Global public health
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Displacement is a hallmark of modern humanitarian emergencies. Displacement itself is a traumatic event that can result in illness or death. Survivors face challenges including lack of adequate shelter, decreased access to health services, food insecurity, loss of livelihoods, social marginalisation as well as economic and sexual exploitation. ⋯ The following is a discussion of the health impacts of conflict and displacement in the Middle East. A review was conducted of published literature on migration and displacement in the region. Different cases are discussed with an emphasis on the recent, large-scale and urban displacement of Iraqis to illustrate aspects of displacement in this region.
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Global public health · Jan 2011
Collecting injury surveillance data in low- and middle-income countries: the Cape Town Trauma Registry pilot.
Injury is a major public health issue, responsible for 5 million deaths each year, equivalent to the total mortality caused by HIV, malaria and tuberculosis combined. The World Health Organisation estimates that of the total worldwide deaths due to injury, more than 90% occur in low- and middle-income countries (LMIC). Despite the burden of injury sustained by LMIC, there are few continuing injury surveillance systems for collection and analysis of injury data. ⋯ A pilot at Groote Schuur Hospital in Cape Town was conducted for one month to demonstrate the feasibility of systematic data collection and analysis, and to explore challenges of implementing a trauma registry in a LMIC. Key characteristics of the CTTR include: ability to calculate injury severity, key minimal data elements, expansion to include quality indicators and minimal drain on human resources based on few fields. The CTTR provides a strategy to describe the distribution and consequences of injury in a high trauma volume, low-resource environment.
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Global public health · Jan 2011
Historical ArticleMental health, social distress and political oppression: the case of the occupied Palestinian territory.
This paper presents a brief history of Palestinian mental health care, a discussion of the current status of mental health and health services in the occupied Palestinian territory, and a critique of the biomedical Western-led discourse as it relates to the mental health needs of Palestinians. Medicalising distress and providing psychological therapies for Palestinians offer little in the way of alleviating the underlying causes of ongoing collective trauma. ⋯ Recognising social suffering as a public mental health issue requires a shift in the emphasis from narrow medical indicators, injury and illness to the lack of human security and human rights violations experienced by ordinary Palestinians. Such a change in perspective requires a parallel change in mental health policies from short-term emergency humanitarian aid to the development of a sustainable system of public mental health services, in combination with advocacy for human rights and the restoration of political, historical and moral justice.
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The internally displaced persons (IDPs) during the July 2006 war in Lebanon exhibited a high level of community resilience, affirmed by relief agencies and public health professionals. Data from personal observations, interviews, meetings and published material were used to examine factors contributing to this resilience. ⋯ The sense of a collective identity, prior experience with wars and social support networks have contributed to building up IDP's resilience over time, while community cohesiveness, adequate public health interventions, social solidarity and a connected political leadership helped to sustain it during and shortly after the war. This paper examines implications for public health professionals and argues for a paradigm shift in disaster relief practice.
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Global public health · Jan 2011
Access to medicines and domestic compulsory licensing: learning from Canada and Thailand.
Within the array of measures for improving medicines access for the world's neediest populations, governments of many countries have turned to compulsory licensing, a statutory mechanism to enable third parties to manufacture a product or process still under patent. In this paper, we focus on a historic case example from Canada and the present example of Thailand's use of domestic compulsory licenses as a policy tool for ensuring public access to affordable medicines. The overarching objective is to draw out policy and legislative insights that may be of value for countries with pharmaceutical manufacturing capacity and which are considering better access to patented medicines for their populations under the current global intellectual property regime. From these cases, it is apparent that although compulsory licensing is not a novel remedy, even in a post-Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights environment, it remains a powerful policy tool in improving access to medicines in a variety of domestic settings.