Health Equity: 01/18/11

Tuesday, January 18, 2011

[EQ] World health inequality: Convergence, divergence, and development

World health inequality: Convergence, divergence, and development

Rob Clark, Department of Sociology, University of Oklahoma, USA
Social Science & Medicine (2011), doi:10.1016/j.socscimed.2010.12.008

Website: http://bit.ly/fT7oxe

“…….Recent studies characterize the last half of the twentieth century as an era of cross-national health convergence, with some attributing welfare gains in the developing world to economic growth.

In this study, I examine the extent to which welfare outcomes have actually converged and the extent to which economic development is responsible for the observed trends. Drawing from estimates covering 195 nations during the 1955-2005 period, I find that life expectancy averages converged during this time, but that infant mortality rates continuously diverged. I develop a narrative that implicates economic development in these contrasting trends, suggesting that health outcomes follow a “welfare Kuznets curve”.

” Among poor countries, economic development improves life expectancy more than it reduces infant mortality, whereas the situation is reversed among wealthier nations. In this way, development has contributed to both convergence in life expectancy and divergence in infant mortality. Drawing from 674 observations across 163 countries during the 1980e2005 period, I find that the positive effect of GDP PC on life expectancy attenuates at higher levels of development, while the negative effect of GDP PC on infant mortality grows stronger…..”

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[EQ] A checklist for health research priority setting: nine common themes of good practice

A checklist for health research priority setting: nine common themes of good practice

Roderik F Viergever1, Sylvie Olifson2, Abdul Ghaffar3, Robert F Terry4*
1 Department of Public Health, Innovation and Intellectual Property (PHI), World Health Organization (WHO), Geneva, Switzerland
2 Global Forum for Health Research, Geneva, Switzerland
3 Alliance for Health Policy and Systems Research, World Health Organization (WHO), Geneva, Switzerland
4 WHO strategy on research for health, Department of Research Policy and Cooperation (RPC), World Health Organization (WHO), Geneva, Switzerland

Health Research Policy and Systems 2010, 8:36doi:10.1186/1478-4505-8-36 -15 December 2010

Available online at: http://bit.ly/dQYuf4

“……Health research priority setting processes assist researchers and policymakers in effectively targeting research that has the greatest potential public health benefit. Many different approaches to health research prioritization exist, but there is no agreement on what might constitute best practice. Moreover, because of the many different contexts for which priorities can be set, attempting to produce one best practice is in fact not appropriate, as the optimal approach varies per exercise.

Therefore, following a literature review and an analysis of health research priority setting exercises that were organized or coordinated by the World Health Organization since 2005, we propose a checklist for health research priority setting that allows for informed choices on different approaches and outlines nine common themes of good practice. It is intended to provide generic assistance for planning health research prioritization processes.

The checklist explains what needs to be clarified in order to establish the context for which priorities are set; it reviews available approaches to health research priority setting; it offers discussions on stakeholder participation and information gathering; it sets out options for use of criteria and different methods for deciding upon priorities; and it emphasizes the importance of well-planned implementation, evaluation and transparency…”





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[EQ] ISEqH: International Conference: Making Policy a Health Equity Building Process

International Society for Equity in Health- ISEqH- Call for Submissions

6th International Conference: Making Policy a Health Equity Building Process

Cartagena de Indias, Colombia - September 26-28, 2011

Website: http://bit.ly/gzVkTf

Equity is an important issue to champion for, and is far for been overcome by governments, international or global institution, or academia. However nobody disagrees with it because is too broad. We would like to provide more detail, be more specific and, at the same time, offer a multi disciplinary look. Following this, we intend to “qualify” equity, defining a series of key topics:

• Inequity in access to essential drugs
• Inequity in access to high cost treatments
• Inequity in access to primary health care
• Inequity in the process of health care provision
• Sexual and reproductive health and equity

• Financially catastrophic out of pocket expenditures in health

• Community Participants and health equity

• Quality assurance and its impact to equity
• Communication campaigns, advocacy and health
• Equity to care in different health systems and the impact on equity of Health reforms (decentralization, primary health care strategies, georeference).
• Impact evaluation of health programs and health promotion interventions
• Environment, water, sanitation and inequity in health status and treatment

Equity is not only a research issue. It requires an interdisciplinary approach and a research & policy partnership showing clear experiences about how to reach equity in health. Therefore, we identify certain arenas where research and policymaking interact:

i- Political economy of health reforms
ii- Program evaluation
iii- Governance





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