More articles from Editorials
Micronutrient Powders for Infants and Young Children
Stephen Hodgins and Rolf Klemm
Global Health: Science and Practice June 2021, 9(2):216-219; https://doi.org/10.9745/GHSP-D-21-00263
Providing standalone micronutrient products for household use is not an easy strategy, but under the right conditions, it can work. To be effective, micronutrient powder programs require robust commodity logistics and support of uptake and adherence.
It Takes a System: Magnesium Sulfate for Prevention of Eclampsia in a Resource-Limited Community Setting
Robert L. Goldenberg and Elizabeth M. McClure
Global Health: Science and Practice September 2019, 7(3):340-343; https://doi.org/10.9745/GHSP-D-19-00261
Magnesium sulfate is not a silver bullet to reduce maternal mortality associated with preeclampsia/eclampsia. We believe a well-functioning health care system, especially at the hospital level, with competent well-trained providers, adequate equipment, and medications will likely be necessary.
Human-Centered Design and Sustainable Malaria Interventions
Michael Macdonald and Thomas Putzer
Human-centered design provides a method to adapt malaria control interventions to be more closely aligned with a family's convenience, comfort, and personal lifestyle, enabling a broader and more sustained culture of access and use.
Retaining Patients in Care: An Important but Neglected Challenge
Stephen Hodgins
Global Health: Science and Practice March 2019, 7(1):1-2; https://doi.org/10.9745/GHSP-D-19-00091
A hospital-based follow-up program in Uganda helped improve retention of patients in care across a range of health problems. Although the specific approach may not be replicable in other settings, hospitals in Uganda and beyond should consider how they can improve retention of patients requiring long-term care, including for HIV, TB, malnutrition, and noncommunicable diseases.
Scale and Ambition in the Engagement of Private Providers for Tuberculosis Care and Prevention
William A. Wells
The tuberculosis (TB) community knows the importance of engaging private providers to reach critical TB targets, and knows how to engage successfully. The next challenge is to transition such efforts to government stewardship and financing in order to reach scale.
Antenatal Corticosteroids: Primum non nocere
Steve Hodgins
Global Health: Science and Practice December 2018, 6(4):620-623; https://doi.org/10.9745/GHSP-D-18-00461
Efforts continue—building on work of the UN Commission on Life-Saving Commodities for Women and Children—to expand use of antenatal corticosteroids in low-resource settings. We argue that until more is known on the balance of benefit versus harm, such promotion should be suspended.
Time to Evolve Beyond Prototypical Community-Based Distribution (CBD) of Contraception?
CBD efforts have a definite role in a variety of country programming contexts. However, contemporary efforts need to strive for an expanded method mix, strong support and motivation of CBD agents, and robust integration with existing health systems.
Helping Babies Breathe—Beyond Training
Global Health: Science and Practice October 2018, 6(3):402-404; https://doi.org/10.9745/GHSP-D-18-00291
The revised Helping Babies Breathe training package now emphasizes the need for regular practice and quality improvement—an important improvement since more is needed than one-off training to have substantial impact on asphyxia-related newborn mortality.
New Evidence on Carbetocin: Another Arrow in Our Quiver
Carbetocin is more heat stable than oxytocin with at least equivalent efficacy for preventing postpartum hemorrhage. It will certainly be helpful if the supplier can make it available in low-income country settings at a price comparable to oxytocin. But even so, programs will still need oxytocin and other uterotonic medications.
Long-Lasting Insecticidal Nets for Malaria Control in Myanmar and Nigeria: Lessons From the Past, Tools for the Future
Michael B. Macdonald
While having saved many lives over the past decade, continued dependence on mass distribution of free long-lasting insecticidal nets (LLINs) is not sufficient and may not be sustainable. Programs must be enabled with flexible policy and technical options to place LLINs within a larger context of multisectoral partnerships and integrated vector management, avoiding what happened in the DDT era, where there was overreliance implementing a uniform solution to a complex problem.