The Health Equity Impact Assessment (HEIA) tool has four key objectives: 1. Help identify unintended potential health equity impacts of decision-making (positive and negative) on specific population groups. 2. Support equity-based improvements in policy, planning, programme or service design. 3. Embed equity in an organisation’s decision-making processes. 4. Build capacity and raise awareness about health equity throughout the organisation. The HEIA tool includes a template and a workbook that provides users with step by step instructions on how to conduct an HEIA. The workbook walks users through five steps: scoping, potential impacts, mitigation, monitoring and dissemination. The results are recorded in the HEIA template. The tool may be used by organisations both inside and outside the health care system whose work can have an impact on health outcomes.
Useful Resources
The World Health Organisation’s Health Equity Monitor currently includes data for about 30 reproductive, maternal, neonatal and child health indicators for 91 countries, disaggregated by child’s sex, place of residence (rural vs. urban), wealth quintile and education level. Data are based on demographic and health surveys and multiple indicator cluster surveys conducted in the represented countries - 90 of which are low- or middle-income countries - totalling nearly 200 surveys in the period 1993-2011. For around half of the countries, data are available for at least two time points. Country profiles are also provided. These highlight disaggregated data for each of the 91 study countries, using the most recent available data. Finally, interactive visualisations show inequalities in select health outcomes and services (situation and trends).
A billion people around the world never see a health worker in their lives. This short, animated video asks ‘Where are the health workers?’ It looks at the problem of health worker migration from developing countries to developed countries, resulting in severe staff shortages in the donor countries. It proposes retention strategies in the form of living wages, decent working conditions, supportive management and adequate training for health workers. These health workers are also seen as important drivers of change through educating the public about health issues. They can serve as role models in their communities and save many lives. The video promotes the vision of ‘A health worker for everyone, everywhere’. With powerful visual representations and simple English, it can be used for health worker advocacy work in African settings.
This motion design documentary puzzle looks at cities that are reversing water privatisation to regain public control. Unequal access, broken promises, environmental hazards and scandalous profit margins are prompting these municipalities to reverse privatisation. The video explores water 'remunicipalisation' in Buenos Aires and Paris, looking at the challenges and benefits of reclaiming public water. It calls on citizens worldwide to mobilise around this option.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) has released a resource package of practical tools specifically aimed at improving patient safety in hospitals in developing countries. African Partnerships for Patient Safety (APPS) is a WHO Patient Safety Programme building sustainable patient safety partnerships between hospitals in countries of the WHO African Region and hospitals in other regions. African Partnerships for Patient Safety (APPS) is a WHO Patient Safety Programme building sustainable patient safety partnerships between hospitals in countries of the WHO African Region and hospitals in other regions. APPS is concerned with advocating for patient safety as a precondition of health care in the African Region and catalysing a range of actions that will strengthen health systems, assist in building local capacity and help reduce medical error and patient harm. The programme acts as a channel for patient safety improvements that can spread across countries, uniting patient safety efforts.
These guidelines dealing with the legal, ethical and counselling issues related to HIV testing of children are intended for HIV and AIDS practitioners working with children. They were developed through an extensive consultative process with key staff from the South African Department of Health, the United States Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), civil society, non-governmental organisations, academics, policy makers and practitioners working with children. The guidelines cover a range of topics: counselling of children of different ages and developmental levels and assessing a child’s capacity to give informed consent; pre- and post-test counselling for children and for parents and caregivers of children unable to consent independently; follow-up and referral of children and/or parents or caregivers; client-initiated or voluntary counselling and testing and provider-initiated counselling and testing as applied to children; counselling guidelines relative to disclosure of HIV status by and to children; key qualities and competencies required for HIV counselling of children; and the physical environment and use of appropriate materials in work with children and young people.
The National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) monitors communicable diseases in South Africa. It is a resource of knowledge and expertise in regionally relevant communicable diseases to the South African Government, to SADC countries and the African continent. The NICD assists in the planning of policies and programmes and supports appropriate responses to communicable disease problems and issues. Every month, NICD publishes its Communiqué for the purpose of providing up-to-date information on communicable diseases in South Africa.
Joint Action and Learning Initiative on National and Global Responsibilities for Health (JALI) is a global coalition of civil society organisations and academia collaborating to challenge inequality in access to health care around the world and to develop strategies to promote and fulfill the human right to health. JALI’s ultimate goal is to develop and see implemented a Framework Convention on Global Health that will serve to guide all countries on their global responsibilities – both individually and collectively – to ensuring access to health care. Discussions around the initiative began in late 2009 and the website is regularly updated with new documents and articles by JALI members. If you would like to join or contribute to JALI, please contact JALI at the email address given.
The Africa Portal is an online knowledge resource for policy-related issues on Africa. An undertaking by the Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI), Makerere University (MAK), and the South African Institute of International Affairs (SAIIA), the portal offers open access to a suite of features including an online library collection; a resource for opinion and analysis; an experts directory; an international events calendar; and a mobile technology component—all aimed to equip users with research and information on Africa’s current policy issues. A key feature to the Africa Portal is the online library collection holding over 2,500 books, journals, and digital documents related to African policy issues. The entire online repository is open access and available for free full-text download. A portion of the digital documents housed in the library have been digitised for the first time as an undertaking of the Africa Portal project. Facilitating new digitisation projects is a core feature of the Africa Portal, which aims to improve access and visibility for African research.
In the context of severe health worker shortages in rural areas, this toolkit is intended to help health leaders find out what motivates health workers to accept posts in rural areas and to stay there. The toolkit builds on the World Health Organisation’s global policy recommendations for rural retention and is based on the discrete choice experiment, a powerful research method that identifies the trade-offs health professionals are willing to make between specific job characteristics and determines their preferences for various incentive packages, including the probability of accepting a post in a rural health facility. The toolkit guides human resources managers through a survey process to rapidly assess health professional students’ and health workers’ motivational preferences to accept a position and continue working in underserved facilities. It allows for rapid data-gathering and analysis, and the results can be used to create evidence-based incentive packages. It includes step-by-step instructions, sample formats, and examples that can easily be adapted to a specific country context, including survey planning, survey design, survey instrument development using a specialised software programme, survey administration, data analysis and interpretation, and how to present results to stakeholders.