All posts in low-income countries

2014: the year for every newborn

By Lara Brearley

2014 must be the year of the newborn. As Smith’s recent article states, despite huge strides in child survival, progress during the neonatal period has been disproportionately slow. Inaction is no longer an option – in many countries, persistently high rates of newborn mortality will hold countries…

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What can we learn from trans fat policies in the Americas?

By Modi Mwatsama

In May 2013, the World Health Assembly adopted the Omnibus Resolution on non-communicable diseases (NCDs). This landmark publication includes the global NCD action plan, goals and monitoring framework. It follows 20 months of negotiations by governments and global stakeholders after the United Nations High Level Meeting…

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Addressing the burden of injury in LMICs

By Richard Matzopoulos

There is no question that injuries impose a substantial health burden on low- and middle-income countries. It is also true that they receive much less attention than a plethora of competing conditions that affect these same countries, which in turn compromises our ability to prioritise, devise…

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Systematic reviews: who is asking the question?

By Gill Walt

A recently published paper by de Jongh et al. reports on a study commissioned by the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. It offers a robust defence of the substantial financial investment donors have made with regard to these three diseases, demonstrating that their funds…

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Overcoming inequalities in a mixed health system: the new Chilean miracle?

By Claudio Mendez
How do we overcome inequalities in a mixed health system? This is an important question, which for me does not have a clear, evidence-based answer. One of the reasons why this question remains unanswered is that the politics of health systems are not usually addressed when…

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The science and practice of people-centred health systems

Health Policy and Planning and the organizers of the Third Global Symposium on Health Systems Research are pleased to issue a call for papers for a special supplement on the theme of “The science and practice of people-centred health systems”. The theme for the call is also the theme…

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From fragility to resilience

By Karl Blanchet

When we talk about fragile states, we could cover the usual alarming figures: it is anticipated that by 2015, half of the world’s population living in poverty will be in fragile states. Similarly, while poverty continues to decline globally, fragile states still grapple with alarmingly poor…

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Performance-based financing: a magic bullet for health systems change?

By Josephine Borghi

For many low- and middle-income country governments it is no longer a question of whether to introduce performance-based funding but how to. This is a result of the large scale promotion and funding of performance-based schemes by a number of donors who see this…

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