Substantial investments have been made in clinical social franchising to improve quality of care of private facilities in low- and middle-income countries but concerns have emerged that the benefits fail to reach poorer groups. We assessed the distribution of franchise utilization and content of care by socioeconomic status (SES) in three maternal healthcare social franchises in Uganda and India (Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan). We surveyed 2179 women who had received antenatal care (ANC) and/or delivery services at franchise clinics (in Uttar Pradesh ...

In 1776, just when the Declaration of Independence was being adopted in this country, Thomas Paine complained, in Common Sense, that Asia had “long expelled” freedom. In this lament, Paine saw Asia in company with much of the rest of the world (America, he hoped, would be different). Singapore warned that “universal recognition of the ideal of human rights can be harmful if universalism is used to deny or mask the reality of diversity.” The Chinese delegation played a leading role in emphasizing regional differences and in making sure that the ...

The two concepts — human rights and capabilities — go well with each other, so long as we do not try to subsume either concept entirely within the territory of the other. There are many human rights that can be seen as rights to particular capabilities. However, human rights to important process freedoms cannot be adequately analysed within the capability framework. Furthermore, both human rights and capabilities have to depend on the process of public reasoning. The methodology of public scrutiny draws on Rawlsian understanding of ‘objectivity’ ...

Building Equitable and Resilient Health Systems: A Systems Thinking Perspective From Personal to Systems Resilience

REKAN (Community Health Volunteers) for Elderly Innitiative Capacity Building for Community Health Volunters to Promote Well-Being for the Elderly During COVID-19 Pandemic in Yogyakarta, Indonesia.

Background—Income inequality is associated with numerous negative health outcomes. There is evidence that ecological level socio-environmental factors may increase risk for schizophrenia. Aims—The aim was to investigate whether measures of income inequality are associated with incidence of schizophrenia at the country level. Method—We conducted a systematic review of incidence rates for schizophrenia, reported between 1975 and 2011. For each country, national measures of income inequality (Gini coefficient) along with covariate risk factors for ...

Non-communicable diseases (NCDs) are a large and rapidly-growing problem in China and other middle-income countries. Clinical treatment of NCDs is long-term and expensive, so it may present particular problems for equality and horizontal equity (equal treatment for equal need) in access to health care, although little is known about this at present in low- and middle-income countries. To address this gap, and inform policy for a substantial proportion of the global population, we examined inequality and inequity in general health care utilization ...