THE government is poised to take the next step in implementing its ambitious National Health Insurance (NHI) plans, Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi promised MPs on Friday, reiterating the refrain by officials and ministers for the past three years. The ANC’s commitment to NHI is clearly articulated in the policy discussion documents it released earlier this month, but progress has been much slower than it anticipated when it published its Green Paper in August 2011, raising questions on the feasibility of its 14-year time line…..more

CHWs Address Community Needs and Demonstrate Patient-Centered Care

The Penn Center for Community Health Workers, based in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania, has a staff of 40 employees that are fully supported by the Penn Medicine Health System. The Center began as a collaboration between the Philadelphia community and Penn Medicine researchers. Most employees are CHWs and collectively  provide support to 1,500 vulnerable, high-risk patients in West and Southwest Philadelphia.

Using information from CHW-led in-depth patient interviews, the Center created the IMPaCT (Individualized Management towards Patient Centered Targets) model to address barriers to care. IMPaCT CHWs work with both patients and providers to set health goals and action plans for reaching them.

The Penn research team also identified historical limitations of CHW programs, that were systematically addressed in the IMPaCT model:

1.     To prevent high turnover, clear CHW hiring guidelines were developed

2.     To reduce the disjointed care that could arise from disease-specific interventions, patient-centered care is emphasized

3.     To ensure measurable results, the model is scientifically tested

4.     To promote cohesive patient care, the program is well integrated into a traditional healthcare system

5.     To improve CHW performance, specific work protocols were established

The model, tested in a randomized control trial of 446 patients, demonstrated higher quality hospital discharge communication, and fewer recurrent hospital readmissions. These and other results from ongoing randomized controlled trials were used in a business model that led to Penn Medicine’s creation of the Penn Center for CHWs in 2014.

The center also attempted to address the disconnect with physicians by partnering with the Perelman School of Medicine to create a medical student course called the IMPaCT teaching service. In the course, students shadow CHWs for four weeks in order to understand the various life issues affecting the patients they treat.  Along the way students learn a few CHW skills, from connecting patients to social services to motivational interviewing to deep listening.

Find the full blog on www.chwcentral.org

1. Kangovi S, Grande D,Trinh-Shevrin C. From Rhetoric to Reality-Community Health Workers in Post-Reform U.S. Health Care. New England Journal of Medicine) 06/2015; 372(24):2277-9. DOI: 10.1056/NEJMp1502569

2. Kangovi S, Mitra N, Grande D, et al. Patient-Centered Community Health Worker Intervention to Improve Posthospital Outcomes: A Randomized Clinical Trial. JAMA Intern Med. 2014;174(4):535-543. doi:10.1001/jamainternmed.2013.14327.

3. IMPaCT (Individualized Management for Patient-Centered Targets) Manuals, http://chw.upenn.edu/toolkit

Donna Bjerregaard

Senior Technical Advisor, Initiatives Inc.

264 Beacon Street, Boston, MA 02116

Tel:  617 262 0293 / Fax: 617 262 2514

www.initiativesinc.com / www.chwcentral.org

The Cochrane Systematic Reviews have plain language summaries. More details about these summaries are available at:

http://nnlm.gov/mcr/wysym2012/Cochrane%20Handout%202012.pdf

Vasumathi Sriganesh

QMed Knowledge Foundation

(Trust – Reg No: E-24663)

A-3, Shubham Centre, Cardinal Gracious Road

Chakala, Andheri East, Mumbai 400099

Tel: 91-22-40054474    Mob: +919867292230

Web: www.qmed.org.in   www.indianmedicalsites.in

I would like to highlight the Powerpoint presentation ‘Social Media for Research Communication’ by Anand Sheombar. You can view the presentation here:

http://www.slideshare.net/anandsheombar/social-media-for-research-communication

Below is an extract:

Benefits of Social Media for Research Communication

– promote your research and increase its visibility

– communicate directly and quickly with others who have an interest in your research

– develop new relationships and build networks

– reach new audiences, both within and outside academia

– seek and give advice and feedback

– generate ideas

– share information and links, e.g. journal articles and news items

– keep up-to-date with the latest news and developments, and forward it to others instantly – follow and contribute to discussions on events, e.g. conferences that you can’t get to in person – express who you are as a person. Source: Economic and Social Research Council

The author includes two particularly interesting slides:

Building Blocks of the Networked Scholar (Slide 9)

Suggestions for use of Social Media in Research Life Cycle (Slide 13)

Best wishes,

Neil

Let’s build a future where people are no longer dying for lack of healthcare knowledge – Join HIFA: www.hifa2015.org  

USAID’s flagship Maternal and Child Survival Program (MCSP) along with World Health Organization is excited to introduce our latest evidence brief, Postnatal Care for Mothers and Newborns.

This evidence brief provides highlights and key messages from World Health Organization’s 2013 Guidelines on postnatal care for mothers and newborns. These updated guidelines address the timing and content of postnatal care for mothers with a special focus on resource-limited settings in low- and middle-income countries. This brief is intended for policy-makers, programme managers, educators and providers who care for women and newborns after birth.

Find the brief here – http://bit.ly/1KrsU07

Full WHO recommendations here – http://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/10665/97603/1/9789241506649_eng.pdf?ua=1

Help us spread the word to others by sharing this email with your networks and sending out a message on social media. Here are a few sample messages that you and your organizations can use:

The postnatal period is a critical time for #MomandBaby. Learn more from @WHO’s Guidelines for PNC brief http://bit.ly/1KrsU07

Most maternal & infant deaths occur in 1st month after birth. See brief of @WHO’s Guidelines for PNC to learn more http://bit.ly/1KrsU07

See brief from @MCSPglobal highlighting KEY msgs from @WHO’s 2013 Guidelines on PNC for mothers & newborns http://bit.ly/1KrsU07

Please contact me if you have any additional questions. Apologies for any cross-posting.

Sincerely,

Jillian Rossman

Administrative Coordinator, Maternal and Child Survival Program, USAID Grantee

1776 Massachusetts Avenue, NW, Suite 300, Washington, DC 20036

tel: 202.835.3112 / skype: jillrossman / www.mcsprogram.org / Facebook | Twitter | YouTube | Flickr

From the American People

CITATION: Leeuwenburg TJ, Parker C.  Free open access medical education can help rural clinicians deliver ‘quality care, out there’. Rural and Remote Health 15: 3185. (Online) 2015. Available: http://www.rrh.org.au/articles/showarticlenew.asp?ArticleID=3185

ABSTRACT

Rural clinicians require expertise across a broad range of specialties, presenting difficulty in maintaining currency of knowledge and application of best practice. Free open access medical education is a new paradigm in continuing professional education. Use of the internet and social media allows a globally accessible crowd-sourced adjunct, providing inline (contextual) and offline (asynchronous) content to augment traditional educational principles and the availability of relevant resources for life-long learning. This markedly reduces knowledge translation (the delay from inception of a new idea to bedside implementation) and allows rural clinicians to further expertise by engaging in discussion of cutting edge concepts with peers worldwide.

EXTRACTS (selected by Neil PW)

‘Conceived in 2012, free open access medical education (FOAMed) is an evolving paradigm, which was initially enthusiastically adopted by emergency and critical care clinicians.

If you want to know how we practised medicine five years ago, read a textbook.

If you want to know how we practised medicine two years ago, read a journal.

If you want to know how we practise medicine now, go to a (good) conference.

If you want to know how we will practise medicine in the future, listen in the hallways and use FOAM.’

‘Social media use is gaining acceptance within medical education circles; FOAMed merely extends the paradigm to disseminate free information and encourage content creation, collation, curation and communication.’

—

Let’s build a future where people are no longer dying for lack of healthcare knowledge – Join HIFA: www.hifa2015.org  

I was encouraged to read this piece about SciELO and open access in Latin America. I have reproduced the text below (open access) or you can read direct online here:

https://thewinnower.com/papers/1670-open-access-in-latin-america-a-paragon-for-the-rest-of-the-world

Open Access in Latin America: a Paragon for the Rest of the World

Juan Pablo Alperin et al.

Latin America is one of the world’s most progressive regions in terms of open access and adoption of sustainable, cooperative models for disseminating research; models that ensure that researchers and citizens have access to the results of research conducted in their region.

SciELO is a remarkable decentralized publishing platform harboring over 1,200 peer-reviewed journals from fifteen countries located in four continents – South America. Central-North America, Europe and Africa. Redalyc, based in Mexico, is another extraordinary system hosting almost 1,000 journals from fourteen Latin American countries plus Spain and Portugal. Governments around the world spend billions of dollars on infrastructure to support research excellence; platforms such as SciELO and Redalyc are extensions of this much larger investments in research. They reflect an enlightened understanding in Latin America that the wide dissemination of and access to research results is as important as the research itself. The rest of the world would do well to take note.

In a recent blog post, these two initiatives were discredited by Jeffrey Beall. In the post, Beall compared the two publishing platforms to favelas, resulting in a mean-spirited insult to both favela dwellers on the one hand, and SciELO and Redalyc on the other. Rather than maligning these initiatives, they should be held up as examples of best practice for the rest of the world.

Furthermore, just because some in North America do not know about SciELO and Redalyc does not render them irrelevant. This is an extremely elitist and narrow view of the world. Although these platforms may not be well known in some places, SciELO and Redalyc do raise the visibility and accessibility of the journals they host, particularly with their local communities. If these journals were published by the big commercial publishers, the vast majority of researchers in Latin America would simply not have access to the articles in those journals. What value is visibility, if people cannot access the articles?

One of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, which were finalized on August 1, 2015, is to “Build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialization and foster innovation”. Both Scielo and Redalyc are excellent exemplars of this type of infrastructure. These types of networked meta-publishers allow for central governance of policies, procedures and controls, but are intentionally decentralized to support the development of local capacity and infrastructure ensuring greater sustainability and alignment with local policies and priorities. What Beall advocates for, namely to let powerful foreign players come in and take over local capacity building, is exactly the opposite of what sustainable development is about.

For these reasons, we believe that SciELO and Redalyc are very nice neighbourhoods indeed!

—

Let’s build a future where people are no longer dying for lack of healthcare knowledge – Join HIFA: www.hifa2015.org  

Microblogging tools such as Twitter provide powerful ways to share published research papers and other web content.

Twitter is easy to use and – unlike email – it needn’t add to your workload. A Twitter “feed” is like a stream you can step in an out of and, when you want to sail a little boat down that stream you send a tweet. You can simply write a short message, but it’s far more powerful if you include in your message a web link to some substantive content, eg a journal article or another web page.

You make the stream yourself by selecting (“following”) the Twitter accounts that interest you. 1000s of academic journals, health organisations, universities, news media, and individuals now have Twitter accounts. You can find them by searching on twitter or – more easily – by typing something like “Trish Groves BMJ twitter” into Google or another search engine.

You don’t have reply or respond to anyone if you don’t want to. Tweeters aren’t messaging you personally; they’re broadcasting. You can control how much you want to interact with Twitter, and you can decide what to watch, when to switch it on and off, and when to broadcast something yourself.

Here’s a broadcasting analogy that might help. Imagine you’re watching the news on TV and, at the bottom of the screen, there’s a running caption of headlines (sometimes called a “ticker”). When you see a headline that catches your attention, you click on it and the newsreader switches to that story. You may not have that kind of service on your TV (yet!), but I hope this helps to understand the concept of Twitter.

Two free resources about the uses of twitter in academia are:

Teaching Tips for academics

http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/files/2011/11/Published- Twitter_Guide_Sept_2011.pdf

A Powerpoint presentation by me, for early career health researchers:

http://www.slideshare.net/TrishGroves1/blogging-tweeting-sharing-your-work-to-reach-policy-makers

Best wishes

Trish (I’m @trished on Twitter if you’d like to follow me)

Dr Trish Groves

Head of Research, BMJ

& Editor-in-chief, BMJ Open

BMJ, BMA House, Tavistock Square, London, WC1H 9JR

T: 020 7383 6018

E: tgroves@bmj.com

W: bmj.com/company

twitter@trished

pinterest.com/trishedpin

How can we prevent the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals from failing?

July 30, 2015

James Patterson, Florian Koch, Kathryn Bowen

… the soon-to-be-adopted SDGs are likely to fail unless far more attention is given to addressing governance challenges crucial to their implementation.

In the broadest sense, governance refers to how societies make decisions and take action. It is about the mechanisms we use to work together in society to solve shared problems. For the SDGs, this involves considering how government, business, non-governmental organizations, civil society and researchers will work together.

Governance fundamentally underpins our ability to get things done in society yet there numerous failures in governance everywhere: weak safeguards in the global financial system, coups against elected national governments, the multi-decadal struggle to take global action to manage greenhouse gas emissions and climate change…

Three key challenges that urgently need to be addressed are:

First, how can we bring together the right stakeholders at the right time in the right place?

Sustainable development inherently involves many different stakeholders operating at many different scales, from national governments, to transnational corporations, to local and international NGOs, to small villages, and many more.

It can be tough to get the relevant stakeholders working together at the right time and place to solve complex poverty and sustainability problems… How do governments, the private sector, and communities interact… and how does this differ in different contexts? Just consider the differences between China and the United States or between countries across Africa…

Second, how do we make difficult trade-offs?…

Climate change (Goal 13) is a classic example. Those affected in the short term, such as fossil fuel companies and their workers, will perceive themselves as “losers” if they are forced to change, even though society as a whole will be a “winner” in the long-term by avoiding the tremendous risks and impacts of runaway climate change…

Achieving the SDGs will require national governments, the private sector, the nonprofit sector, and communities to make difficult decisions based on thoughtful and genuine commitment to the SDGs. Unless there is a strong willingness to do so, the SDGs risk being relegated to the ‘too hard’ basket.

Third, how do we build in accountability for action?

… we need powerful ways of feeding this information back into the policy and political arena to hold responsible stakeholders to account. This chiefly includes governments, but also other key stakeholders in the private sector, NGOs, and even civil society. If we don’t create these sorts of ‘feedback loops’ to hold each other to account, how will we make sure that the SDGs are actually being implemented?

So after September when the dust settles and the ink dries on the SDGs, the job has really only just begun.

This article emerged from discussions at a recent international scientific meeting on the role of science and the Sustainable Development Goals, and was written collaboratively by the co-authors listed as well as the following contributors: Dr. Jess Vogt (DePaul University, USA), Dr. Nick Cradock-Henry (Landcare Research, New Zealand), Dr. Tiina Häyhä (Stockholm Resilience Centre, Sweden and PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency, The Netherlands), Dr. El Mostafa Jamea (MENA Renewables and Sustainability Institute, Morocco), and Dr. Fabiana Barbi (University of Campinas, Brazil).

—

Best wishes, Neil

Let’s build a future where people are no longer dying for lack of healthcare knowledge – Join HIFA: www.hifa2015.org  

Many authors do not pay much attention to the terms of the agreements they sign with publishers.

As a librarian working with an international collaboration, I have often been surprised to find that a request for a copy of an article is for the use of the author herself/himself!   Previously, authors were routinely provided with several copies of the published article.  Now that is often not the case, and the author must purchase reprints (including electronic reprints).  If the author’s institutional library does not have a subscription to the journal, even that option is closed.

I am not denying that journals provide valuable effort and resources in the publishing and scholarly communication process.  However, not providing the author with a copy of the article seems to border the immoral.

Authors do have choices.  Those on this list who work with researchers on journal selection, or publish themselves, should consider this factor in making the decision as to what journal to publish in.  If journals are not selected, it may be worth a short note to the editor describing the decision not to submit to his/her journal.

A classic article on the subject:  Ted Bergstrom’s “Free Labor for Costly Journals?”

http://escholarship.org/uc/item/1wf0r099#page-1

It is more than 10 years old, but we’re still working on a solution!

Best wishes,

Pam Sieving

Save the Children, UNHCR and UNICEF, on behalf of the IATT to address HIV in humanitarian settings are pleased to share with you two new resources on prevention of mother-to-child transmission (PMTCT) in humanitarian settings:

1)  PMTCT in humanitarian settings: lessons learned and recommendations: Part 1

http://www.emtct-iatt.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/PART-I_PMTCT-in-Humanitarian-Settings-7-July-2015.pdf

2)  PMTCT in humanitarian settings: implementation guide: Part 2

http://www.emtct-iatt.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/PART-II_PMTCT-in-Humanitarian-Settings-7-July-2015.pdf

The first document is a synthesis of experiences from the field, based on a systematic literature review, existing guidelines and grey literature on PMTCT programming in humanitarian action. Over 50 key informant interviews were held with United Nations and Non-governmental Organization representatives with experience developing policies and implementing PMTCT programmes in humanitarian settings.

The second document is a practical series of tools based on Part I developed to improve the implementation of PMTCT services in humanitarian settings but which can be adapted to different contexts. The guide focuses on PMTCT health service delivery including preparedness actions for shocks, and on continuation, or where possible initiation, of ART during the PMTCT risk period or for life.

Many thanks to all of you who helped to contribute to the documents. We recognize that there is more to be learned and we need to learn from each other. Please do help to continue the discussion on PMTCT in humanitarian settings so that we can promote the integration of this guidance  into the way we implement regular programmes.

– What platforms have you used to implement PMTCT services in emergencies? What were some successes? Some challenges? What components from your development programme did you continue which enabled you to continue your programme? What did you need to change or adapt?

– Have emergencies, or preparing for emergencies, provided opportunities to integrate HIV services into broader health services? How so? What more needs to done?

We look forward to hearing from you.

Warm regards,

Sarah Karmin (UNICEF), Alice Fay (Save the Children), and Elizabeth Tarney (UNHCR) on behalf of the IATT on HIV and Emergencies

I thought that this story may interest members. It raises a number of interesting questions, including the medical information etc that will be provided with the drugs, especially if custom made.

http://www.theguardian.com/science/2015/aug/04/fda-first-prescription-drug-3d-printing

Two short extracts from the article:

“The Food and Drug Administration has approved the first prescription drug made through 3D printing: a dissolvable tablet that treats seizures.”

“Doctors are increasingly turning to 3D printing to create customized implants for patients with rare conditions and injuries, including children who cannot be treated with adult-size devices. The FDA held a workshop last year for medical manufacturers interested in the technology.”

“The first 3D-printed pill opens up a world of downloadable medicine” – from the Guardian newspaper

http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/architecture-design-blog/2015/aug/05/the-first-3d-printed-pill-opens-up-a-world-of-downloadable-medicine

HIFA profile: Julie N Reza is a writer, editor and consultant specialising in global healthcare and related fields (www.globalbiomedia.com).

The 2030 agenda that was approved this week has “Ensure public access to information and protect fundamental freedoms, in accordance with national legislation and international agreements”.

The new 2030 Agenda is a framework of 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) with a total of 179 Targets spanning economic, environmental and social development. They lay out a plan for all countries to actively engage in making our world better for its people and the planet https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/content/documents/7891TRANSFORMING%20OUR%20WORLD.pdf

The 2030 Agenda includes access to information, universal literacy, safeguarding of cultural and natural heritage, as well as access to Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) being strongly represented across the agenda. Target 16.10 strongly stipulates “Ensure public access to information and protect fundamental freedoms, in accordance with national legislation and international agreements”

Health is very much present in the agenda as the whole of Goal 3. “Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages” is there in addition to the extensive links between health and other targets in the agenda. WHO has just published its Global Reference List of 100 Core Health Indicators, 2015 http://www.who.int/healthinfo/indicators/2015/en/ .

The 2030 Agenda will help all UN Member States focus their attention on poverty eradication, climate change, and the development of people. It is clear that libraries, information services, ICTs and all other information infrastrcutre faciities, services and plocies will contribute to this agenda.

The official version of the post-2015 Development Agenda will be adopted by Heads of State at the United Nations Summit in New York, September 25-27 2015.

Kind regards.

Najeeb Al-Shorbaji

Director, Knowledge, Ethics and Research

World Health Organization,

20 Avenue Appia

Geneva 27,

there are guidelines and checklists available to help researchers to write abstracts for journal articles and conference papers including:

PRISMA for Abstracts: Reporting Systematic Reviews in Journal and Conference Abstracts

http://www.equator-network.org/reporting-guidelines/prisma-abstracts/

CONSORT for reporting randomised trials in journal and conference abstracts

http://www.equator-network.org/reporting-guidelines/consort-abstracts/

Draft STROBE checklist for reporting observational study conference abstracts

http://www.equator-network.org/reporting-guidelines/strobe-abstracts/

There are many other reporting guidelines available to help researchers to write up their studies and these can be accessed through the EQUATOR Network website at: http://www.equator-network.org/reporting-guidelines/

I am an Information Specialist/Librarian working with the EQUATOR Network and we are always happy to help – please do get in touch if you would like more information about the different reporting guidelines available for writing up health research studies.

With best wishes,

Shona Kirtley

EQUATOR Knowledge and Information Manager|Senior Research Information Specialist

In recognition of the importance of breastfeeding for newborn lives, Global Health Media Project has produced a new set of videos designed to help breastfeeding mothers. The videos are being released over the course of this week to mark and support World Breastfeeding Week.

Breastfeeding is a skill that is learned most effectively by “seeing and doing”.  The power of visuals is vitally important for mothers learning how to breastfeed.  Our nine new videos—narrated in English, French, Spanish, and (soon) Swahili—will help mothers by providing practical information on “how to” skills and problem management.

The videos are intended primarily for mothers in the developing world, but may be helpful for breastfeeding mothers worldwide. The topics are: Breastfeeding in the First Hours After Birth Positions for Breastfeeding, Attaching Your Baby at the Breast, Is Your Baby Getting Enough Milk, Increasing Your Milk Supply, How to Express Breastmilk, Storing Breastmilk Safely, What to Do About Breast Pain, and What To Do About Nipple Pain. They can be viewed on-line as well as downloaded free-of-charge in several sizes through this link: http://globalhealthmedia.org/videos/breastfeeding/

Thanks and kind regards,

Deb

Deborah Van Dyke, Director

Global Health Media Project

802-496-7556

UN Concludes Post-2015 Negotiations in New York

On Sunday 2nd August, after more than three years of negotiations and intense involvement from many stakeholders, including IFLA, the Member States of the United Nations agreed the final version of the post-2015 Development Agenda – now known as 2030 Agenda.

The new 2030 Agenda is a framework of 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) with a total of 179 Targets spanning economic, environmental and social development. They lay out a plan for all countries to actively engage in making our world better for its people and the planet.

IFLA welcomes the 2030 Agenda and is pleased to see access to information, universal literacy, safeguarding of cultural and natural heritage, as well as access to Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) strongly represented across it. We are particularly pleased to the see the strong mention of access to information in Target16.10:

“Ensure public access to information and protect fundamental freedoms, in accordance with national legislation and international agreements”

The new vision

The 2030 Agenda will help all UN Member States focus their attention on poverty eradication, climate change, and the development of people. Libraries can support many aspects of its vision and the supporting SDGs. Libraries are key public institutions which have a vital role to play in furthering development on every level of society.

The Agenda also creates a UN Interagency Task Force on Science Technology and Innovation. The Task Force will look at information and technology transfer mechanisms world-wide and collect these in one place to ensure access to information, knowledge, best practises and lessons learned are available to all. IFLA welcomes the creation of this task force, and will continue our advocacy to ensure our views and the expertise of the information community are taken to account in its creation.

Outstanding concerns

All Member States have agreed to the new Agenda, however follow-up is voluntary and the Agenda represents political rather than legal commitments.

Furthermore, IFLA would like to stress the importance of integrating the results and ongoing achievements of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) within the Means of Implementation of the new Agenda.

What is next?

Leading up to the UN Summit to launch the new development 2030 Agenda in September 2015, IFLA will work on a detailed analysis of the SDGs and provide information on how libraries can contribute to reaching them.

We will also actively participate in monitoring the progress made on the access to information target (Target16.10), other relevant targets, and ensure appropriate data regarding libraries as access points will be included. We will publish a Development and Access to Information (DA2I) report which furthermore will strengthen the monitoring of the impact of access to information on the SDGs.

The 2030 Agenda will be implemented at national levels. We would like to encourage you to continue your active work in engaging with your governments and their National Development Plans and ensure libraries, as information, skills and ICT providers as well as agents to safeguard cultural heritage, are represented in these.

The official version of the post-2015 Development Agenda will be adopted by Heads of State upon during the United Nations Summit in New York, September 25-27 2015. IFLA will continue to raise awareness during the Summit for access to information and the essential role libraries play in fulfilling this.

Thanks to you

IFLA together with you, our network, and the signatories of the Lyon Declaration we advocated and promoted access to information as an essential aspect to ensure the success of the post-2015 Development Agenda. The hard work done by all of us means that the new framework offers libraries a great opportunity to help fulfil their country’s National Development Plans by showing how their activities and skills can support the newly established SDGs – now we must rise to the challenge and prove that libraries are crucial partners for sustainable development.

Please also see the webversion.

Julia Brungs

Policy and Projects Officer

International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA)

P.O. Box 95312

2509 CH The Hague

Netherlands

Phone: 0031703140884

Email: Julia.brungs@ifla.org

—

Let’s build a future where people are no longer dying for lack of healthcare knowledge – Join HIFA: www.hifa2015.org

‘Emergency facilities in LMICs serve a large, young patient population with high levels of critical illnesses and mortality. This suggests that emergency care should be a global health priority.’ This is the conclusion of a systematic review in the August 2015 issue of the WHO Bulletin. The citation and abstract are shown below, and the full text is available here:

http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/93/8/14-148338/en/

I would be interested to hear from HIFA members about the quality of health care provided in emergency departments in LMICs, and how it might be improved.

CITATION: Emergency care in 59 low- and middle-income countries: a systematic review

Ziad Obermeyer, Samer Abujaber, Maggie Makar, Samantha Stoll, Stephanie R Kayden, Lee A Wallis, Teri A Reynolds & on behalf of the Acute Care Development Consortium

Bulletin of the World Health Organization Past issues Volume 93: 2015 Volume 93, Number 8, August 2015, 513-588

ABSTRACT

Objective: To conduct a systematic review of emergency care in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs).

Methods: We searched PubMed, CINAHL and World Health Organization (WHO) databases for reports describing facility-based emergency care and obtained unpublished data from a network of clinicians and researchers. We screened articles for inclusion based on their titles and abstracts in English or French. We extracted data on patient outcomes and demographics as well as facility and provider characteristics. Analyses were restricted to reports published from 1990 onwards.

Findings: We identified 195 reports concerning 192 facilities in 59 countries. Most were academically-affiliated hospitals in urban areas. The median mortality within emergency departments was 1.8% (interquartile range, IQR: 0.2–5.1%). Mortality was relatively high in paediatric facilities (median: 4.8%; IQR: 2.3–8.4%) and in sub-Saharan Africa (median: 3.4%; IQR: 0.5–6.3%). The median number of patients was 30 000 per year (IQR: 10 296–60 000), most of whom were young (median age: 35 years; IQR: 6.9–41.0) and male (median: 55.7%; IQR: 50.0–59.2%). Most facilities were staffed either by physicians-in-training or by physicians whose level of training was unspecified. Very few of these providers had specialist training in emergency care.

Conclusion: Available data on emergency care in LMICs indicate high patient loads and mortality, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, where a substantial proportion of all deaths may occur in emergency departments. The combination of high volume and the urgency of treatment make emergency care an important area of focus for interventions aimed at reducing mortality in these settings.

—

Let’s build a future where people are no longer dying for lack of healthcare knowledge – Join HIFA: www.hifa2015.org  

‘In countries with low contraceptive prevalence, programs should seek to identify ways to correct prevailing myths and rumors, increase contraceptive awareness, and promote positive social interactions around contraceptive use.’ This is one of the main conclusions of a new paper in Demographic Research. Below is the citation, abstract, and URL to full text (free).

I would be interested to learn more about myths and rumours, and whether/how these can be addressed in different contexts. Beliefs identified in this paper include:

– use of contraceptive injection can make a woman sterile

– people who use contraception end up with health problems 0.688 0.701

– contraceptives can harm your womb

– contraceptives reduce women’s sexual urge

– contraceptives can cause cancer

– contraceptives can give you deformed babies

– contraceptives are dangerous to your health

– women who use FP may become promiscuous.

CITATION: Ideation and intention to use contraceptives in Kenya and Nigeria

Stella Babalola, Neetu John, Bolanle Ajao, Ilene S. Speizer.

Demographic Research: Volume 33, Article 8

Corresponding author: sbabalol@jhusph.edu

http://www.demographic-research.org/volumes/vol33/8/33-8.pdf

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND: Contraceptive use remains low to moderate in most African countries. Ideation, or the ideas and views that people hold, has been advanced as a possible explanation for differences in contraceptive use within and across countries.

OBJECTIVES: In this paper, we sought to identify the relevant dimensions of ideation and assess how these dimensions relate to contraceptive use intentions in two illustrative countries, Kenya and Nigeria.

METHODS: Using factor analysis, we first identified the relevant dimensions of ideation from a set of cognitive, emotional, and social interaction items. Subsequently, we examined the relationships of these dimensions with intention to use contraceptives.

RESULTS: The data revealed four dimensions of contraceptive ideation in both countries: perceived self-efficacy, myths and rumors related to contraceptives, social interactions and influence, and contraceptive awareness. All four dimensions of ideation are strongly associated with contraceptive use intention in Nigeria. Only perceived self-efficacy [confidence in one’s ability to act] was significantly associated with contraceptive use intention in Kenya.

CONCLUSION: The ideation model is relevant for contraceptive use research and programing. Programs seeking to increase contraceptive use and help women to attain their desired family size should prioritize promotion of contraceptive self-efficacy. In addition, in countries with low contraceptive prevalence, programs should seek to identify ways to correct prevailing myths and rumors, increase contraceptive awareness, and promote positive social interactions around contraceptive use.

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Let’s build a future where people are no longer dying for lack of healthcare knowledge – Join HIFA: www.hifa2015.org  

Below are the citation and abstract of a recently published open access article. One particularly significant finding was that ‘The most common reason given for never using …[journal databases or electronic books]… was that they were ‘Not available/difficult to get’ or ‘Difficult to understand’.

MUINGA, Naomi et al. Access to and value of information to support good practice for staff in Kenyan hospitals. Global Health Action, [S.l.], v. 8, may. 2015. ISSN 1654-9880. Available at: http://www.globalhealthaction.net/index.php/gha/article/view/26559  Date accessed: 26 Jul. 2015. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.3402/gha.v8.26559.

ABSTRACT

Background: Studies have sought to define information needs of health workers within very specific settings or projects. Lacking in the literature is how hospitals in low-income settings are able to meet the information needs of their staff and the use of information communication technologies (ICT) in day-to-day information searching.

Objective: The study aimed to explore where professionals in Kenyan hospitals turn to for work-related information in their day-to-day work. Additionally, it examined what existing solutions are provided by hospitals with regard to provision of best practice care. Lastly, the study explored the use of ICT in information searching.

Design: Data for this study were collected in July 2012. Self-administered questionnaires (SAQs) were distributed across 22 study hospitals with an aim to get a response from 34 health workers per hospital.

Results: SAQs were collected from 657 health workers. The most popular sources of information to guide work were fellow health workers and printed guidelines while the least popular were scientific journals. Of value to health workers were: national treatment policies, new research findings, regular reports from surveillance data, information on costs of services and information on their performance of routine clinical tasks; however, hospitals only partially met these needs. Barriers to accessing information sources included: ‘not available/difficult to get’ and ‘difficult to understand’. ICT use for information seeking was reported and with demographic specific differences noted from the multivariate logistic regression model; nurses compared to medical doctors and older workers were less likely to use ICT for health information searching. Barriers to accessing Internet were identified as: high costs and the lack of the service at home or at work.

Conclusions: Hospitals need to provide appropriate information by improving information dissemination efforts and providing an enabling environment that allows health workers find the information they need for best practice.

HIFA profile: Malcolm Brewster is a Community Nurse with the National Health Service, UK. Professional interests: Chronic disease, community nursing, medical anthropology, health care in Africa. Email address: malcolmbrewster AT yahoo.com

‘WHO Director for Africa Matshidiso Moeti, who was on a three-day visit to Zambia, said that funding to health systems in Africa is still below the required threshold, adding that both national governments and cooperating partners should ensure that this is increased… ‘She also said that The United Nations health agency has come up with guidelines that countries could use to embrace herbal medicines so that medicines are integrated in national healthcare delivery systems….’ read the full article here: http://www.africa-health.com/articles/july_2015/News.pdf