scholarly journals Country Assessments: Identifying gaps in policy and practice to address equity in health for migrants

2019 ◽  
Vol 29 (Supplement_4) ◽  
Author(s):  
C Nordström ◽  
D Ingleby ◽  
S Dias ◽  
J Magnus ◽  
B Kumar

Abstract Issue The Joint Action on Health Equity in Europe (JAHEE) aims to address inequities in health across all groups. Work Package 7 Migration and Health (WP7) includes 13 partner countries and focuses on health inequities affecting the migrant population. The project started out by developing Policy Framework for Action (PFA), intended to form the basis for exploring opportunities for appropriate actions in the three-year implementation period of the action. The PFA formulated a ’road map’ encompassing six priorities identified in 22 ’soft policy’ documents that have been published by international /governmental organisations since 2007. It also discussed the state of the art in research on the causes of particular inequities undermining migrant health, as well as the measures that can be taken to tackle them. Description of the problem The main objective of the Country Assessments (CAs) is to identify the best opportunities (entry points) for developing country-specific actions. From this list, actions will be selected and implemented that are feasible within the constraints of JAHEE. The CAs will provide the information partners need in order to make informed choices. The assessments will indicate where the most serious inequities lie, what causes them, and what can be done about them. The CA Template was based on the PFA, reviewed by the Expert Group and then piloted in two countries (Norway and Italy) in March 2019. The 13 partners participating in WP7 are currently carrying out their assessments, which will be completed by July 2019. Results An overview of the main results of the CAs will be presented at the conference. Lessons Developing and piloting the Country Assessment Template has been participatory, with necessary revisions on the basis of experience. Completing these assessments for each participant is in itself is the first step towards action. Participants create an overview of available data, experiences and gaps in their countries. Key messages The Country Assessment Template is a tool that enables partners to take stock of the situation in their country. Analysis of data from the assessments will enable countries to make an appropriate choice of actions.

2021 ◽  
Vol 31 (Supplement_3) ◽  
Author(s):  
B Kumar

Abstract The objective of the Country Assessment (CA) is to give an overview of the migration and health field in the partners' countries. Having an overview of the complex migration and health field enables partners to identify entry points for implementing actions to reduce inequities in migrant's health. The Country Assessment (CA) was based on findings from the projects first deliverable “Policy Framework for Action” (PFA). The PFA mapped key international policy documents between 2007 and 2018. We reviewed and extracted a coherent synthesis we called the ‘Road Map'. The synthesis identified six main areas that is covered in the CA tool: 1) Data and research 2) Governance and leadership 3) Intersectoral action 4) Health Service Responsiveness 5) Migrants access to health services 6) vulnerable groups. The Country Assessment template was piloted by two partner countries, Norway and Italy. The template was revised until all partners were satisfied with the range of questions. Partners then filled in readily available information and examples of available data and policy in their country.


2020 ◽  
Vol 30 (Supplement_5) ◽  
Author(s):  
C Nordström ◽  
D Ingleby ◽  
S Dias ◽  
J Magnus ◽  
T A Eikemo ◽  
...  

Abstract Issue What has to be done to achieve health equity for migrants? International bodies have published many weighty declarations and recommendations to this end, but these need to be ordered and synthesised. A recurring theoretical problem is how to disentangle the health effects of socioeconomic position (SEP) and migrant status, in order to develop policies that effectively address both factors. Description of the problem As part of the Policy Framework for Analysis (PFA) for Work Package 7 of the Joint Action on Health Equity Europe (JAHEE), key policy documents between 2007 and 2018 were reviewed to form a ‘Road Map' from which a coherent synthesis was extracted. The PFA also developed a model for conceptualising the joint influence of SEP and migrant status. What is the relationship between these, and what policy approaches does it imply? Results The main recommendations of the ‘Road Map' were summarised in two categories: ‘upstream' measures (data collection and research, governance, and intersectoral action to tackle social determinants of health) and ‘downstream' ones (access to health services, responsiveness to migrants' needs, and attention for vulnerable groups). In the past, ‘upstream' measures have been unduly neglected. According to the proposed model, migrant status can have both direct effects on health and indirect ones that are mediated via SEP. Along the indirect pathways, migrants may suffer from increased exposure and/or increased vulnerability to health threats associated with low SEP. Lessons A high degree of consensus already exists about health inequities affecting migrants and the measures needed to tackle them. The urgent challenge at the moment is to put these conclusions into practice. To this end, there is little point in tackling socioeconomic inequities and those linked to migration and ethnicity as though they had nothing to do with each other. Key messages The recommendations of international bodies on migrant health from 2007-2018 can be summarized in three ‘upstream’ measures and three ‘downstream’ ones. Promoting health equity for migrants requires breaking down the silos in which work on migration and on SEP has hitherto been carried out.


Immiserizing Growth occurs when growth fails to benefit, or harms, those at the bottom. It is not a new concept, appearing such figures as Malthus, Ricardo and Marx. It is also not empirically insignificant, occurring in between 10% and 35% of cases, depending on the data set and the growth and poverty measures used. In spite of this, it has not received its due attention in the academic literature, dominated by the prevailing narrative that ‘growth is good for the poor’. The chapters in this volume aim to arrive at a better understanding of when, why and how growth fails the poor. They combine discussion of mechanisms of Immiserizing Growth with empirical data on trends in growth, poverty and related welfare indicators. In terms of mechanisms, politics and political economy are chosen as useful entry points to explain IG episodes. The disciplinary focus is diverse, drawing on economics, political economy, applied social anthropology, and development studies. A number of methodological approaches are represented including statistical analysis of household survey and cross-country data, detailed ethnographic work and case study analysis drawing on secondary data. Geographical coverage is wide including Bolivia, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Nigeria, the People’s Republic of China, Singapore, and South Korea, in addition to cross-country analysis. As the first book-length treatment of Immiserizing Growth in the literature, we believe that this volume constitutes an important step in redirecting attention to this issue.


2011 ◽  
Vol 216 ◽  
pp. R1-R15 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erland W. Nier

There is increasing recognition that prior to the global financial crisis financial regulation had lacked a macroprudential perspective. There has since been a strong effort to make a new macroprudential orientation operational, including through the establishment of new macroprudential authorities or ‘committees’ in a number of jurisdictions. These developments raise — and this paper explores — the following three questions. First, what distinguishes macroprudential policy from microprudential policy and what are its key tasks? Second, what powers should be given to macroprudential authorities and what should be their mandate? Third, how can governance arrangements ensure that macroprudential policies are pursued effectively? While arrangements for macroprudential policy will to some extent be country-specific, we identify three basic challenges in setting up an effective macroprudential policy framework and discuss options to address them.


2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (03) ◽  
pp. 84-94
Author(s):  
Kiki Yulianto ◽  
◽  
Sukardi a ◽  
Nastiti Siswi Indrasti ◽  
Sapta Raharja ◽  
...  

Interest-free financing in agro-industry is an exciting topic that has been developed by many researchers, but there is no clarity regarding the road map for future research. Therefore, formulations such as concepts, theories, methods, and research gaps, focusing on interest-free financing in agro-industry, are essential. This literature study was conducted using a systematic literature review method. The data used are secondary data from textbooks, theses/dissertations, conference papers, journals, scientific articles, and working papers. This study resulted in the formulation of the theory, concepts, and methods studied in the form of an explanation of 8 sub-topics of research gaps supported by references and explanations of state of the art. They are making it easier for researchers who have the same interest in developing and looking for novelties with the topic of interest-free financing research in the agro-industry.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Skylar Maharaj

Previous research has shown that Canadian municipalities have lower visible minority proportionality rates among elected officials than other levels of government. To understand why, six visible minority city councillors and candidates from Toronto and Vancouver were interviewed. Respondents contributed their personal experiences and perspectives on issues of mirror, symbolic, and substantive representation of visible minorities. They discussed their initial involvement or interest in elite politics, their role models, and their understanding of the term “visible minority.” A broad narrative describes the complexities of political representation in practice and revealed that there were fewer entry points into elite municipal politics for individuals from marginalized groups. These entry points are further obscured by systemic barriers. Barriers were common for both cities despite differences in electoral systems and council structure. This paper recommends reimagining the “visible minority” categorization, and a policy framework that promotes the democratic ideal through institutional evaluations and acclaim for advancements.


2020 ◽  
Vol 34 (06) ◽  
pp. 10352-10360
Author(s):  
Jing Bi ◽  
Vikas Dhiman ◽  
Tianyou Xiao ◽  
Chenliang Xu

Learning from Demonstrations (LfD) via Behavior Cloning (BC) works well on multiple complex tasks. However, a limitation of the typical LfD approach is that it requires expert demonstrations for all scenarios, including those in which the algorithm is already well-trained. The recently proposed Learning from Interventions (LfI) overcomes this limitation by using an expert overseer. The expert overseer only intervenes when it suspects that an unsafe action is about to be taken. Although LfI significantly improves over LfD, the state-of-the-art LfI fails to account for delay caused by the expert's reaction time and only learns short-term behavior. We address these limitations by 1) interpolating the expert's interventions back in time, and 2) by splitting the policy into two hierarchical levels, one that generates sub-goals for the future and another that generates actions to reach those desired sub-goals. This sub-goal prediction forces the algorithm to learn long-term behavior while also being robust to the expert's reaction time. Our experiments show that LfI using sub-goals in a hierarchical policy framework trains faster and achieves better asymptotic performance than typical LfD.


2016 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 49-64
Author(s):  
Manar Abu Talib

A literature survey study was conducted to explore the state-of-the-art of Open Source Software and the opportunities and challenges faced by this segment of the software industry in seven Arab countries — Tunisia, Egypt, Jordan, KSA, Qatar, Oman and UAE. A framework and road map for OSS is presented derived from interviews conducted in the UAE with at least four experts from each of the following categories: governments and ministries, IT companies, universities and IT enthusiasts. This is the first study of its kind in this part of the world and is expected to make a significant contribution to the direction for Open Source Software in the region and beyond.


2020 ◽  
pp. 1646-1663
Author(s):  
Manar Abu Talib

A literature survey study was conducted to explore the state-of-the-art of Open Source Software and the opportunities and challenges faced by this segment of the software industry in seven Arab countries — Tunisia, Egypt, Jordan, KSA, Qatar, Oman and UAE. A framework and road map for OSS is presented derived from interviews conducted in the UAE with at least four experts from each of the following categories: governments and ministries, IT companies, universities and IT enthusiasts. This is the first study of its kind in this part of the world and is expected to make a significant contribution to the direction for Open Source Software in the region and beyond.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document