These are suggested resources for the creation of a webpage describing access to heath care and essential medicines in selected countries.
In addressing the issue of health care coverage and access, it is useful to consider the United States Millennium Declaration of 2000 which stated 8 ambitious Millennium Development Goals (MDG) in order to achieve peace, security, gender equality, to eradicate poverty and to realize sustainable human development . There are eight stated goals of which #4: Reduce Child Mortality and #5: Improve Maternal Health, #6 : Combat HIV?AIDS, malaria and other diseases are directly linked to health care and its availability. To provide a quantitative measure toward the fulfillment of Millennium Development Goals, targets were established and indicators developed to track progress. For example, one indicator is #46: Proportion of population with access to affordable essential drugs on a sustainable basis.
The followiing documents are helpful in understanding how MDG indicators can provide a context to interpret reported data in the medical literature.
The Millennium Development Goals Report 2007
http://www.undp.org/mdg/
Indicators for Monitoring the Millennium Development Goals: Definitions, Rationale, Concepts and Sources
http://mdgs.un.org/unsd/mdg/Host.aspx?Content=Indicators/Handbook.htm
Agriculture, Food Security, Nutrition and the Millennium Development Goals
Food security is germaine to the discussion of healthcare as severe malnutrition is not recognized as a "disease" per se but severlyh malnourished children are commonly treated as outpatients.
http://www.ifpri.org/pubs/books/ar2003/ar03e.pdf
In relation to the food crises around the world starting in 2007, see the editorial in The Economist and article in the April 17-25, 2008 issue. http://www.economist.com/opinion/displayStory.cfm?Story_ID=11050146
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- Dora Wong, Science Librarian (HC)
Databases A-Z:
Other:
ICPR 281 : Violence & Public Health Web Project Access to Health Care (HC)
Statistics, Data, Country Core Health Indicators:
WHOSIS (World Health Organization Statistical Information System)
Information on over 50 core health indicators, which are organized into six major areas: mortality and burden of disease, health service coverage, risk factors, health system inputs, differentials in health outcome and coverage, as well as basic socio-demographic statistics.
http://www.who.int/whosis/database/core/core_select.cfm
Statistics from the World Bank - HNP Statistics (Health, Nutrition and Population Statistics)
http://go.worldbank.org/O5U5WKVJ40
Medical Resources and Usage
Information on medical resource and usage indicators by country, and for the region and income group that the country belongs to. The indicators include: density of physicians, nurses, midwives, and hospital beds; inpatient admission rates, average length of stay in hospital, and outpatient visits per capita.
http://go.worldbank.org/EDIQSBM550
Information on over 50 core health indicators, which are organized into six major areas: mortality and burden of disease, health service coverage, risk factors, health system inputs, differentials in health outcome and coverage, as well as basic socio-demographic statistics.
http://www.who.int/whosis/database/core/core_select.cfm
Statistics from the World Bank - HNP Statistics (Health, Nutrition and Population Statistics)
http://go.worldbank.org/O5U5WKVJ40
Medical Resources and Usage
Information on medical resource and usage indicators by country, and for the region and income group that the country belongs to. The indicators include: density of physicians, nurses, midwives, and hospital beds; inpatient admission rates, average length of stay in hospital, and outpatient visits per capita.
http://go.worldbank.org/EDIQSBM550
Publications:
Health care infrastructure and workforce
WHO World Health Report Series
The World Health Report, first published in 1995, is WHO's leading publication. Each year the report combines an expert assessment of global health, including statistics relating to all countries, with a focus on a specific subject.
The World Health Report 2006 - Working together for health contains an expert assessment of the current crisis in the global health workforce.
http://www.who.int/whr/2006/en/
The world health report 2000 - Health systems: improving performance
This report examines and compares aspects of health systems around the world. It provides conceptual insights into the complex factors that explain how health systems perform, and offers practical advice on how to assess performance and achieve improvements with available resources.
http://www.who.int/whr/2000/en/index.html
Medicines- Policy and Standards
The WHO Model list of Essential Medicines - The 15th Model list of Essential Medicines. (2007) and other documents on this page including intellectual property rights, and the selection process.http://www.who.int/medicines/publications/essentialmedicines/en/
Related concepts/keywords: Rescue Principle, TRIP, WTO, Intellectual Property, compulsory license, drug pricing, pharmaceutical industry, ethics. In Tripod, search for keywords "ethics pharmaceutical industry"
HIV/AIDS
UNAIDS AIDS Report UpdateUNAIDS in cooperation with WHO, UNDP and UNICEF publishes global AIDS Epidemic reports and updates
- The latest AIDS Report update was December 2007
http://www.unaids.org/en/KnowledgeCentre/HIVData/EpiUpdate/EpiUpdArchive/2007/default.asp
HIV/AIDS profile worldwide from Avert.org
http://www.avert.org
Wang, Y., Collins, C. et al. "HIV/AIDS and TB: Contextual Issues and Policy Choice in Programme Relations." Tropical Medicine and International Health, 12(2):183-94.
http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1365-3156.2006.01783.x
See related articles on that page for other articles.
Databases - search for peer reviewed articles:
Access world news
Provider: NewsBank
Newspaper collections from NewsBank provide full-text articles from the electronic editions of record for more than 700 newspapers around the globe, including the NY Times (2000-present). Database covers 1977-present.
ProQuest Research Library
Provider: ProQuest
Provides citations and full-text magazine and journal articles in a wide variety of disciplines, both scholarly and popular in scope. Covers 1971-present.
PubMed
Provider: NCBI
Includes over 15 million citations for biomedical articles back to the 1950's. These citations are from MEDLINE and additional life science journals. Includes links to many sites providing full text articles and other related resources.