The aim of this scoping review is to investigate and report stakeholders' objectives for planning or participating in large multi-day conferences and how these objectives are being evaluated. The authors conducted a scoping review supplemented by a small number of key informant interviews. Eight bibliographic databases were systematically searched to identify papers describing conference objectives and/or evaluations, 44 of which were included in this study. The evaluation framework connects five key elements in planning a conference and its evaluation: conference objectives, purpose of evaluation, evaluation methods, indicators of success and theories/models. The authors found that conference objectives and evaluations were largely correlated with the type of conference (i.e. academic, political/governmental or business) but diverse overall. While much can be done to improve the quality and usefulness of conference evaluations, there are innovative assessments that are currently being utilised by some conferences and warrant further investigation. This review provides conference evaluators and organisers a simple resource to improve their own assessments by highlighting and categorising current objectives and evaluation strategies.
Useful Resources
This film reconstructs the narrative of how a dalit women’s collective in Karnataka, a small village in Belgaum district, defied class, caste and gender barriers and rose up against the failing public health system. The film draws from the rich and first hand experiences of the village women who, with the support of various village level peoples’ organisations and activists, stake claim to their health entitlements. The film concludes by asserting the importance of people’s struggles in creating a functional, responsive, people-centric health care systems and in the larger context of holding the State accountable for its duties and responsibilities towards its citizens. This film was one of the outcomes of the efforts to address the issue of health as a human right and taking forward the issue of revitalizing the public health system by various state and national level networks and activists. Karnataka state unit of the People’s Health Movement(JAA-K) screened this film extensively to intensify their Health as a Human Right campaign. Other health activists drew ideas from it to carry out similar actions to get their local government health centres functioning.
Virgem Margarida (Virgin Margarida) is a new feature film, set in 1975. The revolutionary government wants to eradicate all the traces of colonialism, including commercial sex work. All the sex workers are taken to the most isolated forest in the country where they are to be reeducated and transformed into new women, under the watch of guerrilla women fighters. Amongst the 500 women is 14-year-old Margarida, who was in town to buy her bridal trousseau. Because she doesn't have her ID documents, she is taken by mistake. In the reeducation center, the revelation that Margarida is a virgin changes everything. The commercial sex workers start to worship her like a saint. Shot in Azevedo’s signature style, the film is a combination of a documentary/scripted fiction style, intended to reflect the varied real-life stories in Mozambique, his home country.
The Academy of Women’s Health has launched a new regular column on its website that provides timely updates on diseases and conditions that are prevalent among women to help physicians and other healthcare providers optimise patient outcomes. The column provides opinions from eminent researchers and clinicians and presents the most up-to-date management strategies.
International Human Rights Funders Group and the Foundation Center have launched the first-ever visualization tool of the contemporary scope and landscape of global human rights grantmaking. The tool is designed to enable both grantmakers and grantseekers to search for human rights funders by several key criteria: areas of rights funding, activities supported and geographic focus. The map will be the first tool to be released as part of the centre’s Advancing Human Rights: Knowledge Tools for Funders initiative and will enable funders to search for grants by rights issue, population served, and location of grantee. To access the map, a user account must be created.
A new Governance Handbook issued by the Global Fund describes the Fund's various structures and governance processes. The handbook was conceived primarily as an operations guide for members of the Global Fund Board and their delegations, but it has also been made public. Separate sections of the handbook are devoted to topics such as the history of the Global Fund, the roles of the Board and its committees, and the current funding model and how it may evolve.
A new online collection of research, documentation and articles on Health Ethics has been launched by Globethics.net in its Global Digital Library on Ethics (GlobeEthicsLib). Initially including more than 500 documents, the collection is a unique online resource covering topics related to health ethics such as pharmaceuticals, health economics, health politics, access to medical care, environmental issues and bioethics. The collection is available to participants who register with Globethics.net.
More than 120 million women worldwide want to prevent pregnancy, but they and their partners are not using contraception. The aim of this World Health Organisation (WHO) handbook is to help these people by enabling health care providers to give better care in this regard. According to WHO, reasons for the unmet need for family planning are many: services and supplies are unavailable; fear of social disapproval or partner’s opposition; worries of side effects and health concerns; and lack of knowledge. The handbook highlights that family planning methods can be effective when properly provided, and when providers allow clients to choose their own contraceptive method and provide them with support and quality information. Many continuing clients need little support, and for them convenient access is key. The handbook contains specific guidance on twenty family planning methods and addresses many of providers’ different needs, from correcting misunderstandings to managing side effects. It also covers related health issues that may arise in the context of family planning.
The new interface for the World Health Organisation’s Global Price Reporting Mechanism (GPRM) is now available online. This improved interface enables users to search for the price and volumes sold of HIV medicines (all, or selected formulations), in countries, regions, by income category, by Human Development Index category, by manufacturer and by type of manufacturer (generic or innovator). New data has been included for trends of price and volumes sold. All data is quality controlled, as duplicates have been removed, suspicious data are quarantined and queried before they are uploaded. Data for 2011 and 2012 are now available from GPRM in the public domain as they are uploaded for the first time.
This Reader aims to support the development of the field of health policy and systems research (HPSR), particularly in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). It provides a particular focus on methodological issues for primary empirical health policy and systems research. More specifically, it aims to support the practice of, and training in, HPSR by: encouraging researchers to value a multidisciplinary approach, recognising its importance in addressing the complexity of health policy and systems challenges; stimulating wider discussion about the field and relevant research questions; demonstrating the breadth of the field in terms of study approaches, disciplinary perspectives, analytical approaches and methods; and highlighting newer or relatively little-used methods and approaches that could be further developed. The Reader is mainly for use by researchers and health system managers, teachers and facilitators involved in HPSR training, and students, from any discipline or background, who are new to the field of HPSR.