Correspondence to Professor Valéry Ridde; [email protected] ‘We know what we have to do, but we don’t know how to do it’ has been a recurring comment among global health actors for a long time. In 2010, for example, the United Nations affirmed that ‘we know what works’ in taking care of the health of women and children. The WHO Commission on the Social Determinants of Health (2008) has ...

BACKGROUND Increasing the availability of health workers in remote and rural areas through improved health workforce recruitment and retention is crucial to population health. However, information about the costs of such policy interventions often appears incomplete, fragmented or missing, despite its importance for the sound selection, planning, implementation and evaluation of these policies....

Quebec has a distinctive character among the Canadian provinces not only because of its majority French-speaking population, its culture, its social democratic values, and its institutions, but also because of the flamboyant style of its public policies and legislation. The article by Bernier in the last issue of the Journal stresses this distinctive character as applied to public health and he...

Most countries worldwide have recognised the significance of contextual social determinants of health (SDH) on population health. This essay challenges current public health views focused on individual risk-factors and motivates an evidence-informed debate in this matter. I argue that despite both international consensus and a growing body of evidence to support the relevance of addressing such...

2 controversial issues related to the consequences of Middle Eastern international migration were examined: its effect on the development policies of the labor importing countries with a special reference to the case of Kuwait; and its effect on the growth potential of the labor exporting countries with special reference to recent development in Egypt's agricultural reproductivity. A prelimin...

A broad range of causes related to institutional and socioeconomic development are examined in terms of their influence on fertility transition in China. The question is raised as to whether a uniform government population policy sufficiently accounts for the urban and rural differences in fertility and declines which preceded policy. Significant changes which may be determinants of fertility...

It has been debated since the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) whether the ICPD program of action constitutes population policy. Opponents of the ICPD reproductive health approach argue that vertical family planning programs will be more cost-effective, while proponents counter that the reproductive health approach will be more cost-effective in meeting demogr...

background health policies are important instruments for improving population health. however, experience suggests that policies designed for the whole population do not always benefit the most vulnerable. participation of vulnerable groups in the policy-making process provides an opportunity for them to influence decisions related to their health, and also to exercise their rights. this paper ...