The World Health Organization (WHO), like many other organisations around the world, has recognised the need to use more rigorous processes to ensure that health care recommendations are informed by the best available research evidence. This is the sixth of a series of 16 reviews that have been prepared as background for advice from the WHO Advisory Committee on Health Research to WHO on how to achieve this.
Monitoring equity and research policy
Improving the use of research evidence in guideline development: 6. Determining which outcomes are important
Fretheim A , Schünemann A, Oxman AD: Health Research Policy and Systems 4:18, 1 December 2006
Improving the use of research evidence in guideline development: 7. Deciding what evidence to include
Fretheim A , Schünemann A, Oxman AD: Health Research Policy and Systems 4:19, 1 December 2006
The World Health Organization (WHO), like many other organisations around the world, has recognised the need to use more rigorous processes to ensure that health care recommendations are informed by the best available research evidence. This is the seventh of a series of 16 reviews that have been prepared as background for advice from the WHO Advisory Committee on Health Research to WHO on how to achieve this.
Improving the use of research evidence in guideline development: 8. Synthesis and presentation of evidence
Fretheim A , Schünemann A, Oxman AD: Health Research Policy and Systems 4:20, 1 December 2006
The World Health Organization (WHO), like many other organisations around the world, has recognised the need to use more rigorous processes to ensure that health care recommendations are informed by the best available research evidence. This is the eighth of a series of 16 reviews that have been prepared as background for advice from the WHO Advisory Committee on Health Research to WHO on how to achieve this.
Improving the use of research evidence in guideline development: 9. Grading evidence and recommendations
Fretheim A , Schünemann A, Oxman AD: Health Research Policy and Systems 4:21, 5 December 2006
The World Health Organization (WHO), like many other organisations around the world, has recognised the need to use more rigorous processes to ensure that health care recommendations are informed by the best available research evidence. This is the ninth of a series of 16 reviews that have been prepared as background for advice from the WHO Advisory Committee on Health Research to WHO on how to achieve this.
Levels and trends of demographic indices in southern rural Mozambique: evidence from demographic surveillance in Manhiça district
Nhacolo AQ, Nhalungo DA, Sacoor CN, Aponte JJ, Thompson R, Alonso P: BMC Public Health 6: 291, 30 November 2006
In Mozambique most of demographic data are obtained using census or sample survey including indirect estimations. A method of collecting longitudinal demographic data was introduced in southern Mozambique since 1996 (DSS -Demographic Surveillance System in Manhiça district, Maputo province), but the extent to which it yields demographic measures that are typical of southern rural Mozambique has not been evaluated yet.
The meaning and measurement of acute malnutrition in emergencies
Humanitarian Practice Network Paper 56, November 2006
The recent humanitarian reform agenda, which aims to make the humanitarian system more accountable, has led to a surge in interest in acute malnutrition as an indicator of humanitarian crisis. WHO and UNICEF, as UN cluster leads in health and nutrition, have put forward a proposal for a ‘Humanitarian Health and Nutrition Tracking Service’to help track humanitarian outcomes and performance on request from the Inter-Agency Standing Committee. This is not only a technical challenge, but also an institutional one, as it is often institutional constraints that hamper the implementation of, and response to, nutrition surveys. This paper seeks to link the technical issues with a more pragmatic understanding of the institutional constraints to collecting and using information.
Global health inequalities: An international comparison
Ruger JP, Kim H: Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health 60 (11) 928-936, 2006
The objective of this study was to study cross-national inequalities in mortality of adults and of children aged 4 times the rate in countries with low mortality. For child mortality, the worse-off group made slower progress in reducing <5 mortality than the better-off group. The study concludes that inequalities in child and adult mortality are large, are growing, and are related to several economic, social and health sector variables.
The United Nations Process Indicators for emergency obstetric care
Paxton A, Bailey P, Lobis S: International Journal of Gynecology and Obstetrics 95 (2) 192-208, 2006
The paper reviews the experience with the emergency obstetric care (EmOC) process indicators, and evaluates whether the indicators serve the purposes for which they were originally created – to gather and interpret relatively accessible data to design and implement EmOC service programs. The authors conclude that The EmOC process indicators have been used successfully in a wide variety of settings. They describe vital elements of the health system and how well that system is functioning for women at risk of dying from major obstetric complications.
Burden of disease analyses in developing countries: Implications for health system policy, planning and management
Global Health Forum for Health Research
Methods to measure the burden of disease (BOD) on populations have been applied for decades, but have only received increasing attention in the past twenty years. During this period of time, a number of concerns have been raised with the use of summary measures of population health. This report summarises the lessons learned from seven BOD studies funded by the Global Forum for Health Research.
Delivering on the MDGs: Equity and maternal health in Ghana, Ethiopia and Kenya
Wirth M, Delamonica E, Sacks E, et al: World Institute for Development Research (WIDER), 2006
The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) have put maternal health in the mainstream, but there is a need to go beyond the MDGs to address equity within countries. Maternal health indicators from three countries in sub-Saharan Africa show the continent is lagging far behind other regions on health indicators. In the past decade, maternal mortality has increased in some countries, in large part due to health system collapse, increasing poverty among women, lack of access to skilled care for delivery, weak national human resource management and lack of resources.