SUPPLEMENT LAUNCH! Advancing health systems for all in an SDG era

Health Systems Global and Health Policy and Planning are pleased to announce the publication of a special supplement – Advancing health systems for all in an SDG era. How did this supplement arise? The Fifth Global Symposium on Health Systems Research (HSR2018), hosted by Health Systems Global (HSG) and organized in…

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SUPPLEMENT LAUNCH: Transforming health systems financing in Lower Mekong: making sure the poor are not left behind

By Augustine Asante, Ir Por, Bart Jacobs and Virginia Wiseman

Universal health coverage (UHC) appears to be on everybody’s agenda these days, especially low- and middle- income countries (LIMCs). But achieving UHC goes beyond having it on one’s agenda; it requires, among other things, an equitable health financing…

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We did the sums on South Africa’s mental health spend. They’re not pretty

By Sumaiyah Docrat and Crick Lund (Alan J Fisher Centre for Public Mental Health, University of Cape Town)

This blog has been posted with kind permission from The Conversation.

South Africa has taken steps towards strengthening mental health care in the last 20 years. These include reforming the Mental Health…

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Celebrating commitment to mental health care in primary health care settings

By Jessica Spagnolo (School of Public Health, IRSPUM, Université de Montréal)

Global mental health aims to increase access to mental health care and to encourage the social inclusion of people living with mental ill health by promoting services as close as possible to people’s communities. This view also…

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Gender quotas: Foe or friend for health leadership?

By Kui Muraya, KEMRI-Wellcome Trust Research Programme, Nairobi, Kenya

My colleagues and I recently published a paper discussing the experiences and career trajectories of male and female health managers at sub-national level in Kenya. The published data was collected through in-depth interviews with sub-county level managers…

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Maternal death reporting is all about politics

By Andrea Melberg (University of Bergen, Norway)

How can a health system respond to maternal deaths? The concept is simple and appealing: identify all maternal deaths, understand why they happened and implement interventions to prevent similar deaths from occurring in the future. However, the implementation of Maternal Death Surveillance and…

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How can we do a better job of setting research agendas with communities?

By Bridget Pratt (University of Melbourne)

The status quo: Communities lack a say

Community engagement is gaining prominence in global health research. Growing consensus about the importance of community representation and participation for ethical research means research institutions and funding bodies now promote, or even mandate, community engagement as an…

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Policy Needs to Focus on Politics: Coca-Cola’s Political and Policy Influence in Mexico

By Eduardo J Gómez (King’s College London)

True to the nature of being a political scientist, I’ve always been interested in exploring the sources of political power and its consequences for policy. In my new article titled “Coca-Cola’s Political and Policy Influence in Mexico: Understanding…

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Are women empowered by volunteer community health work? The story of Eleni

By: Svea Closser (Johns Hopkins University), Kenneth Maes (Oregon State University), and Sarah Fossett (Middlebury College)

Women’s Development Army

This Wednesday, as usual in this small town in rural Amhara, Eleni was running a weekly meeting with 30 women. The meeting was delayed in the midst of a spontaneous…

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World Breastfeeding Week: The Cost of Not Breastfeeding Infographic

World Breastfeeding Week is celebrated every year from 1 to 7 August to encourage breastfeeding and improve the health of babies around the world.

Breastfeeding promotes better health for mothers and children alike. Global economic costs of not breastfeeding are around US £341 billion annually and globally inadequate breastfeeding leads…

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