Latest Articles
- Combating trafficking in persons: a call to action for global health professionals
Health care professionals can help identify victims of human trafficking, who commonly come into contact with providers during captivity. Providers can also help restore the physical and mental health of trafficking survivors. Training should focus on recognizing trafficking signs, interviewing techniques, and recommended responses when a victim is identified.
- Oxytocin: taking the heat
Oxytocin-in-Uniject satisfied the standards of its temperature-time indicator (TTI) in severe home storage conditions, although that required resupply every 30 days—a logistically onerous programmatic standard. Possible advances include: (1) incorporating TTIs with packaged batches of less expensive and more widely used conventional vials of oxytocin; (2) using TTIs calibrated more closely to the actual temperature sensitivity of oxytocin; and (3) researching whether a lower dose of oxytocin would be equally efficacious in preventing postpartum hemorrhage.
- Nationwide implementation of integrated community case management of childhood illness in Rwanda
Between 2008 and 2011, Rwanda introduced iCCM of childhood illness nationwide. One year after iCCM rollout, community-based treatment for diarrhea and pneumonia had increased significantly, and under-5 mortality and overall health facility use had declined significantly.
- Integrating family planning into postpartum care through modern quality improvement: experience from Afghanistan
Modern quality improvement approaches enabled hospital staff to analyze barriers and identify solutions for “how” to integrate family planning into postpartum care. Private spaces for postpartum family planning (PPFP) counseling, along with involving husbands and mothers-in-law in counseling, substantially increased the percentage of women receiving PPFP counseling and their preferred method before discharge. Self-reported pregnancy was also significantly lower up to 18 months post-discharge compared with women receiving routine services.
- Informed push distribution of contraceptives in Senegal reduces stockouts and improves quality of family planning services
Dedicated logisticians restocked contraceptives monthly at facilities to maintain defined minimum stock levels, freeing up clinic staff. High stockout rates were virtually eliminated. Also, quality and timely data on contraceptives distributed allowed for better program management.
- 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.
- Preferences for a potential longer-acting injectable contraceptive: perspectives from women, providers, and policy makers in Kenya and Rwanda
High effectiveness, predictable return to fertility, and a single, prepackaged, disposable delivery system ranked high. Side effects were generally acceptable to women if they did not last long or disrupt daily activities. Cost was considered important for providers but not so much for most potential users.
- 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.
- Local markets for global health technologies: lessons learned from advancing 6 new products
Key components to support local institutional and consumer markets are: supply chain, finance, clinical use, and consumer use. Key lessons learned: (1) Build supply and demand simultaneously. (2) Support a lead organization to drive the introduction process. (3) Plan for scale up from the start. (4) Profitability for the private sector is an absolute.
- Systems approach to monitoring and evaluation guides scale up of the Standard Days Method of family planning in Rwanda
Scaling-up lessons included: (1) simplifying provider training and client materials; (2) ensuring core aspects of the intervention, for example, that the CycleBeads client tool was integrated into the supply chain system; (3) addressing provider-generated medical barriers; and (4) managing threats from changing political and policy environments. A focus on systems, the use of multiple M&E data sources, maintaining fidelity of the innovation, and ongoing environmental scans facilitated scale-up success.