Background Since the global economic crisis, a harsher economic climate and global commitments to address the problems of global health and poverty have led to increased donor interest to fund effective health innovations that offer value for money. Simultaneously, further aid effectiveness is being sought through encouraging governments in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) to strengthen...

A recently-published paper by Wickremasinghe et al assesses the scalability of pilot projects in three countries using the aid effectiveness agenda as an analytical framework. The authors report uneven progress and recommend applying aid effectiveness principles to improve the scalability of projects. This commentary focuses on one key principle of aid effectiveness – country ownership; it desc...

Background In Islamic countries alcohol consumption is considered as against religious values. Therefore, estimation of frequency of alcohol consumptions using direct methods is prone to different biases. In this study, we indirectly estimated the frequency of alcohol use in Iran, in network of a representative sample using network scale up (NSU) method.   Methods In a national survey, about 40...

This paper briefly summarizes definitions, approaches, and challenges to achieving “scale” in community-focused health programs as discussed at the 2005 CORE spring meeting and the USAID child survival and health grants program mini-university. This paper is meant to harmonize a vocabulary for use by NGOs and their partners as they further discuss, debate, and analyze how NGOs and their partner...