Health Equity: 06/15/09

Monday, June 15, 2009

[EQ] WHO: Global status report on road safety

Global status report on road safety

World Health Organization
Department of Violence & Injury Prevention & Disability (VIP)
Geneva, Switzerland – June 2009

Available online at: http://www.who.int/violence_injury_prevention/road_safety_status/report/en/index.html

“………Approximately 1.3 million people die each year on the world's roads, and between 20 and 50 million sustain non-fatal injuries. The Global status report on road safety is the first broad assessment of the road safety situation in 178 countries, using data drawn from a standardized survey.

The results show that road traffic injuries remain an important public health problem, particularly for low-income and middle-income countries. Pedestrians, cyclists and motorcyclists make up almost half of those killed on the roads, highlighting the need for these road users to be given more attention in road safety programmes.

The results suggest that in many countries road safety laws need to be made more comprehensive while enforcement should be strengthened. The Global status report on road safety results clearly show that significantly more action is needed to make the world's roads safer. …”

Full report

The French and Spanish version do not yet include the country profiles. The French version does not include the statistical annexes either, but as for now the statistical annexes can be found below as a separate chapter, the country profiles will be put online shortly.

English [pdf 5.13Mb] | French [pdf 2.01Mb] | Spanish [pdf 2.60Mb]

Summary

Chapters

Country profiles

English [pdf 10.39Mb]

Please find the individual country profiles here

Statistical annexes

English [pdf 656kb] | French [pdf 1.80Mb] | Spanish [pdf 573kb]

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[EQ] Hygeia's Constellation: Navigating Health Futures in a Dynamic and Democratic World

Hygeia’s Constellation:
Navigating Health Futures in a Dynamic and Democratic World

Bobby Milstein

THE CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL AND PREVENTION

Syndemics Prevention Network - April 15, 2008

Available online PDF [124p.] at: http://www.cdc.gov/SYNDEMICS/pdfs/Hygeias_Constellation_Milstein.pdf

“…….Effective public health work is rooted in traditions of concerned, humane, directed science. However, the field has changed significantly since its formalization in the mid-19th century, and even today, innovators are reshaping its underlying orientations. This study examines the origins and implications of one such innovation, the recent introduction of the term syndemic, along with related shifts in thinking and action that occur when operating from a syndemic orientation.

Distinguishing between a single epidemic and the phenomenon of syndemics expands, in very particular ways, the conceptual, methodological,

and moral dimensions of public health work. This perspective is a reminder that epidemiologic principles have been applied largely to the first tier

of a highly complicated health system. It also alerts us to the inevitability of boundary judgments, the need to actively critique those judgments, and the possibilities that exist for orienting the entire health protection enterprise in new directions.

Because public health workers aspire to assure safer, healthier conditions—which are politically contested and constantly in flux—the concepts, methods, and moral principles that shape health policy must themselves resemble the features of dynamic, democratic systems. Hence, a second purpose of this study is to explore what an explicitly dynamic and democratic view of public health work might entail.

Examples provided here illustrate how innovators are learning to better acknowledge the interdependency of people in places; map the dynamics that govern patterns of health, vulnerability, and affliction; anticipate a range of plausible health futures; and work democratically with other citizens to build the public strength needed for navigating change and expanding people’s freedoms. This inquiry joins conversations from three spheres of scholarship: public health, systems thinking and modeling, and social navigation. All of these inform our collective efforts to navigate health futures through the processes of setting direction, understanding change, and governing movement……”

Table of Contents

PROLOGUE..
INTRODUCTION

Hygeia’s Constellation

Purposes of this Document

Joining Scholarly Conversations

NAVIGATING HEALTH FUTURES

VALUING CONDITIONS

Protecting What You Consider Special: The Star Path of Ke Ala Hoku

Characterizing Public Health Work

Seeing Conditions as Freedoms

CRAFTING CONDITIONS

Revisiting Broad Street: A Cautionary Tale

From Broad Street to East Brooklyn: Choosing a Future

PERCEIVING DYNAMIC CONDITIONS

The Era of Relative Clarity

The Era of Growing Confusion

The Mismatch: Using Step-wise Strategies to Direct System-wide Change

REORIENTING PUBLIC HEALTH WORK

Shifting Perspectives

Seeing Health Protection as a Whole System

TRANSFORMING CONDITIONS

The Example of North Karelia

Anticipating Change

The System Dynamics Approach

Steps in SD Modeling

Simulation Modeling: Finding Plausible Futures for Diabetes Prevalence

Causal Mapping: A Dynamic Hypothesis on the Problem of Outside Assistance

Directing Change

REFLECTING ON PUBLIC. HEALTH. WORK

GLOSSARY

REFERENCES.

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[EQ] A Healthy, Productive Canada: A Determinant of Health Approach

A HEALTHY, PRODUCTIVE CANADA: A DETERMINANT OF HEALTH APPROACH

The Standing Senate Committee on Social Affairs, Science and Technology
Final Report of The Subcommittee on Population Health, June 2009

Available online as PDF file [59p.] at:

http://www.parl.gc.ca/40/2/parlbus/commbus/senate/com-e/popu-e/rep-e/rephealth1jun09-e.pdf

“…….This report is the culmination of a two-year study by the Subcommittee. This final report, which is the result of this consultation process, completes the Subcommittee’s journey. It contains recommendations that can be grouped into four categories:

A new style of governance: leadership from the top to develop and implement a population health policy at the federal, provincial, territorial and local levels with clear goals and targets and a health perspective to all new policies and programs.

The foundation: a sound population health data infrastructure coordinated by the Canadian Institute of Health Information and based on the Newfoundland and Labrador model of Community Accounts with appropriate linkages to the Electronic Health Records. Statistics Canada and relevant stakeholders will develop standards to ensure the protection, privacy and security of personal information. This database infrastructure will be combined with strong population health intervention research to inform public policy.

Building healthy communities: because the determinants of health play out at the local level, governments must draw upon and further reinforce the expertise and capacity of citizens to build the strong and inclusive communities that are required for a healthy and productive population. The Cuban polyclinics represent a promising model of intersectoral collaboration at the local level that could be adapted in some Canadian communities.

A priority focus on First Nations, Inuit and Métis peoples in the development and implementation of a pan-Canadian population health policy and the reduction of health disparities, working with existing leadership to meet current needs, celebrate unique cultures and create new opportunities for the future.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

FOREWORD

INTRODUCTION

PART I: POPULATION HEALTH AND HEALTH DISPARITIES

1. POPULATION HEALTH

2. FROM HEALTH CARE TO THE DETERMINANTS OF HEALTH

3. THE EXTENT OF HEALTH DISPARITIES

4. THE CASE FOR ACTION, THE COST OF INACTION

PART II: HEALTH PAYS OFF – ACT NOW

1. WHOLE-OF-GOVERNMENT APPROACH

1.1 A Question of Governance

1.2 The Need for a Vision

1.3 Interdepartmental Spending Review

1.4 A Health Lens in all Policies

2. DATABASE INFRASTRUCTURE

2.1 A Pan-Canadian System of Community Accounts

2.2 Population Health Intervention Research

3. ENGAGING COMMUNITIES

3.1 Improving Reporting Requirements

3.2 Longer-Term Funding

3.3 Community Data and Research

3.4 Coordinating or Integrating Services: Community Models that Work

4. ABORIGINAL POPULATION HEALTH

CONCLUSION

APPENDIX A

APPENDIX B

APPENDIX C .

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[EQ] The Australian Health Care System: The Potential for Efficiency Gains. A Review of the Literature

THE AUSTRALIAN HEALTH CARE SYSTEM: THE POTENTIAL FOR EFFICIENCY GAINS

A REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE

Emily Hurley, Ian McRae, Ian Bigg, Liz Stackhouse, Anne-Marie Boxall and Peter Broadhead

Background paper prepared for the National Health and Hospitals Reform Commission

Australia, June 2009

Available online PDF [66p.] at: http://bit.ly/qcUEM

“………..A key component of performance is efficiency. Other dimensions of performance include quality, effectiveness and equity. This paper reviews the available literature on the efficiency of the Australian health care system and the potential areas where gains might be made.

The reform directions proposed in the NHHRC’s Interim Report seek to improve efficiency in a variety of ways. These include:

1. Using activity-based funding to drive the efficient delivery of services and other key outputs in the health system, including clinical education;

2. Using economic assessments of the cost effectiveness of interventions to ensure funding goes to those interventions that will deliver the best outcomes for a given level of resources;

3. Performance-based payments to encourage the achievement of high quality outcomes; and

4. A rebalancing of the type of interventions delivered so that fewer people become ill and to ensure that when people need care they can receive the most appropriate service………..”

“…….In this paper, economic efficiency, or just ‘efficiency’, is defined as where nothing more can be achieved with the amount of resources available. Another way of looking at it is where more output of a given quality cannot be obtained without increasing the amount of inputs. At the same time, consideration is also given to its close relative, cost-effectiveness, or minimising the cost of producing a given outcome, noting that the specified outcome may not be an efficient use of resources, depending on other potential outcomes….”

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction

International overview of efficiency

Health status – due to more than the health care system

A framework for efficiency

Operational Efficiency

Health sub-sectors

Hospitals

Primary health care

Allied health care

Aged care services

Duplication of services

Inefficient processes

Overly expensive inputs

Health system errors – adverse events

Solutions for improving operational efficiency

Allocative efficiency

Preventive health

Primary health care

Sub-acute care

Paying for outcomes and performance

Health system governance

Administrative efficiency

Conclusion

Attachment A: Health care sector - Types of insurance/financing and delivery systems

Attachment B: Current Australian health system structure and financial flows

Glossary

References

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Monday, June 15, 2009

[EQ] WHO: Global status report on road safety

Global status report on road safety

World Health Organization Department of Violence & Injury Prevention & Disability (VIP) Geneva, Switzerland – June 2009

Full report

Summary

Chapters

Cover and front matter

Executive summary

Chapter 1: Background

Chapter 2: The need for a global assessment of road safety

Chapter 3: The state of road safety around the world

Chapter 4: Conclusions

References

Country profiles

Statistical annexes

[EQ] Hygeia's Constellation: Navigating Health Futures in a Dynamic and Democratic World

[EQ] A Healthy, Productive Canada: A Determinant of Health Approach

[EQ] The Australian Health Care System: The Potential for Efficiency Gains. A Review of the Literature

World Health Organization
Department of Violence & Injury Prevention & Disability (VIP)
Geneva, Switzerland – June 2009