SETTING Hlabisa health district, South Africa. OBJECTIVE To describe the integration of a 'vertical' tuberculosis control programme into an emerging 'horizontal' district health system, within the context of health sector reform. DESIGN Descriptive account of the process of integration of the programme into the health system. RESULTS A highly 'vertical' system of delivering tuberculosis t...

Background: Geographical Information System is a new tool in environmental epidemiology that makes the opportunity of visualization and analysis of spatial data. The aim of this study was to determine the geographic variation of low birth weight using geographic information system in order to evaluate the efficacy of primary health care and health information system. Methods: Low birth weight r...

OBJECTIVE To determine the accuracy of monthly reports submitted by lady health workers of National program for family planning and primary health care in district Lahore. METHODS A cross sectional descriptive study was conducted in district Lahore from November 2008 to February 2009. Forty lady health workers were selected using stratified random technique. Four monthly reports (one from eac...

Worcester and District Health Authority met various difficulties in its efforts to form a mental health services unit management team. The district contains two separate mental illness services, and the health authority decreed that these should form one unit thereby perpetuating the sector tier of management which the 1982 reorganisation was intended to abolish. The psychiatrists objected to t...

Tilley DM1,2, Dubedat SM3, Lowe P4, Templeton DJ1,5,6 1Sexual Health Service, Community Health, Sydney Local Health District, Sydney, Australia 2Women’s Health Service, Community Health, Sydney Local Health District, Sydney, Australia 3Department of Microbiology, Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, Sydney, Australia 4Hologic (Australia) Pty Ltd 5The Kirby Institute, University of New South Wales, Syd...

District level healthcare serves as a nexus between community and district level facilities. Inputs at the district level can be broadly divided into governance and accountability mechanisms; leadership and supervision; financial platforms; and information systems. This paper aims to evaluate the effectivness of district level inputs for imporving maternal and newborn health. We considered all ...

BACKGROUND Out-of-pocket payments make up about 80% of medical care spending at hospitals in Laos, thereby putting poor households at risk of catastrophic health expenditure. Social security schemes in the form of community-based health insurance and health equity funds have been introduced in some parts of the country. Drug and Therapeutics Committees (DTCs) have been established to ensure rat...

Malaya achieved its independence in 1957; in 1963 it combined with Sabah, Sarawak, and Singapore (which seceded two years later) to form Malaysia. Today, Malaysia is a country in transition and thus has health problems ofboth undeveloped and developed countries. The main provider of health care in the country is the Ministry of Health through its extensive network of health centres, rural clini...

Integration of mental health into primary care is essential in Kenya, where there are only 75 psychiatrists for 38 million population, of whom 21 are in the universities and 28 in private practice. A partnership between the Ministry of Health, the Kenya Psychiatric Association and the World Health Organization (WHO) Collaborating Centre, Institute of Psychiatry, Kings College London was funded ...

BACKGROUND Health workforce needs-based shortages and skill mix imbalances are significant health workforce challenges. Task shifting, defined as delegating tasks to existing or new cadres with either less training or narrowly tailored training, is a potential strategy to address these challenges. This study uses an economics perspective to review the skill mix literature to determine its stren...