In this COVID-19 pandemic, timely access to accurate information can be the difference between life and death. The stakes are high in developing countries like Ethiopia where millions of people have limited access to information because of low media access, insufficientin...ternet penetration, illiteracy, and language diversity.
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The Government of Malawi’s Health Sector Strategic Plan II highlights the importance of service integration; however, in practice, this has not been fully realized. We conducted a mixed methods evaluation of efforts to systematically implement integrated family planning and immunization services i...n all health facilities and associated community sites in Ntchisi and Dowa districts during June 2016–September 2017. Methods included secondary analysis of service statistics (pre- and postintervention), focus group discussions with mothers and fathers of children under age one, and in-depth interviews with service providers, supervisors, and managers. Results indicate statistically significant increases in family planning users and shifts in use of family planning services from health facilities to community sites. The intervention had no effect on immunization doses administered or dropout rates. According to mothers and fathers, benefits of service integration included time savings, convenience, and improved understanding of services. Provision and use of integrated services were affected by availability of human resources and commodities, community linkages, data collection procedures and availability, sociocultural barriers, organization of services, and supervision and commitment of health surveillance assistants. The integration approach was perceived to be feasible and beneficial by clients and providers.
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Latin America and the Caribbean is characterized by a matrix of social inequality whose axes —such as
socioeconomic stratum, gender, stage in the life cycle, ethnicity and race, territory, disability, and immigration
status— create multiple, often concurrent, situations of exclusion and discri...mination. The coronavirus
disease (COVID-19) pandemic has exacerbated wide social gaps and it is no coincidence that Latin America
and the Caribbean is one of the regions in which the health and socioeconomic impacts of the pandemic have
been the most severe, which shows that the costs of inequality are unsustainable
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La capacidad de respuesta de un hospital puede ser superada por la llegada masiva de pacientes que soliciten atención médica como consecuencia de una situación de emergencia. Ante este escenario, se debe considerar si el establecimiento de salud está organizado para garantizar la gestión integr...al de la respuesta hospitalaria, el funcionamiento de los mecanismos de coordinación, el manejo integral de la información, las capacidades logísticas para facilitar la respuesta, y los recursos necesarios para su ejecución, así como para una respuesta integral a los pacientes, precautelando la salud y bienestar de los trabajadores de salud. (7)
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Data from the 2011 Ethiopia Demographic and Health Survey
Malaria Journal (2021) 20:190