scholarly journals Waste management, informal recycling, environmental pollution and public health

2017 ◽  
Vol 72 (3) ◽  
pp. 237-243 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hong Yang ◽  
Mingguo Ma ◽  
Julian R Thompson ◽  
Roger J Flower

With rapid population growth, especially in low-income and middle-income countries, the generation of waste is increasing at an unprecedented rate. For example, annual global waste arising from waste electrical and electronic equipment alone will have increased from 33.8 to 49.8 million tonnes between 2010 and 2018. Despite incineration and other waste treatment techniques, landfill still dominates waste disposal in low-income and middle-income countries. There is usually insufficient funding for adequate waste management in these countries and uptake of more advanced waste treatment technologies is poor. Without proper management, many landfills represent serious hazards as typified by the landslide in Shenzhen, China on 20 December 2015. In addition to formal waste recycling systems, approximately 15million people around the world are involved in informal waste recycling, mainly for plastics, metals, glass and paper. This review examines emerging public health challenges, in particular within low-income and middle-income countries, associated with the informal sector. While informal recyclers contribute to waste recycling and reuse, the relatively primitive techniques they employ, combined with improper management of secondary pollutants, exacerbate environmental pollution of air, soil and water. Even worse, insufficient occupational health measures expose informal waste workers to a range of pollutants, injuries, respiratory and dermatological problems, infections and other serious health issues that contribute to low life expectancy. Integration of the informal sector with its formal counterparts could improve waste management while addressing these serious health and livelihood issues. Progress in this direction has already been made notably in several Latin American countries where integrating the informal and formal sectors has had a positive influence on both waste management and poverty alleviation.

2018 ◽  
Vol 3 (Suppl 4) ◽  
pp. e000381 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kirk Emerson

Multisectoral governance, one of many terms used to describe collaborative, cross-boundary approaches to solving complex public problems, is being applied broadly in several policy arenas, most notably in environmental and natural resource management, but increasingly in public health in multiple settings and scales around the globe. This paper explores how to transfer knowledge about collaborative governance to challenging public health settings found in low-income and moderate-income countries (LMICs). This paper presents a general background on collaborative governance, summarises some relevant empirical findings on the performance of collaborative governance and lays out some of the challenges and considerations for thinking about improving collaborative public health governance in LMICs.


BMJ Open ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. e019266 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marcos Claudio Signorelli ◽  
Stav Hillel ◽  
Daniel Canavese de Oliveira ◽  
Beatriz Paulina Ayala Quintanilla ◽  
Kelsey Hegarty ◽  
...  

IntroductionIntimate partner violence (IPV) considerably harms the health, safety and well-being of women. In response, public health systems around the globe have been gradually implementing strategies. In particular, low-income and middle-income countries (LMIC) have been developing innovative interventions in primary healthcare (PHC) addressing the problem. This paper describes a protocol for a systematic review of studies addressing the impacts and outcomes of PHC centre interventions addressing IPV against women from LMIC.Methods and analysisA systematic search for studies will be conducted in African Index Medicus, Africa Portal Digital Library, Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature (CINAHL), Embase, Index Medicus for the Southeast Asia Region, IndMed, Latin American and Caribbean Health Science Literature Database (LILACS), Medecins Sans Frontieres, MEDLINE, Minority Health and Health Equity Archive, ProQuest, PsycINFO, Scientific Electronic Library Online, (SciELO) and Social Policy and Practice. Studies will be in English, Spanish and Portuguese, published between 2007 and 2017, addressing IPV against women from LMIC, whose data quantitatively report on the impacts and outcomes for survivors and/or workers and/or public health systems preintervention and postintervention. Two trilingual reviewers will independently screen for study eligibility and data extraction, and a librarian will cross-check for compliance. Risk of bias and quality assessment of studies will be measured according to: (1) the Cochrane Collaboration’s tool for assessing risk of bias for randomised controlled trials and (2) the Methodological Index for Non-Randomised Studies (MINORS). Data will be analysed and summarised using meta-analysis and narrative description of the evidence across studies. This systematic review will be reported according to the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses Protocols(PRISMA P) guidelines.Ethics and disseminationThis systematic review will be based on published studies, thus not requiring ethical approval. Findings will be presented in conferences and published in a peer-reviewed journal.PROSPERO registration numberCRD42017069261.


BMJ Open ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (5) ◽  
pp. e035983
Author(s):  
Rodrigo M Carrillo-Larco ◽  
Lorainne Tudor Car ◽  
Jonathan Pearson-Stuttard ◽  
Trishan Panch ◽  
J Jaime Miranda ◽  
...  

IntroductionMachine learning (ML) has been used in bio-medical research, and recently in clinical and public health research. However, much of the available evidence comes from high-income countries, where different health profiles challenge the application of this research to low/middle-income countries (LMICs). It is largely unknown what ML applications are available for LMICs that can support and advance clinical medicine and public health. We aim to address this gap by conducting a scoping review of health-related ML applications in LMICs.Methods and analysisThis scoping review will follow the methodology proposed by Levac et al. The search strategy is informed by recent systematic reviews of ML health-related applications. We will search Embase, Medline and Global Health (through Ovid), Cochrane and Google Scholar; we will present the date of our searches in the final review. Titles and abstracts will be screened by two reviewers independently; selected reports will be studied by two reviewers independently. Reports will be included if they are primary research where data have been analysed, ML techniques have been used on data from LMICs and they aimed to improve health-related outcomes. We will synthesise the information following evidence mapping recommendations.Ethics and disseminationThe review will provide a comprehensive list of health-related ML applications in LMICs. The results will be disseminated through scientific publications. We also plan to launch a website where ML models can be hosted so that researchers, policymakers and the general public can readily access them.


Author(s):  
Androula Pavli ◽  
Helena C Maltezou

Abstract Background Medical tourism has been increasing dramatically globally, with people travelling from developed countries to low-income or middle-income countries, often to avoid high costs or long delays associated with seeking healthcare in their countries of origin. The current review summarizes healthcare-related infections associated with medical tourism, focusing on cosmetic surgery and organ transplantation. Methods A systematic MEDLINE and PubMed search from January 2010 to December 2019 yielded 80 relevant articles, including 49 articles on medical tourism-related infections focusing on cosmetic surgery and organ transplantation, which were included in this reviews. Results The literature reveals specific types of cross-border, healthcare-related infections depending on medical intervention. Destinations include low-income countries such as countries of Asia and the Indian subcontinent, middle-income countries including Central and South America, and high-income countries such as the United States and Europe. In terms of type of infections, in 36 (68%) and 15 (28.3%) studies, wound and blood-borne infections were documented, respectively, while in 21 studies (58.3%) non-tuberculous mycobacteria were isolated, including Mycobacterium abscessus, Mycobacterium chelonae, Mycobacterium senegalense and Mycobacterium fortuitum. The choices of medical tourists could have significant consequences for them and their home countries, including infectious complications and importation of pathogens, particularly antibiotic-resistant microorganisms, with public health implications. Conclusions There is a need for public health strategies in order to prevent morbidity and mortality as well as future management and education of patients engaging in medical tourism.


BMJ Open ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. e032912 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fadia Gamieldien ◽  
Roshan Galvaan ◽  
Bronwyn Myers ◽  
Katherine Sorsdahl

IntroductionThe construct of recovery was conceptualised in high-income countries and its applicability in low-income and middle- income countries is underexplored. A scoping review is proposed to synthesise knowledge, review conceptual overlap and map key elements of recovery from severe mental illness in low-income and middle-income countries. We aim to appraise the literature so as to inform future recovery-oriented services that consider the cultural and contextual influences on recovery from severe mental illness.Methods and analysisThe following electronic databases: MEDLINE via PubMed, SCOPUS (which included contents of Embase), PsycINFO, CINAHL, Africa-Wide Information, PsycARTICLES, Health source: Nursing/Academic Edition, Academic Search Premier and SocINDEX all via the EBSCOHOST platform, the Latin American and Caribbean Health Sciences Literature, the Cochrane Centre Register of Controlled Trials) and grey literature sources will be searched between May and December 2019. Eligible studies will be independently screened for inclusion and exclusion by two reviewers using a checklist developed for this purpose. Studies published between January 1993 and November 2019 that focus on recovery from severe mental illness in a low-income and middle-income country will be included. Findings will be compared and discrepancies will be discussed. Unresolved discrepancies will be referred to a third reviewer. All bibliographic data and study characteristics will be extracted and thematically analysed using a tool developed through an iterative process by the research team. Indicators will be classified according to a predefined conceptual framework and categorised and described using qualitative content analysis.Ethics and disseminationThe review aims to synthesise information from available publications, hence it does not require ethical approval. The results will be disseminated through publications, conference presentations and future workshops with stakeholders involved within the recovery paradigm of mental health policy and practice. The scoping review title is registered with the Joanna Briggs Institute.


2012 ◽  
Vol 21 (4) ◽  
pp. 361-365 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rosalind M. Owen ◽  
John Norgrove Penny ◽  
Andrew Mayo ◽  
José Morcuende ◽  
Christopher B.D. Lavy

BMJ Open ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (12) ◽  
pp. e032981
Author(s):  
Elodie Besnier ◽  
Katie Thomson ◽  
Donata Stonkute ◽  
Talal Mohammad ◽  
Nasima Akhter ◽  
...  

IntroductionDespite significant progress in the last few decades, infectious diseases remain a significant threat to children’s health in low-income and middle-income countries. Effective means of prevention and control for these diseases exist, making any differences in the burden of these diseases between population groups or countries inequitable. Yet, gaps remain in our knowledge of the effect these public health interventions have on health inequalities in children, especially in low-income and middle-income countries. This umbrella review aims to address some of these gaps by exploring which public health interventions are effective in reducing morbidity, mortality and health inequalities from infectious diseases among children in low-income and middle-income countries.Methods and analysisAn umbrella review will be conducted to identify systematic reviews or evidence synthesis of public health interventions that reduce morbidity, mortality and/or health inequalities due to infectious diseases among children (aged under 5 years) in low-income and middle-income countries. The interventions of interest are public health interventions targeting infectious diseases or associated risk factors in children. We will search for reviews reporting health and health inequalities outcomes in and between populations. The literature search will be undertaken using the Cochrane Library, Medline, EMBASE, the CAB Global Health database, Health Evidence, the Campbell Collaboration Library of Systematic Reviews, International Initiative for Impact Evaluation Systematic review repository, Scopus, the Social Sciences Citation Index and PROSPERO. Additionally, a manual search will be performed in Google Scholar and three international organisations websites (UNICEF Office of Research—Innocenti, UNICEF, WHO) to capture grey literature. Data from the records meeting our inclusion/exclusion criteria will be collated using a narrative synthesis approach.Ethics and disseminationThis review will exclusively work with anonymous group-level information available from published reviews. No ethical approval was required.The results of the review will be submitted for publication in academic journals and presented at international public health conferences. Additionally, key findings will be summarised for dissemination to a wider policy and general public audience as part of the Centre for Global Health Inequalities Research’s policy work.PROSPERO registration numberCRD42019141673


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