INTRODUCTION Disability and poverty are believed to operate in a cycle, with each reinforcing the other. While agreement on the existence of a link is strong, robust empirical evidence substantiating and describing this potential association is lacking. Consequently, a systematic review was undertaken to explore the relationship between disability and economic poverty, with a focus on the situa...

In recent years, the private and public sectors have increased investments in medical diagnostics for low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). Despite these investments, numerous barriers prevent the adoption of existing diagnostics and discourage the development and introduction of new diagnostics in LMICs. In the late 1990s, the global vaccine community had similar challenges, as vaccine cov...

The World Health Organization (WHO) reports that low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) are confronted with a serious 'mental health gap', indicating an enormous disparity between the number of individuals in need of mental health care and the availability of professionals to provide such care (WHO in 2010). Traditional forms of mental health services (i.e. face-to-face, individualised assess...

Breast cancer burden is high in low-resource countries. From 1980 to 2010, new breast cancer cases increased by more than 50% worldwide. Disease burden increased even more rapidly in lowandmiddle-incomecountries (LMICs), where more than half of breast cancer cases now occur. Moreover, breast cancer disproportionately affects young women in LMICs, such that 23% of new breast cancer cases occur a...

Objective This systematic review aims to provide a summary of the use real-time telementoring, telesurgical consultation and telesurgery in surgical procedures patients low/middle-income countries (LMICs). Design A was conducted accordance with Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews Meta-Analyses statement Cochrane Collaboration published guidelines. Data sources EMBASE, MEDLINE, Coch...

INTRODUCTION In high-income countries, secondhand smoke (SHS) exposure is higher among disadvantaged groups. We examine socioeconomic inequalities in SHS exposure at home and at workplace in 15 low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). METHODS Secondary analyses of cross-sectional data from 15 LMICs participating in Global Adult Tobacco Survey (participants ≥ 15 years; 2008-2011) were used. C...

Low-resource countries can greatly benefit from even small increases in efficiency of health service provision, supporting a strong case to measure and pursue efficiency improvement in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). However, the knowledge base concerning efficiency measurement remains scarce for these contexts. This study shows that current estimation approaches may not be well suite...