scholarly journals Leveraging open hardware to alleviate the burden of COVID-19 on global health systems

PLoS Biology ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 18 (4) ◽  
pp. e3000730 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andre Maia Chagas ◽  
Jennifer C. Molloy ◽  
Lucia L. Prieto-Godino ◽  
Tom Baden
Keyword(s):  
Global Health ◽  
Health Systems ◽  
Open Hardware

scholarly journals Leveraging Open Hardware to Alleviate the Burden of COVID-19 on Global Health Systems

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tom Baden ◽  
Andre Maia Chagas ◽  
Jennifer Molloy ◽  
Lucia Prieto Godino
Keyword(s):  
Global Health ◽  
Health Systems ◽  
Patient Treatment ◽  
Global Response ◽  
Frontline Workers ◽  
The Public ◽  
Open Hardware ◽  
Rapid Spread ◽  
Sheer Number ◽  
Reliable Testing

With the current rapid spread of COVID-19, global health systems are increasingly overburdened by the sheer number of people that need diagnosis, isolation and treatment. Shortcomings are evident across the board, from staffing, facilities for rapid and reliable testing to availability of hospital beds and key medical-grade equipment. The scale and breadth of the problem calls for an equally substantive response not only from frontline workers such as medical staff and scientists, but from skilled members of the public who have the time, facilities and knowledge to meaningfully contribute to a consolidated global response. Here, we summarise community-driven approaches based on Free and Open Source scientific and medical Hardware (FOSH) currently being developed and deployed to bolster access to personal protective equipment (PPE), patient treatment and diagnostics.

scholarly journals Artificial intelligence for good health: a scoping review of the ethics literature

2021 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Kathleen Murphy ◽  
Erica Di Ruggiero ◽  
Ross Upshur ◽  
Donald J. Willison ◽  
Neha Malhotra ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Artificial Intelligence ◽  
Global Health ◽  
Population Health ◽  
Health Systems ◽  
Scoping Review ◽  
Industrial Revolution ◽  
Ethical Issues ◽  
Grey Literature ◽  
Ethical Implications

Abstract Background Artificial intelligence (AI) has been described as the “fourth industrial revolution” with transformative and global implications, including in healthcare, public health, and global health. AI approaches hold promise for improving health systems worldwide, as well as individual and population health outcomes. While AI may have potential for advancing health equity within and between countries, we must consider the ethical implications of its deployment in order to mitigate its potential harms, particularly for the most vulnerable. This scoping review addresses the following question: What ethical issues have been identified in relation to AI in the field of health, including from a global health perspective? Methods Eight electronic databases were searched for peer reviewed and grey literature published before April 2018 using the concepts of health, ethics, and AI, and their related terms. Records were independently screened by two reviewers and were included if they reported on AI in relation to health and ethics and were written in the English language. Data was charted on a piloted data charting form, and a descriptive and thematic analysis was performed. Results Upon reviewing 12,722 articles, 103 met the predetermined inclusion criteria. The literature was primarily focused on the ethics of AI in health care, particularly on carer robots, diagnostics, and precision medicine, but was largely silent on ethics of AI in public and population health. The literature highlighted a number of common ethical concerns related to privacy, trust, accountability and responsibility, and bias. Largely missing from the literature was the ethics of AI in global health, particularly in the context of low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). Conclusions The ethical issues surrounding AI in the field of health are both vast and complex. While AI holds the potential to improve health and health systems, our analysis suggests that its introduction should be approached with cautious optimism. The dearth of literature on the ethics of AI within LMICs, as well as in public health, also points to a critical need for further research into the ethical implications of AI within both global and public health, to ensure that its development and implementation is ethical for everyone, everywhere.

scholarly journals Reimagining global health systems for the 21st century: lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic

2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (4) ◽  
pp. e004882
Author(s):  
Yibeltal Assefa ◽  
Charles F Gilks ◽  
Remco van de Pas ◽  
Simon Reid ◽  
Dereje Gedle Gete ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Global Health ◽  
Health Systems ◽  
21St Century

scholarly journals ‘Protecting Life in Global Health Assistance’? Towards a framework for assessing the health systems impact of the expanded Global Gag Rule

2019 ◽  
Vol 4 (5) ◽  
pp. e001786 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marta Schaaf ◽  
Emily Maistrellis ◽  
Hana Thomas ◽  
Bergen Cooper
Keyword(s):  
Global Health ◽  
Mexico City ◽  
Health Systems ◽  
Grey Literature ◽  
Policy Changes ◽  
Us Government ◽  
Potential Impact ◽  
City Policy ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Initial Research

During his first week in office, US President Donald J Trump issued a presidential memorandum to reinstate and broaden the reach of the Mexico City policy. The Mexico City policy (which was in place from 1985–1993, 1999–2000 and 2001–2009) barred foreign non-governmental organisations (NGOs) that received US government family planning (FP) assistance from using US funds or their own funds for performing, providing counselling, referring or advocating for safe abortions as a method of FP. The renamed policy, Protecting Life in Global Health Assistance (PLGHA), expands the Mexico City policy by applying it to most US global health assistance. Thus, foreign NGOs receiving US global health assistance of nearly any type must agree to the policy, regardless of whether they work in reproductive health. This article summarises academic and grey literature on the impact of previous iterations of the Mexico City policy, and initial research on impacts of the expanded policy. It builds on this analysis to propose a hypothesis regarding the potential impact of PLGHA on health systems. Because PLGHA applies to much more funding than it did in its previous iterations, and because health services have generally become more integrated in the past decade, we hypothesise that the health systems impacts of PLGHA could be significant. We present this hypothesis as a tool that may be useful to others’ and to our own research on the impact of PLGHA and similar exogenous overseas development assistance policy changes.

scholarly journals Ebola viral disease in West Africa: a threat to global health, economy and political stability

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Semeeh Akinwale Omoleke ◽  
Ibrahim Mohammed ◽  
Yauba Saidu
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Global Health ◽  
International Development ◽  
Health Systems ◽  
Political Stability ◽  
West African ◽  
Local Economy ◽  
Transport Systems ◽  
Health Economy ◽  
Societal Impacts

The West African sub-continent is currently experiencing its first, and ironically, the largest and longest Ebola viral diseases (EVD) outbreak ever documented in modern medical history. The current outbreak is significant in several ways, including longevity, magnitude of morbidity and mortality, occurrence outside the traditional niches, rapid spread and potential of becoming a global health tragedy. The authors provided explicit insights into the current and historical background, drivers of the epidemic, societal impacts, status of vaccines and drugs development and proffered recommendations to halt and prevent future occurrences. The authors reviewed mainly five databases and a hand search of key relevant literature. We reviewed 51 articles that were relevant up until the 18th of August 2014. The authors supplemented the search with reference list of relevant articles and grey literature as well as relevant Internet websites. Article searches were limited to those published either in English or French. There are strong indications that the EVD may have been triggered by increased human activities and encroachment into the forest ecosystem spurred by increasing population and povertydriven forest-dependent local economy. Containment efforts are being hampered by weak and fragile health systems, including public health surveillance and weak governance, certain socio-anthropological factors, fast travels (improved transport systems) and globalization. The societal impacts of the EBV outbreak are grave, including economic shutdown, weakening of socio-political systems, psychological distress, and unprecedented consumption of scarce health resources. The research and development (R&D) pipeline for product against EBV seems grossly insufficient. The outbreak of Ebola and the seeming difficulty to contain the epidemic is simply a reflection of the weak health system, poor surveillance and emergency preparedness/ response, poverty and disconnect between the government and the people in many West African countries. Although interventions by the United Nations and other international development agencies could ultimately halt the epidemic, local communities must be engaged to build trust and create demand for the public health interventions being implemented in the Ebola-ravaged populations. In the intermediate and long term, post-Ebola rehabilitation should focus on strengthening of health systems, improving awareness about zoonosis and health behaviors, alleviating poverty and mitigating the impact of triggering factors. Finally, national governments and international development partners should mobilize huge resources and investments to spur or facilitate R&D of disease control tools for emerging and pernicious infectious diseases (not limited to EVD).

scholarly journals COVID-19 opens a window of reflection for comparative health systems and global health research

2020 ◽  
Vol 63 ◽  
pp. 190-208
Author(s):  
Tuba İ. Ağartan
Keyword(s):  
Global Health ◽  
Health Systems ◽  
National Policy ◽  
Global Health Research ◽  
Policy Actors ◽  
Opportunities For Learning ◽  
National Information ◽  
The Voice ◽  
North And South ◽  
Health Field

AbstractThe Covid-19 crisis that led to the loss of thousands of lives and initiated one of the most complex social and economic upheavals has also a created a window of reflection for health systems researchers to revisit our major concepts, frameworks, and underlying assumptions. This commentary reviews two literatures that remain rather separate: comparative health policy and global health. First, I examine whether convergence in circumstances brought about by the spread of Covid-19 creates opportunities for learning “about” as well as unpacking the motivations of policy actors and how they use the cross-national information. However, given the emphasis on national policy actors and processes, this literature may overlook the importance of global actors, institutions and ideas. Second, global health differentiates itself with an emphasis on multilateralism as a political positioning and its multidisciplinary and multi-sectoral approach. However, the global health field is also challenged to consider its mission, political standing on multilateralism, changing relationships between North and South and its commitment to multidisciplinary approach. I argue that health systems scholars should use the window of opportunity created by Covid-19 pandemic to reexamine their methodologies and rearticulate their positioning by acknowledging the voice and agency of the Global South.

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