SEARCH · PubMed Health

Results for “Developing Countries”

Explore indexed PubMed citations for clinical trials, systematic reviews and public health research. Read source abstracts and follow each citation to its original PubMed record.

Quote a phrase for an exact phrase match. Source license links do not imply unrestricted reuse.

At least 1,693 records · Page 94Linked to original sources

PubMed1999

Financing the delivery of animal health services in developing countries: a case study of Ghana.

Inadequate financing for the delivery of animal health services in many developing countries has been blamed for lack of efficiency and effectiveness of veterinary services. There are no reports of how the delivery of veterinary services in Ghana is financed. The aim of this paper is to provide information on the funding of veterinary services in Ghana to help in decision making on resource allocation. Various indicators and measures were used in assessing the adequacy of financing and resource allocation from 1990 to 1995. These measures were the veterinary budget as proportions of the national budget, GDP and AGDP; the proportions of the veterinary budget allocated to salaries; the ratios of salaries to non-staff expenditure and of non-staff expenditure to veterinary livestock units and technical staff; coefficient of efficacy; and R-ratio. These generally declined or worsened over the period, deviating from recommended norms where such norms exist. This confirmed the paucity of financing and resource allocation for the delivery of veterinary services. Revenue generation from cost recovery over the 1993-95 period was a potential source of funding, exceeding 100% of non-staff expenditure for 1993 and 1994. However, the revenue generated was not channelled back to veterinary services but went to the national coffers. This served as a disincentive. There is an urgent need to review how veterinary services are financed in Ghana, if the delivery of services is to improve in efficiency and effectiveness.

Animals↗

PubMed2005

Priority setting of public spending in developing countries: do not try to do everything for everybody.

BACKGROUND: Public spending on health care in many developing countries falls short to provide a comprehensive set of essential health services, which indicates the need to target and prioritize resources. However, governments often attempt to provide free services to the whole population, and often spend resources on low-impact services. This results in an inequitable and inefficient use of resources. METHODS: This paper presents a rational approach to targeting and prioritization of public spending, with an application to Ghana. First, interventions were tested against the economic justification for public funding, to define to whom spending should be targeted. Second, resulting interventions were prioritized on the basis of medical and non-medical criteria. RESULTS: The step-wise approach led to a rank ordering of interventions with a specification whether public spending should be targeted at the whole population or the poor only. Disease control priorities are prevention of mother-to-child HIV/AIDS transmission and oral rehydration therapy to treat diarrhea in childhood, and public funding of these interventions is warranted for the whole population. Case-management of pneumonia in childhood is also a priority but public funding should be targeted at the poor only. Low priorities for public funding are certain interventions to control blood pressure, tobacco and alcohol abuse, be it for the whole population or the poor only. CONCLUSION: Governments should not try to provide everything for everybody. This may help health systems to move towards a more equitable and efficient use of resources.

Budgets↗

PubMed2006

Childhood trauma fatality and resource allocation in injury control programs in a developing country.

BACKGROUND: Only a few studies have addressed the trimodal distribution of childhood trauma fatalities in lesser developed countries. We conducted this study to evaluate pre-hospital, Emergency Department (ED) and in-hospital distribution of childhood injury-related death for each mechanism of injury in Tehran, Iran. This information will be used for the efficient allocation of the limited injury control resources in the city. METHODS: We used Tehran's Legal Medicine Organization (LMO) database. This is the largest and the most complete database that receives information about trauma fatalities from more than 100 small and large hospitals in Tehran. We reviewed all the medical records and legal documents of the deceased registered in LMO from September 1999 to September 2000. Demographic and injury related characteristics of the children 15 years old or younger were extracted from the records. RESULTS: Ten percent of the 4,233 trauma deaths registered in LMO occurred among children 15 years old or younger. Motor vehicle crashes (MVCs) (50%), burns (18%), falls (6%) and poisonings (6%) were the most common mechanisms of unintentional fatal injuries. Prehospital, emergency department and hospital deaths comprised 42%, 20% and 37% of the trauma fatalities, respectively. While, more than 80% of fatal injuries due to poisoning and drowning occurred in prehospital setting, 92% of burn-related fatalities happened after hospital admission. CONCLUSION: Injury prevention is the single most important solution for controlling trauma fatalities due to poisoning and drowning. Improvements in the quality of care in hospitals and intensive care units might substantially alleviate the magnitude of the problem due to burns. Improvements in prehospital and ED care might significantly decrease MVC and falls-related fatalities.

Accidental Falls↗

PubMed1991

Seroepidemiology of enteric fever and brucellosis in a developing country.

The seroepidemiology of infection due to S. typhi and Brucella spp. in a sub-tropical, developing country of the Middle East was investigated in 130 children of age less than 1 to 15 years, 117 young adults (16-30 years) and in a further 40 adults (greater than 30 years) using an agglutination test to detect antibodies to of S. typhi, B. abortus and B. melitensis. Only 4.5% of the children's and adult's sera respectively showed the presence of antibodies to both O and H antigens of S. typhi with reciprocal titers greater than or equal to 80. Prevalence rates of 11.6%, 11.3% respectively in children and adults of antibodies to B. abortus with reciprocal titers greater than or equal to 80 and similarly 13.1%, 12.4% to B. melitensis were found. The usefulness of a single Widal test to diagnose enteric fever in a non-endemic area and the agglutination test in the diagnosis of brucellosis in an endemic area was investigated. Of 244 patients with suspected enteric fever, the sera of 100 showed reciprocal antibody titers 80 to both O and H antigens and included in these were 8 patients with concurrent culture positivity. Among 138 children and adults with suspected brucellosis, 29 culture proven cases where serologically confirmed and a further 90 were detected serologically. The sera of all the culture proven cases exhibited antibody reciprocal titer greater than or equal to 640. A similar antibody response was noted in seventy-two of the culture negative cases diagnosed serologically for brucellosis. In culture proven, cases B. melitensis was the isolate. Comparative evaluation indicated the potential usefulness of the Rose Bengal Antigen Slide Agglutination Test (Brucelloside Test) as a screening test in the serodiagnosis of human brucellosis.

Adolescent↗

PubMed1998

The neurological outcome of acute spinal cord injury in a neurosurgical hospital of a developing country.

The neurological outcome of 146 patients who survived spinal cord injury in a neurosurgical hospital of a developing country, were compared to those reported from Stoke Mandeville, UK. The average recuperation in the two groups was similar.

Adolescent↗

PubMedDate not supplied

Crowded outpatient departments in city hospitals of developing countries: a case study from Lesotho.

'Overuse' of hospital outpatient departments in urban areas of developing countries is perceived as a problem by many health planners. The World Health Organization is promoting advanced health centres, or 'reference centres', as part of a strategy to develop urban health systems and to reduce primary contact care at hospitals. However, hospital-based information to assist city health service planning is limited in many countries. This study examined user characteristics, patient flow and prescribing quality at the national referral hospital in Maseru, Lesotho, using simple and replicable methods. The study found that most users were self-referred and came from the city. The majority of respondents were aware of their local health centre but reported they would normally use the hospital when they were ill. Examination of patient flow showed that, on average, patients spent a total of 3.7 h waiting. Quality of care was compromised by a tendency to over-prescribe, particularly antibiotics and sedatives. The study suggests that in Maseru, the perception of 'overuse' is due to congestion and that improved patient flow management will reduce the numbers of patients waiting. Quality of care could be strengthened by regular audit of prescribing practices by clinicians in the hospital.

Adult↗

PubMed1990

Indoor air pollution in developing countries.

Of the four principal categories of indoor pollution (combustion products, chemicals, radon and biologicals), research in developing countries has focused on combustion-generated pollutants, and principally those from solid-fuel-fired cooking and heating stoves. Such stoves are used in more than half the world's households and have been shown in many locations to produce high indoor concentrations of particulates, carbon monoxide and other combustion-related pollutants. Although the proportion of all such household stoves that are used in poorly ventilated situations is uncertain, the total population exposed to excessive concentrations is potentially high, probably several hundred million. A number of studies were carried out in the 1980s to discover the health effects of such stove exposures. The majority of such studies were done in South Asia in homes burning biomass fuels or in China with coal-burning homes, although a sprinkling of studies examining biomass-burning have been done in Oceania, Latin America and Africa. Of the health effects that might be expected from such exposures, little, if any, work seems to have been done on low birthweight and eye problems, although there are anecdotal accounts making the connection. Decreased lung function has been noted in Nepali women reporting more time spent near the stove as it has for Chinese women using coal stoves as compared to those using gas stoves. Respiratory distress symptoms have been associated with use of smoky fuels in West India, Ladakh and in several Chinese studies among different age groups, some with large population samples. Acute respiratory infection in children, one of the chief causes of infant and childhood mortality, has been associated with Nepali household-smoke exposures. Studies of chronic disease endpoints are difficult because of the need to construct exposure histories over long periods. Nevertheless, chronic obstructive lung disease has been associated with the daily time spent near the stove for Nepali women and found to be elevated among coal-stove users compared to gas-stove users in Shanghai. In contrast to early reports, there seems to be little or no risk of nasopharyngeal cancer from cookstove smoke. Several studies in China, however, have found smoke to be a strong risk factor for lung cancer among non-smoking women. In addition, severe fluorosis has been observed in several parts of China where coal fluoride levels are high.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)

Air Pollutants↗

PubMedDate not supplied

Attitudes toward hearing-impaired children in less developed countries: a pilot study.

Various anecdotal reports have been presented about attitudes to hearing loss and deafness in less developed countries but few studies have addressed this matter systematically. In the present study, we have applied a standardised questionnaire to 357 teachers from as uniform a sample as possible within 20 countries in Africa, Latin America, and Asia and compared the results with those obtained from 107 teachers in Western Europe. The questions tapped into their responses toward developing hearing loss themselves, hearing loss in children they encountered. and which group of children with disabilities they would prefer to teach. The geographical origins of the teachers influenced all measures except their view of the contribution that deaf children could make to society. This was influenced solely by the age of the responding teacher.

Adult↗

PubMed2002