Friday, June 25, 2010

[EQ] Social determinants of diabetes and challenges of prevention

Social determinants of diabetes and challenges of prevention

 

Nigel Unwin a, David Whiting b, Gojka Roglic c

The Lancet, Volume 375, Issue 9733, Pages 2204 - 2205, 26 June 2010
doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(10)60840-9


Website: http://bit.ly/dw1990


Since 2000, the prevalence of diabetes has doubled to around 285 million worldwide, and type 2 disease accounts for 90% of the diabetes burden.
A diabetes
themed issue of The Lancet brings together new research, review, and analysis.

 An Editorial comments: ‘……The fact that type 2 diabetes, a largely preventable disorder, has reached epidemic proportion is a public health humiliation. A strong, integrated, and imaginative response is required………’

Table of contents: http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/issue/current



 

 

 

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[EQ] The importance of government policies in reducing employment related health inequalities

The importance of government policies in reducing employment related health inequalities

…Efficient and fair employment and welfare state policies are needed to reduce employment related health inequalities explain Joan Benach and colleagues..

Joan Benach, director of the Health Inequalities Research Group (GREDS). Employment Conditions Knowledge Network (EMCONET)1,2, Carles Muntaner, professor of nursing1,3, Haejoo Chung, assistant professor1,3,4, Orielle Solar, undersecretary for public health1,5,6, Vilma Santana, associate professor7, Sharon Friel, associate professor8, Tanja AJ Houweling, senior research fellow 8, Michael Marmot, professor8

1 Health Inequalities Research Group (GREDS), Employment Conditions Knowledge Network (EMCONET), Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, Spain, 2 CIBER Epidemiología y Salud Pública (CIBERESP), Spain, 3 Bloomberg Faculty of Nursing and Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto, Canada, 4 Department of Healthcare Management, College of Health Sciences, Korea University, Republic of Korea, 5 Ministry of Health, Chile, 6 School of Public Heath. Universidad Mayor, Chile, 7 Institute of Collective Health, Federal University of Bahia, Brazil, 8 Department of Epidemiology and Public Health, University College London, United Kingdom
BMJ 2010;340:c2154 - 21 June 2010, doi:10.1136/bmj.c2154

Website: http://bit.ly/9GLI1T

 

“………..Globalisation has increased the inequality in working conditions across regions, countries, social groups, and occupations. It has also generated substantial social inequalities in health. Worldwide, about 1000 workers, mainly located in poor regions and countries, die every day because of unsafe working conditions, and an additional 5000 people die from work related diseases.4 5 In rich regions, such as the European Union, long established hazards at work—for example, exposure to chemical products, radiation, or vibrations—have remained stable or slightly decreased in the past decade.

 

Studies, however, report the increase of other hazards, such as work intensification and non-standard employment, and the strong links between these different hazards and health inequalities.

 

For example, working class people tend to be employed in jobs that have poor psychosocial working conditions, and large and persistent health inequalities exist.6 7  In middle and low income countries, most workers are employed in agriculture or manufacturing. They face heavy physical work, the risk of injury, and the risk of poisonings from pesticides and biological hazards. Workers are unequally exposed to hazardous working conditions within countries and as a result health inequalities vary across occupation, gender, ethnicity, migrant status, and other forms of social stratification………..”

 

 

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Thursday, June 24, 2010

[EQ] Tackling Chronic Disease in Europe - Strategies, interventions and challenges

Tackling Chronic Disease in Europe
Strategies, interventions and challenges

Reinhard Busse, Professor and Director of the Department of Health Care Management at the Berlin University of Technology, and Associate Head for Research Policy of the European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies.

Miriam Blümel, David Scheller-Kreinsen and Annette Zentner, research fellows at the Department of Health Care Management at the Berlin University of Technology.


World Health Organization 2010, on behalf of the European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies

Full text of the book [PDF 750KB - 127p.] at: http://bit.ly/afrk27

“……..Chronic conditions and diseases are the leading cause of mortality and morbidity in Europe, accounting for 86% of total premature deaths, and research suggests that complex conditions such as diabetes and depression will impose an even greater health burden in the future – and not only for the rich and elderly in high-income countries, but increasingly for the poor as well as low- and middle-income countries.

 

The epidemiologic and economic analyses in the first part of the book suggest that policy-makers should make chronic disease a priority.
This book highlights the issues and focuses on the strategies and interventions that policy-makers have at their disposal to tackle this increasing challenge.

 

Strategies discussed in the second part of this volume include
(1) prevention and early detection,
(2) new provider qualifications (e.g. nurse practitioners) and settings,
(3) disease management programmes and
(4) integrated care models.
But choosing the right strategies will be difficult, particularly given the limited evidence on effectiveness and cost/effectiveness.

 

In the third part, the book therefore outlines and discusses institutional and organizational challenges for policy-makers and managers:
(1) stimulating the development of new effective pharmaceuticals and medical devices,
(2) designing appropriate financial incentives,
(3) improving coordination,
(4) using information and communication technology, and
(5) ensuring evaluation.
To tackle these challenges successfully, key policy recommendations are made.

 


The European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies is a partnership between the World Health Organization Regional Office for Europe, the Governments of Belgium, Finland, Norway, Slovenia, Spain and Sweden, the Veneto Region of Italy, the European Investment Bank, the World Bank, the London School of Economics and Political Science and the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine.


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[EQ] Poverty Lines across the World

Poverty Lines across the World

Martin Ravallion

The World Bank - Development Research Group Director’s Office

Policy Research Working Paper 5284 - April 2010

Available online PDF [38p.] at: http://bit.ly/aO2sTz

 

“………..National poverty lines vary greatly across the world, from under $1 per person per day to over $40 (at 2005 purchasing power parity). What accounts for these huge differences, and can they be understood within a common global definition of poverty?

 

For all except the poorest countries, the absolute, nutrition-based, poverty lines found in practice tend to behave more like relative lines, in that they are higher for richer countries. Prevailing methods of setting absolute lines allow ample scope for such relativity, even when nutritional norms are common across countries.

 

Both macro data on poverty lines across the world and micro data on subjective perceptions of poverty are consistent with a weak form of relativity that combines absolute consumption needs with social-inclusion needs that are positive for the poorest but rise with a country’s mean consumption. The strong form of relativism favored by some developed countries -- whereby the line is set at a fixed proportion of the mean -- emerges as the limiting case for very rich countries….”

 

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[EQ] Millennium Development Goals Report 2010

Millennium Development Goals Report  2010

United Nations, New York June 23, 2010

Available online PDF [80p.] at: http://bit.ly/bmwAhK

The report is available in all UN languages. Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian and Spanish

The Millennium Development Goals Report 2010 was launched in New York by the Secretary-General on 23 June 2010. The report, which presents the yearly assessment of global progress towards the MDGs, warns that while some progress has been made, it is uneven. And it pinpoints the areas where the accelerated efforts are needed to meet MDGs by 2015.

 “…….The Millennium Declaration represents the most important promise ever made to the world’s most vulnerable people. The MDG framework for accountability derived from the Declaration has generated an unprecedented level of commitment and partnership in building decent, healthier lives for billions of people and in creating an environment that contributes to peace and security.

The Millennium Development Goals are still attainable. The critical question today is how to transform the pace of change from what we have seen over the last decade into dramatically faster progress. The experience of these last ten years offers ample evidence of what works and has provided tools that can help us achieve the MDGs by 2015. The Millennium Development Goals summit in September will be an opportunity for world leaders to translate this evidence into a concrete agenda for action….”

This report is based on a master set of data that has been compiled by an Inter-Agency and Expert Group on MDG Indicators led by the Department of Economic and Social Affairs of the United Nations Secretariat, in response to the wishes of the General Assembly for periodic assessment of progress towards the MDGs. The Group comprises representatives of the international organizations whose activities include the preparation of one or more of the series of statistical indicators that were identified as appropriate for monitoring progress towards the MDGs,

 

 

 

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Wednesday, June 23, 2010

[EQ] 10 best resources on: health workers in developing countries

10 best resources on: health workers in developing countries

Karen A Gre´pin 1 and William D Savedoff

1 Assistant Professor, Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service,  ew York University, New York, NY

2 Senior Partner, Social Insight, Portland, ME, USA.

Available online at: http://bit.ly/bHAveF

 

 

KEY MESSAGES

·          Until recently researchers and policymakers paid little attention to the role of health workers in developing countries but a new generation of studies are providing a fuller understanding of these issues using more sophisticated data and research tools.

·          Recent research highlights the value of viewing health workers as active agents in dynamic labour markets who are faced with many competing incentives and constraints.

·          Newer studies have provided greater insights into human resource requirements in health, the motivations and behaviours of health workers, and health worker migration. We are encouraged by the progress but believe there is a need for even more, and higher quality, research on this topic.

 

Our goal in this essay is not so much to present the ‘10 best’ resources on health workers, which would be presumptuous to say the least, but rather to introduce this new generation of research by highlighting a number of good research articles that demonstrate this trend.

 

These articles share a growing awareness that the number and quality of health workers engaged in health care services is influenced by more than government decisions about spending and deployment. They encompass the behaviour of private practitioners and nongovernmental organizations; people who seek health care; and health workers themselves as they make choices about their training, employment, location and work effort, all within a context defined by the broader labour market, politics and culture.

 

This is why recent research is often framed within the perspective of labour market analysis even if it emerges from fields like political science, sociology, anthropology, public administration and business management.

 

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