The focus on public policy and health equity is discussed in reference to the current global health policy discussion on Universal Health Coverage (UHC). This initiative has strong commitment from the leadership of the international organizations involved, but a lack of policy clarity outside of the health financing component may limit the initiative’s impact on health inequity. In order to add...

Background Systematic reviews are increasingly used to inform health policy-making. The conflicts of interest (COI) of the authors of systematic reviews may bias their results and influence their conclusions. This may in turn lead to misguided public policies and systems level decisions. In order to mitigate the adverse impact of COI, scientific journals require authors to disclose their COIs. ...

complementary and alternative medicine (cam) is widely used by patients worldwide. financial factors may influence the decision to use cam. national health systems are requested to consider cam in their health plans.

The instrumental use of social networks has become a central tenet of international health policy and advocacy since the Millennium project. In asking, ‘How to facilitate social contagion?’, Karl Blanchet of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine therefore reflects not only on the recent success, but also hints to growing challenges; the tactics of partnerships, alliances and platfo...

ELECTRONIC HEALTH RECORDS (EHRs) have tremendous potential for improving healthcare quality and safety. However, as EHRs become more complex and interconnected with several different computer systems, health information management (HIM) related activities become more challenging. Moreover, the potential for EHR-related safety concerns increases dramatically. The rapid growth of EHR adoption int...