More articles from EDITORIALS
- Urban health: it's time to get moving!
The global health community should mainstream urban health and implement urban health programs to address the triple health burden of communicable diseases, noncommunicable diseases, and injuries in low- and middle-income countries.
- Taking Exception. Reduced mortality leads to population growth: an inconvenient truth
Reduced mortality has been the predominant cause of the marked global population growth over the last 3/4 of a century. While improved child survival increases motivation to reduce fertility, it comes too little and too late to forestall substantial population growth. And, beyond motivation, couples need effective means to control their fertility. It is an inconvenient truth that reducing child mortality contributes considerably to the population growth destined to compromise the quality of life of many, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa. Vigorous child survival programming is of course imperative. Wide access to voluntary family planning can help mitigate that growth and provide many other benefits.
- A bright future for IUD use in Africa?
High uptake of IUDs under the mobile outreach service delivery model in Kenya bodes well for IUDs in sub-Saharan Africa, if delivered with good access and quality.
- Cell phones and CHWs: a transformational marriage?
Mobile phones can be transformative for community health workers (CHWs) in enhancing their influence and status and helping to solve practical problems. While formal intervention research can help advance mHealth application, most progress will come through a “diffusion of innovation” process.
- Injectable contraception provided by community-based health workers: one important step toward meeting unmet need
Community-based provision of injectable contraception continues to advance and is gaining wider acceptance—a major step toward meeting unmet need. However, fully addressing family planning need will require access to a much wider range of methods, including long-acting reversible contraception and permanent methods.
- Provider-generated barriers to health services access and quality still persist
Barriers to access and quality, such as long waits, disrespectful provider behavior, and medical barriers, continue to constrain health programs. Reducing them further requires a multipronged management approach that includes understanding and addressing provider behavior and the real problems providers face.
- Fulfilling the PEPFAR mandate: a more equitable use of PEPFAR resources across global health
As PEPFAR moves beyond its “emergency stage,” it should now help support a more sustainable development mode, including an equitable platform for meeting a broad range of priority health needs, while continuing to pursue the goal of an AIDS-free generation.
- The 6 domains of behavior change: the missing health system building block
Behavior is crucial throughout global health interventions. The discipline of behavior change offers distinct expertise needed across 6 different domains of behavior. Such expertise is in short supply, however. We will not have effective and sustainable health systems, nor achieve our ambitious global health goals, without seriously addressing behavior change.
- Making the most of food aid to help prevent child and maternal deaths
Advances in child nutrition over the last several decades are creating momentum for a programmatic push to reduce undernutrition worldwide. The contribution of food aid may be small, but, nonetheless, U.S. food aid policy should be revamped to benefit more effectively and more efficiently the children and mothers in need.
- Focusing on implementation: the power of executing many small advances well
Success often comes through many small, incremental, well-executed improvements.