Cross-Cutting Topics
- Lessons From Implementing Ask-Boost-Connect-Discuss, a Peer-Delivered Psychosocial Intervention for Young Mothers Living With HIV in Malawi, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zambia
To respond to the distinct needs of young mothers living with HIV, peer supporters can be trained to provide structured psychosocial support. The authors assessed the feasibility of using young peers to deliver this psychosocial support.
- Supporting the Manufacturing of Medical Supplies in Africa: Collaboration Between Africa CDC, Partners, and Member States
Inadequate supply of PPE, vaccines, and diagnostics during the COVID-19 pandemic in Africa created an opportunity to promote local manufacturing. Authors describe Africa CDC's contributions and highlight strategies for strengthening the pandemic response.
- Can a Smartphone Application Help Address Barriers to Reporting Substandard/Falsified Medical Products? A Pilot Study in Tanzania and Indonesia
A training workshop & smartphone app for health care professionals to report suspected substandard or falsified medical products was found to be effective and more convenient than existing reporting systems.
- Digitalizing Clinical Guidelines: Experiences in the Development of Clinical Decision Support Algorithms for Management of Childhood Illness in Resource-Constrained Settings
Clinical decision support systems can strengthen the quality of IMCI but can vary because of the need for interpretation when translating narrative guidelines into decision logic combined with considerations of context and design choices.
- Strengthening Kampala’s Urban Referral System for Maternal and Newborn Care Through Establishment of an Emergency Call and Dispatch Center
An emergency call and ambulance dispatch center facilitated maternal and newborn transport, and a smartphone application helped deploy and track ambulances to improve coordination and efficiency in emergency case referral and transport.
- A Participatory Comic Book Workshop to Improve Youth-Friendly Post-Rape Care in a Humanitarian Context in Uganda: A Case Study
Participatory comic books offer a novel approach to strengthening health care providers’ understanding of refugee youth’s post-rape care needs and can be embedded in provider training in humanitarian contexts.
- The Role of Sudanese Doctors in the United Kingdom in Mitigating COVID-19 Vaccine Hesitancy Among Their Diaspora Communities
A COVID-19 vaccine awareness campaign conducted by Sudanese doctors helped to mitigate vaccine hesitancy among Sudanese diaspora groups in the United Kingdom.
- A Financing Strategy to Expand Surgical Health Care
The authors propose a strategy to guide the financing of surgical health care services as part of national health care policies in LMICs.
- Exploring Upward and Downward Provider Biases in Family Planning: The Case of Parity
The authors conceptualize a distinction between “upward” provider bias that occurs when providers pressure or encourage clients to adopt contraception and “downward” provider bias in family planning that discourages contraceptive use.
- Measuring National Immunization System Performance: A Systematic Assessment of Available Resources
This review of monitoring and evaluation resources identified multiple performance indicators that can inform country-specific approaches to evaluating immunization systems.