. ⋯ This study exposes the evolving political agendas underplaying the current post-2015 process, as targets from DESA's 22 major UN summits and conferences from 2001 to 2012 are not wholly mirrored in the HLP's 12 goals.
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Globalization Health · Jan 2014
Country progress towards the Millennium Development Goals: adjusting for socioeconomic factors reveals greater progress and new challenges.
The health Millennium Development Goals (4, 5, 6) impose the same ambitious 2015 targets on every country. Few low-income countries are on track to reach them. Some authors have proposed country-specific targets as a more informative method by which countries can measure their progress against their potential. ⋯ Partnership for Maternal, Newborn & Child Health and the Alliance for Health Policy and Systems Research, as part of the Success Factors Study on reducing maternal and child mortality.
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Globalization Health · Jan 2014
The global financial crisis and health equity: early experiences from Canada.
It is widely acknowledged that austerity measures in the wake of the global financial crisis are starting to undermine population health results. Yet, few research studies have focused on the ways in which the financial crisis and the ensuing 'Great Recession' have affected health equity, especially through their impact on social determinants of health; neither has much attention been given to the health consequences of the fiscal austerity regime that quickly followed a brief period of counter-cyclical government spending for bank bailouts and economic stimulus. Canada has not remained insulated from these developments, despite its relative success in maneuvering the global financial crisis. ⋯ This article documents some of the effects of financial crisis and severe economic decline on health equity in Canada. However, more research is necessary to study policy choices that could mitigate this effect. Since the policy response to a similar set of economic shocks has globally varied and led to differential health and health equity outcomes, comparative studies are now possible to assess the successes and failures of specific policy responses. This raises the question of what types of public policy can mitigate against the negative health equity effects of severe economic recessions.