Guidelines for Implementation and Monitoring. WHO Regional Publications, Eastern Mediterranean Series 21
Vitamin A supplementation (VAS) programs targeted at children aged 6–59 months are implemented in many countries. By improving immune function, vitamin A (VA) reduces mortality associated with measles, diarrhea, and other illnesses. There is currently a debate regarding the relevance of VAS, but a...midst the debate, researchers acknowledge that the majority of nationally-representative data on VA status is outdated. To address this data gap and contribute to the debate, we examined data from 82 countries implementing VAS programs, identified other VA programs, and assessed the recentness of national VA deficiency (VAD) data.
Article published in: Nutrients, 2017, 9, 190
https://doi.org/10.3390/nu9030190
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Paying for performance (P4P) provides financial incentives for providers to increase the use and quality of care. P4P can affect health care by providing incentives for providers to put more effort into specific activities, and by increasing the amount of resources available to finance the delivery ...of services. This paper evaluates the impact of P4P on the use and quality of prenatal, institutional delivery, and child preventive care using data produced from a prospective quasi-experimental evaluation nested into the national rollout of P4P in Rwanda. Treatment facilities were enrolled in the P4P scheme in 2006 and comparison facilities were enrolled two years later. The incentive effect is isolated from the resource effect by increasing comparison facilities’ input-based budgets by the average P4P payments to the treatment facilities. The data were collected from 166 facilities and a random sample of 2158 households. P4P had a large and significant positive impact on institutional deliveries and preventive care visits by young children, and improved quality of prenatal care. The authors find no effect on the number of prenatal care visits or on immunization rates. P4P had the greatest effect on those services that had the highest payment rates and needed the lowest provider effort. P4P financial performance incentives can improve both the use of and the quality of health services. Because the analysis isolates the incentive effect from the resource effect in P4P, the results indicate that an equal amount of financial resources without the incentives would not have achieved the same gain in outcomes.
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Environment International Volume 146, January 2021, 106245.
We use soils to provide 98.8% of our food, but we must ensure that the pressure we place on soils to provide this food in the short-term does not inadvertently push the Earth into a less hospitable state in the long-term. Using the planeta...ry boundaries framework, we show that soils are a master variable for regulating critical Earth-system processes. Indeed, of the seven Earth-systems that have been quantified, soils play a critical and substantial role in changing the Earth-systems in at least two, either directly or indirectly, as well as smaller contributions for a further three.
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MEDICINA (Buenos Aires) 2020; Vol. 80 (Supl. VI): 100-10;
La tuberculosis es una enfermedad infecciosa crónica endémica en la República Argentina causada por Mycobacterium tuberculosis, cuya localización más frecuente es la pulmonar. Suele afectar grupos poblacionales carenciados y tiene gran... repercusión sobre la salud pública. COVID-19 es una infección viral aguda caus 101-ada por SARS-CoV-2 que tiene típico compromiso respiratorio y, en ocasiones, puede presentar similitudes clínicas y radiológicas con la tuberculosis pulmonar. Ambas entidades pueden tener desenlace fatal si no son diagnosticadas y tratadas a tiempo. Presentamos una serie de casos en los que se diagnosticó tuberculosis pulmonar y COVID-19 en forma simultánea.
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Résumé.
Malgré les efforts de promotion des mutuelles de santé depuis une décennie et l’existence d’une vingtaine de compagnies privées proposant des polices d’assurance maladie, moins de 1% de la population camerounaise bénéficie d’une couverture maladie. Les facteurs sous jacents ...sont entre autres : (i) la méfiance des ménages vis-à-vis des mutuelles de santé et des assureurs privés; (ii) l’absence d’obligation d’une assurance maladie qui en fait un produit de luxe ; (iii) l’ignorance des avantages des mécanismes assurantiels; (iv) la pauvreté et le montant élevé des primes d’adhésion et des cotisations annuelles ; et (v) la forte prévalence de l’emploi dans le secteur informel (80,6%). Pour y faire face nous proposons de : 1) Créer et pérenniser un environnement favorable à la promotion et au développement des MS ; 2) Subventionner les primes par le Gouvernement, les Partenaires et les Municipalités pour en réduire le prix d’achat ; 3) Instituer une collecte flexible des primes et établir un dispositif attractif de mutualisation du risque et des procédures d’achat qui inspirent confiance aux usagers et aux prestataires des soins.
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Climate Change 2021: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
Climate Change 2021: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
Medicina (B. Aires) vol.80 supl.6 Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires dic. 2020
La tuberculosis es una enfermedad infecciosa crónica endémica en la República Argentina causada
por Mycobacterium tuberculosis, cuya localización más frecuente es la pulmonar. Suele afectar
grupos poblacionales car...enciados y tiene gran repercusión sobre la salud pública. COVID-19 es una infección
viral aguda caus 101-ada por SARS-CoV-2 que tiene típico compromiso respiratorio y, en ocasiones, puede pre-
sentar similitudes clínicas y radiológicas con la tuberculosis pulmonar. Ambas entidades pueden tener desenlace
fatal si no son diagnosticadas y tratadas a tiempo.
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Limited research has examined factors associated with psychological distress following natural
disasters among non-Western child populations. Conditions associated with trauma-related symptoms following the 2004 tsunami in a sample of 265 Sri Lankan child survivors (53.6% female, aged 3 to 17) were... examined retrospectively. Multivariate regression analyses identified pre-traumatic conditions (female gender, prior health) and peritraumatic conditions (loss of family, complete property loss) as being associated with increased trauma-related symptoms. Findings can be applied to the identification of children most at risk of developing trauma-related symptoms following a natural disaster from a non-Western population to aid development of culturally-appropriate interventions.
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The goal of asthma treatment is to obtain clinical control and reduce future risks to the patient. To reach this goal in children with asthma, ongoing monitoring is essential. While all components of asthma, such as symptoms, lung function, bronchial hyperresponsiveness and inflammation, may exist i...n various combinations in different individuals, to date there is limited evidence on how to integrate these for optimal monitoring of children with asthma. The aims of this ERS Task Force were to describe the current practise and give an overview of the best available evidence on how to monitor children with asthma.
22 clinical and research experts reviewed the literature. A modified Delphi method and four Task Force meetings were used to reach a consensus.
This statement summarises the literature on monitoring children with asthma. Available tools for monitoring children with asthma, such as clinical tools, lung function, bronchial responsiveness and inflammatory markers, are described as are the ways in which they may be used in children with asthma. Management-related issues, comorbidities and environmental factors are summarised.
Despite considerable interest in monitoring asthma in children, for many aspects of monitoring asthma in children there is a substantial lack of evidence.
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Palliative care has been shown to provide significant and diverse benefits for patients with serious, complex,or life-limiting health problem.
Jamison DT, Gelband H, Horton S, Jha P, Laxminarayan R, Mock CN, Nugent R., editors. Disease Control Prio...rities, 3rd Edition,
Volume 9: Improving Health and Reducing Poverty. Washington DC: World Bank 2018. doi:10.1596/978-1-4648-0527-1
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High levels of storage iron may increase malaria susceptibility. This risk has not been investigated in semi-immune adolescents. We investigated whether baseline iron status of nonpregnant adolescent girls living in a high malaria transmission area in Burkina Faso affected malaria risk during the fo...llowing rainy season. For this prospective study, we analysed data from an interim safety survey, conducted six months into a randomised iron supplementation trial. We used logistic regression to model the risk of P. falciparum infection prevalence by microscopy, the pre-specified interim safety outcome, in relation to iron status, nutritional indicators and menarche assessed at recruitment.
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Open Journal of Epidemiology, 2018, 8, 226-241
Abstract
Introduction: Road traffic accidents (RTAs) are a major public health issue
in developing countries, where roads tend to be built haphazardly and accidents
take a heavy toll on victims—including leaving them disabled. This
study seeks ...to identify those factors that cause RTA victims to become disabled
as a result of their injuries. Methods: This retrospective community-
based study looked at RTA victims treated in five public and faith-based
hospitals in Benin. Disability was evaluated using the Washington Group on
Disabilities Statistics questionnaire. The independent variables were related to
the victim’s socio-demographic traits, the circumstances of the accident, and
post-crash response mechanisms. The proportions were compared using the
chi-squared test, with a threshold of 5%. Results: The prevalence of disability
among road traffic accident victims is 9.59% (CI 95%: 6.86% - 13.20%). The
occurrence of disability is associated with age (p = 0.002), occupational group
(p = 0.0077), the mode of transport used to transfer the victim (p < 0.001)
and the location of the injuries (p = 0.0035). The study also found that people
fail to make sufficient use of post-crash response mechanisms. Conclusion:
Public policy-makers should therefore focus on stepping up interventions to
get more people using both protective equipment and post-crash response services.
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N Engl J Med 2022; 386:911-922, DOI: 10.1056/NEJMoa2104535
Four months of antituberculosis treatment was noninferior to 6 months of treatment in children with drug-susceptible, nonsevere, smear-negative tuberculosis (SHINE Study)