scholarly journals Call to Action for Nurses/Nursing

2016 ◽  
Vol 2016 ◽  
pp. 1-5 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shahirose S. Premji ◽  
Jennifer Hatfield

The 13 million nurses worldwide constitute most of the global healthcare workforce and are uniquely positioned to engage with others to address disparities in healthcare to achieve the goal of better health for all. A new vision for nurses involves active participation and collaboration with international colleagues across research practice and policy domains. Nursing can embrace new concepts and a new approach—“One World, One Health”—to animate nursing engagement in global health, as it is uniquely positioned to participate in novel ways to improve healthcare for the well-being of the global community. This opinion paper takes a historical and reflective approach to inform and inspire nurses to engage in global health practice, research, and policy to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. It can be argued that a colonial perspective currently informs scholarship pertaining to nursing global health engagement. The notion of unidirectional relationships where those with resources support training of those less fortunate has dominated the framing of nursing involvement in low- and middle-income countries. This paper suggests moving beyond this conceptualization to a more collaborative and equitable approach that positions nurses as cocreators and brokers of knowledge. We propose two concepts, reverse innovation and two-way learning, to guide global partnerships where nurses are active participants.

2019 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. e001209 ◽  
Author(s):  
Naomi Beyeler ◽  
Sara Fewer ◽  
Marcel Yotebieng ◽  
Gavin Yamey

Achieving many of the health targets in the Sustainable Development Goals will not be possible without increased financing for global health research and development (R&D). Yet financing for neglected disease product development fell from 2009-2015, with the exception of a one-time injection of Ebola funding. An important cause of the global health R&D funding gap is lack of coordination across R&D initiatives. In particular, existing initiatives lack robust priority-setting processes and transparency about investment decisions. Low-income countries (LICs) and middle-income countries (MICs) are also often excluded from global investment initiatives and priority-setting discussions, leading to limited investment by these countries. An overarching global health R&D coordination platform is one promising response to these challenges. This analysis examines the essential functions such a platform must play, how it should be structured to maximise effectiveness and investment strategies for diversifying potential investors, with an emphasis on building LIC and MIC engagement. Our analysis suggests that a coordination platform should have four key functions: building consensus on R&D priorities; facilitating information sharing about past and future investments; building in accountability mechanisms to track R&D spending against investment targets and curating a portfolio of prioritised projects alongside mechanisms to link funders to these projects. Several design features are likely to increase the platform’s success: public ownership and management; separation of coordination and financing functions; inclusion of multiple diseases; coordination across global and national efforts; development of an international R&D ‘roadmap’ and a strategy for the financial sustainability of the platform’s secretariat.


2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (11) ◽  
pp. 448 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Chew ◽  
Kasey Jones ◽  
Jennifer Unangst ◽  
James Cajka ◽  
Justine Allpress ◽  
...  

While governments, researchers, and NGOs are exploring ways to leverage big data sources for sustainable development, household surveys are still a critical source of information for dozens of the 232 indicators for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). Though some countries’ statistical agencies maintain databases of persons or households for sampling, conducting household surveys in LMICs is complicated due to incomplete, outdated, or inaccurate sampling frames. As a means to develop or update household listings in LMICs, this paper explores the use of machine learning models to detect and enumerate building structures directly from satellite imagery in the Kaduna state of Nigeria. Specifically, an object detection model was used to identify and locate buildings in satellite images. In the test set, the model attained a mean average precision (mAP) of 0.48 for detecting structures, with relatively higher values in areas with lower building density (mAP = 0.65). Furthermore, when model predictions were compared against recent household listings from fieldwork in Nigeria, the predictions showed high correlation with household coverage (Pearson = 0.70; Spearman = 0.81). With the need to produce comparable, scalable SDG indicators, this case study explores the feasibility and challenges of using object detection models to help develop timely enumerated household lists in LMICs.


Author(s):  
Arief Andriyanto ◽  
Faisal Ibnu ◽  
Rina Nur Hidayati

The Sustainable Development Goals emphasizing an intervention to prioritize solutions to the global challenge of poor child development in low and middle income countries (LMICs). In 2015, about 25% of children under five years of age in low were stunted (Kim & Subramanian, 2017; Perkins et al., 2017; UNICEF, 2015) The WHO conceptual framework for stunting (2013) identified household and family factors, complementary feeding, breastfeeding practices and infections as the most plausible causes of stunting(Stewart, Iannotti, Dewey, Michaelsen, & Onyango, 2013)


Author(s):  
R. Dhatt ◽  
K. Thompson ◽  
D. Lichtenstein ◽  
K. Ronsin ◽  
K. Wilkins

AbstractGender equality is considered paramount to the success of the Sustainable Development Goals and incorporated into global health programming and delivery, but there is great gender disparity within global health leadership and an absence of women at the highest levels of decision making. This perspective piece outlines the current gaps and challenges, highlighting the lack of data and unanswered questions regarding possible solutions, as well as the activity of Women in Global Health and efforts to directly address the inequity and lack of female leaders. We conclude with an agenda and tangible next steps of action for promoting women's leadership in health as a means to promote the global goals of achieving gender equality and catalyzing change.


Author(s):  
Freek de Haan ◽  
Ellen H.M. Moors

The ability to ensure healthy lives and well-being (SDG3, healthy lives) is dependent on accessible and affordable healthcare for everyone in need. However, people in low and middle-income countries (LMICs) often lack access to health interventions such as innovative medicines to treat medical needs. This chapter develops a sustainable drug development and diffusion framework for LMICs. The framework is applied to evaluate a global health threat that challenges the achievement of SDG3 targets: the emergence of multidrug resistance to anti-malarial medicines. Malaria is a poverty-related infectious disease that is caused by parasites and transmitted through mosquitos. Malaria is well treatable and effective drugs do exist, but they often fail to reach the infected patients. These days, the first-line anti-malarial medicines are becoming less effective because of multidrug resistance. This requires urgent and coordinated action at the levels of drug development, diffusion, and utilization. The integrated framework evaluates this emerging health threat by discussing four themes: availability, affordability, accessibility, and acceptability. Moreover, the interdependence between those themes is assessed. Finally, policy implications are proposed to address this global health challenge and to proceed toward a sustainable system of drug development and diffusion in LMICs.


Author(s):  
Mike Rayner ◽  
Kremlin Wickramasinghe ◽  
Julianne Williams ◽  
Karen McColl ◽  
Shanthi Mendis

The sociopolitical landscape of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) is presented in two chapters in this book. This is the first chapter which introduces the topic. It shows how the recent demographic shifts have changed the global landscape, creating a fertile ground for the rise in the NCD burden. It describes how changes in disease patterns in low- and middle-income countries and factors such as the ageing population, urbanization, globalization, and cultural and political changes have contributed to the problem. Importantly, this chapter sets the scene to introduce NCDs as a development problem, which requires a global political response as demonstrated with the sustainable development goals (SDGs; SDGs and NCDs are discussed in later chapters). This chapter also considers the ways that competing voices and vested interests impact on NCD prevention activities.


Author(s):  
Amirreza Kazemikhasragh ◽  
Antonella Francesca Cicchiello ◽  
Maria Cristina Pietronudo

This article aims to investigate the adoption of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by large companies in low- and middle-income countries in Asia and Africa, and the company characteristics that influence them to undertake such new sustainability reporting practices. Logistic regression analyses were applied to combine the data extracted from the Global Reporting Initiative’s Sustainability Disclosure Database and the Orbis database from Bureau van Dijk. The empirical results indicate that characteristics like the type of company, its economic performance and its engagement in voluntary sustainability programmes and external assurance are positively related to the adoption of SDG reporting. The results also show that some corporate, organizational and performance characteristics increase companies’ likelihood to adopt SDG reporting. Drawing on agency theory and legitimacy theory perspectives, this article contributes to the academic and practical understanding of factors influencing the adoption of SDG reporting by large companies in Asia and Africa’s low- and middle-income countries.


Author(s):  
Erica W. Ho ◽  
Sophia Strohmeier-Breuning ◽  
Madeleine Rossanese ◽  
Dana Charron ◽  
David Pennise ◽  
...  

(1) Background: Water and solid fuel collection and transport are domestic duties for millions of households across the globe. People in areas with limited or no access to safely managed sources of water and household energy must fetch these resources on a frequent basis. The health, gender, and economic impacts associated with water and solid fuel collection labor have not been systematically reviewed. (2) Methods: Studies were identified through database searches and included using a list of inclusion and exclusion criteria. Studies were summarized and grouped into one of eight thematic categories. (4) Conclusions: The findings suggest that a diverse and heavy health burden is associated with water and solid fuel collection and transport. The literature also suggests that the provision of safely managed and accessible water and improved fuel options can mitigate these negative outcomes. Filling research gaps and utilizing results to guide policy and funding would likely be an effective way to ensure low- and middle-income countries are not left behind as the world strives to meet the sustainable development goals.


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