Global public health
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Global public health · Jul 2018
The Syrian public health and humanitarian crisis: A 'displacement' in global governance?
Ongoing failure by the international community to resolve the Syrian conflict has led to destruction of critical infrastructure. This includes the collapse of the Syrian health system, leaving millions of internally displaced persons (IDPs) in urgent need of healthcare services. As the conflict intensifies, IDP populations are suffering from infectious and non-communicable disease risks, poor maternal and child health outcomes, trauma, and mental health issues, while healthcare workers continually exit the country. ⋯ Though the fundamental 'right to health' is a recognised international legal principle, its application is inadequate due to limited recognition by the UN Security Council and stymied global governance by the broader international community. These factors have also negatively impacted other vulnerable groups other than IDPs, such as refugees and ethnic minorities, who may or may not be displaced. Hence, this article reviews the current Syrian conflict, assesses challenges with local and global governance for IDPs, and explores potential governance solutions needed to address this health and humanitarian crisis.
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Global public health · May 2018
Community-based reports of morbidity, mortality, and health-seeking behaviours in four Monrovia communities during the West African Ebola epidemic.
The goal of this study was to assess morbidity, mortality, and health-seeking behaviours during the 2014 Ebola outbreak in Monrovia, Liberia. This study examined commonly reported symptoms of illness, pre-clinical diagnostic practices, typical healthcare-seeking strategies, and health resources available to populations, in order to identify salient needs and gaps in healthcare that would inform local emergency response efforts. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with household members in four Monrovia neighbourhoods. ⋯ Findings suggest that non-formal healthcare systems played an important role in managing morbidity during the West African Ebola virus disease (EVD) outbreak. Lay community members engaged in complex assessments of health symptoms and sought biomedical care at rates perhaps higher than anticipated during the response. This study highlights how informal networks of healthcare providers can play an important role in preventing and curbing future emerging disease outbreaks.
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Global public health · Mar 2018
'Exotic no more': Tuberculosis, public debt and global health in Berlin.
Geographical divisions between North and South are coming increasingly undone in the field of global health. Settings in the global North, such as Berlin, are becoming linked up to those in the global South in manifold ways. ⋯ Such processes of indebtedness and privatisation render the strong public health infrastructures that characterise the global North increasingly fragile, and are comparable to the structural adjustment policies that have been imposed upon countries in the global South. I argue that economic processes of austerity in Berlin complement the meaning of TB as an immigrants' disease, while older meanings of TB as a disease of poverty resurface.
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Global public health · Jan 2018
Comparative StudyReassessing policy paradigms: A comparison of the global tobacco and alcohol industries.
Tobacco is widely considered to be a uniquely harmful product for human health. Since the mid-1990s, the strategies of transnational tobacco corporations to undermine effective tobacco control policy has been extensively documented through internal industry documents. ⋯ This article examines whether there is a sufficient rationale for such different regulatory approaches, through a comparative analysis of the political economy of the tobacco and alcohol industries including the structure of the industries, and the market and political strategies they pursue. Despite some important differences, the extensive similarities which exist between the tobacco and alcohol industries in terms of market structure and strategy, and political strategy, call into question the rationale for both the relatively weak regulatory approach taken towards alcohol, and the continued participation of alcohol corporations in policy-making processes.
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Global public health · Jan 2018
Comparative StudyFraming post-pandemic preparedness: Comparing eight European plans.
Framing has previously been studied in the field of pandemic preparedness and global health governance and influenza pandemics have usually been framed in terms of security and evidence-based medicine on a global scale. This paper is based on the pandemic preparedness plans, published after 2009, from eight European countries. ⋯ These themes were all framed differently in the studied plans. The preparedness plans in the member states diverge in ways that will challenge the ambition of the European Union to make the pandemic preparedness plans interoperable and to co-ordinate the member states during future pandemics.