It is Mental Health Awareness Week (May 13th-19th) and this has, as usual, brought discussions around mental health to the fore. The initiative began in 2001 and has been organised by the Mental Health Foundation, UK since then. Each year has a dedicated theme – this year’s is #bodyimage. ‘Body Image’ is a term that describes how one thin...

Australia is the only developed nation endemic for trachoma, a blinding bacterial infection of the eye. Developing countries such as Morocco and Cambodia have recently eliminated the disease. However, in Australia, one of the wealthiest countries in the world, trachoma remains highly prevalent among Indigenous Australians living in remote commun...

Last year, members of the health community came together to commemorate Alma Ata. While there was cause for celebration in Astana, it was nonetheless clear that progress had been uneven and people in some parts of the world were in danger of being left behind. There are of course many reasons why 40 years after the initial declaration, the world...

On 15-16 April, the Initiative Prospective Agricole et Rurale (IPAR), a local think tank working at the regional (i.e. West African) level, gathered stakeholders from various fields in Dakar, Senegal. Reflections and discussions focused on results of a pilot research project led by the think tank on measurement of efforts to reach health-related...

This April, the Pan-American Health Organization (PAHO) released a report entitled “Universal Health in the 21st Century: 40 Years of Alma-Ata.” As the title implies, the report commemorates the 40th anniversary of the Alma Ata Declaration on Primary Health Care (PHC), arguably one of the most important documents in the history of global hea...

This blog describes the journey of the Knowledge to Policy (K2P) Center, a knowledge translation platform established in a middle-income country, in revolutionizing policy-making. Learn more about K2P’s successes, challenges and transformations, and how it paved the way towards a world in which the best available evidence informs health policy...

Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs) is a term commonly used to define a relationship whereby [the] public and private sector [resources] are brought together to achieve a common purpose. PPPs are common across sectors (including the health sector) and geographical settings. The author of this article presents her perspective on the occasional ...

Well into labour, Meera lay ignored on a bed in the labour room of a Sub-divisional District Hospital. She lay there in pain, alone and without a birth companion. She received no information about the birthing procedure or what was about to happen to her. The labour room was managed by a lone nurse, who was busy with other cases or documenting b...

Many countries, including South Africa, have committed to the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) of achieving Universal Health Coverage (UHC). South Africa’s potential to achieve this goal is however limited by its reluctance to provide health care to non-nationals. As part of its efforts to achieve UHC, South Africa hopes to implement a Nati...