Documents & Reports

Cardiovascular diseases are the predominant cause of death in Tajikistan, with a growing burden of ischemic heart disease, strokes and cirrhosis between 1990 and 2010. Considering this, this report focuses on cardiovascular diseases and their risk factors, such as hypertension and poor nutrition; it is estimated that 40% of the Tajik population is overweight and 9% is obese. [from abstract]

To review the strength and weakness of a community based skilled birth attendant (CSBA) program in Bangladesh. [from abstract]

These guidelines are intended to assist pharmacy managers in the recruitment, selection, and retention of qualified employees. The pharmacy manager working in an organized health care system will usually have to work with the system’s human resources department and within the framework of the specific recruitment, selection, and hiring policies of the organization. [from introduction]

This technical brief offers six recommendations to help national stakeholders transform evidence into policy decisions and subsequent action. Using an example from Uganda, the authors illustrate how the development and sharing of evidence can support decision-making for change in health workforce recruitment and retention policies, toward the aim of improving access to high-quality health care for the population. [from introduction]

Indonesia, a low-middle income country of around 242 million people, has made impressive gains in health over the past few decades, notably in increased life expectancy and reduced infant and child mortality rates. There has been less progress in improving maternal mortality and malnutrition. [from abstract]

This document provides a preliminary assessment of the Bangladeshi health system relative to the goal of universal
health coverage, with a particular focus on the financing system and related aspects of provision. [from introduction]

In 2013, new data collected by the ICRC7 showed that the vast majority of violent incidents against health services that took place during 2012 – more than 80 per cent of the 900 or so incidents recorded in twenty-two countries – affected local health-care professionals. A quarter of the people affected by these incidents were killed or wounded, while the remainder of the incidents consisted of beatings, threats, arrests, kidnapping, and other violent occurrences. [from introduction]

This report characterises mental health as a policy issue and outlines why it is frequently overlooked by policy-makers and donors. It draws upon the experience of different social movements across global health to provide lessons for the mental health field. [from introduction]

Despite numerous persistent challenges – including low quality of care, continuing inequalities and the substantial impact of the HIV/AIDS pandemic – Mozambique provides important lessons to other countries aiming to scale up health provision rapidly in a post-conflict setting. These particularly include the importance of focusing on distance and education as barriers to access, using innovative and low-cost human-resource policies to scale up health personnel quickly, and of moving towards more coordinated systems of aid disbursement. [from abstract]

This report synthesises findings from five country case studies from the health dimension of this project, which focus
on maternal and child health (MCH) (Mozambique,Nepal, Rwanda) and neglected tropical diseases (NTDs)(Cambodia, Sierra Leone). MCH was selected given its centrality in two of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and its ability to act as a proxy for strengthened health systems.

To celebrate Universal Children’s Day 2013, this report was commissioned by Sesame Workshop to achieve two objectives: (1) to explore current and future opportunities in the use of mobile phones and other relevant information and communications technologies (ICTs) for improving the health and development of young children as investments for a better future, and (2) to provide guidance and recommendations for partnerships, institutions or organizations interested in contributing to this field. [from executive summary]

From 2010 through 2013, the SHOPS project implemented a series of pilot activities to explore the feasibility of introducing private sector health education financing mechanisms. SHOPS explored private sector solutions to help meet ambitious targets from the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief for training new health care workers. This report shares the project’s work with private pre-service education financing in Malawi, Rwanda, Tanzania, and Zambia.

This technical report is intended to help the field move toward a common understanding of functions associated with different cadres within the social service workforce, titles associated with workers who perform these functions, and education or training that is typically associated with these cadres. [from resource]

This paper outlines the opportunities and challenges posed by the proposed NHI [National Health Insurance] reforms in South Africa. It begins by explaining the country’s current system of health care provision including its human resource structure, functions and cost implications. It then summarizes the deficits and limitations of the current two-tiered health system and discusses what NHI is trying to achieve within this context and how it hopes to address the problems. [from summary]

The Policy Brief has looked into different systems that produce data on causes of death and laid out some options and potential strategies that countries might follow to rapidly and cost-effectively improve the cause of death information that these systems produce. This in turn would greatly benefit national health planning and increase critical knowledge about disease burden in the region as well as provide accurate information about how it is changing. [from introduction]

Community health care services provide vital care out of hospital for millions of people. From children’s services to care for older people and end-of-life support, the community sector plays a key part in meeting the challenges facing our health and care system. This report presents findings from a small-scale study into how quality is managed in community services. It explores how community care providers define and measure quality and recommends important next steps to support better measurement and management of quality. [from introduction]

At the end of the one year of intervention, the results showed a significant reduction in sexually transmitted infections in the group that was eligible for the $20 payments every four months,but no such reduction was found for the group receiving the $10 payments. The effects were stronger among the lower socioeconomic and higher risks groups. The results of a post-intervention follow-up survey conducted one year after discontinuing the intervention indicate a sustained effect among males, but not among females. [from abstract]

This publication presents 6 case studies on interprofessional education and collaborative practice from Brazil, Canada, India, South Africa and the USA. The document also highlights some barriers and enablers to take into account for implementation. [from introduction]

The science of team performance and training can help the medical community improve patient safety. This report, commissioned by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), assesses the status of relevant team training research from aviation and other domains and applies this research to the field of medicine. It additionally provides a comprehensive review and evaluation of current medical team training initiatives and their effectiveness. [from resource]

This paper aims to explore and explain the use of models of care delivery that optimally utilize the role of nurses in primary healthcare, community-based care and other non-acute care contexts such as chronic disease management, long-term care, continuing care, health promotion and disease prevention. Additionally, exemplar models of care, as case studies, are identified to highlight essential elements of effective service delivery models and strategies for successful application. [from introduction]

To prepare this report, an interprofessional research team conducted in-depth interviews with key informants and
undertook a wide-ranging survey of peer-reviewed and grey literature on the components of teamwork; effectiveness of teams; types of interventions; healthcare team dynamics; and the impact of government infrastructure, legislation,
and policy on teamwork in the Canadian healthcare system. [from summary]

Over the past 30 years, Bangladesh has achieved significant economic and human development progress, and demonstrated impressive policy as well as programmatic commitment to lowering the fertility level. However, its future socioeconomic prospects may be hampered by its population growth rate, depending on how quickly the fertility rates decline and at which point they stabilize. [from abstract]

Data collectors implementing the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) orphans and vulnerable children (OVC) survey tools must be trained to a high standard. To enable this, MEASURE Evaluation has developed a training manual and materials for data collectors. Groups wanting to implement the OVC survey tools will need to adapt this training manual and materials to reflect the aims and design of the specific study. [from introduction]

While acknowledging these limitations, this report makes use of available evidence to describe what is currently known about global patterns of violence against children, using data compiled from a selection of sources . The analyses focus primarily on forms of interpersonal violence, defined as violent acts inflicted on children by another individual or a small group. [from introduction]

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The focus of this study is to better understand how social workers and related professionals are
trained and educated—both formally and informally—to engage in social work practice, especially as it is related to child protection, in the West and Central Africa region. [from executive summary]

A Framework To Design, Test, Spread, and Sustain Effective Practice in Child Welfare is a practical guide for strengthening child welfare systems. It describes a process for exploring problems in child welfare, developing interventions, building evidence about their effectiveness, integrating effective interventions into routine child welfare practice, and continually improving on their delivery. The framework is designed to promote better integration of evaluation with program and policy decision-making and to encourage stronger partnerships between child welfare stakeholders.

Social care and support services include such areas as the protection of children from violence and exploitation, care for chronically sick or disabled children and adults, support in dealing with the social difficulties of those affected by conflicts and disasters and responses to gender based violence. The aim of this paper is to make proposals for a unified coherent strategic framework which clarifies the vision, nature, scope and rationale for social care and support services. [from introduction]

Our analysis focused mainly on the Choose and Book system for outpatient referrals, introduced in 2004, which remained unpopular and little used throughout the period of our research (i.e. 2007–13). We identified four foci of resistance: to the policy of choice that Choose and Book symbolised and purported to deliver; to accommodating the technology’s sociomaterial constraints; to interference with doctors’ contextual judgements; and to adjusting to the altered social relations consequent on its use.

A global strategy on human resources for health that addresses, in an integrated way, all aspects ranging from planning, education, management, retention, incentives, linkages with the social service workforce, can inform more incisive, multi-sectoral action, based on new evidence and best practices. This brochure sheds light on why a global strategy on HRH is necessary and outlines the process of developing WHOs strategy. [from abstract]

The Road map, which was developed with the appreciable contribution of critical stakeholders such as ministries of health, education, public services and finance as well as universities and training institutions regulators, professional bodies, civil society and nongovernmental organizations, defines strategic directions and priority interventions to be implemented in the period 2012–2025. [from introduction]