BACKGROUND Heart failure places a significant burden on patients and health systems in high-income countries. However, information about its burden in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) is scant. We thus set out to review both published and unpublished information on the presentation, causes, management, and outcomes of heart failure in LMICs. METHODS AND FINDINGS Medline, Embase, Globa...

Jaacks LM, Bellows AL. BMJ Glob Health 2017;2:e000564. doi:10.1136/bmjgh-2017-000564 Hippocrates (fifth century BCE), the father of medicine and namesake of the Oath many medical students swear by to this day, was among the first to recognise the centrality of diet in disease prevention and treatment. In that Oath, the statement, ‘I will apply dietetic measures for the benefit of the sick accor...

In many lowand middle-income countries (LMICs), a poor link between antibiotic policies and practices exists. Numerous contextual factors may influence the degree of antibiotic access, appropriateness of antibiotic provision, and actual use in communities. Therefore, improving appropriateness of antibiotic use in different communities in LMICs probably requires interventions tailored to the set...

Noncommunicable diseases, such as cancer, are surpassing infectious diseases as the most pressing health care threat in lowand middle-income countries (LMICs). By 2025, 59% of new cancer cases and 68% of all cancer deaths will occur in LMICs, and health care systems in these countries are struggling to respond to this changing landscape. InBrazil, breast cancer is themost commoncancer and the l...

BACKGROUND The early decades of the 21st century are considered to be the era of human resources for health (HRH). The World Health Report (WHR) 2006 launched the Health Workforce Decade (2006-2015), with high priority given for countries to develop effective workforce policies and strategies. In many countries in the Eastern Mediterranean Region (EMR), particularly those classified as Low and ...

BACKGROUND The development of cognitive and socioemotional skills early in life influences later health and well-being. Existing estimates of unmet developmental potential in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) are based on either measures of physical growth or proxy measures such as poverty. In this paper we aim to directly estimate the number of children in LMICs who would be reported by...

Deaths due to NCDs in LMICs are expected to increase from 30.8 million in 2015 to 41.8 million by 2030 [1]. While improvements in life expectancy, lifestyle and urbanisation go some way to explaining why more people in LMICs are affected by NCDs, it is less clear why these populations are contracting NCDs at a younger age and with worse outcomes than in high–income countries (HICs) [2]. Despite...

Little is known about the excess mortality caused by multidrug-resistant (MDR) bacterial infection in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). We retrospectively obtained microbiology laboratory and hospital databases of nine public hospitals in northeast Thailand from 2004 to 2010, and linked these with the national death registry to obtain the 30-day mortality outcome. The 30-day mortality i...

Scholarship focusing on how international research can contribute to justice in global health has primarily explored requirements for the conduct of clinical trials. Yet health systems research in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) has increasingly been identified as vital to the reduction of health disparities between and within countries. This paper expands an existing ethical framework...

OBJECTIVE According to recent estimates, at least 11% of the total global burden of disease is attributable to surgically-treatable diseases. In children, the burden is even more striking with up to 85% of children in low-income and middle-income countries (LMIC) having a surgically-treatable condition by age 15. Using population data from four countries, we estimated pediatric surgical needs a...