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22. How Cities in Developing Countries View Climate Change
- Author:
- Yoon Jae Ro
- Publication Date:
- 12-2024
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Korea Institute for International Economic Policy (KIEP)
- Abstract:
- The article explores the perceptions of climate change among urban residents in developing countries, focusing on health risks, economic disruptions, and personal responsibilities. It highlights the role of education, income, rural ties, and media exposure in shaping awareness of climate change. Despite willingness for climate action, government financial measures face resistance. Public trust in governments influences views on domestic policies, while international collaboration is seen as essential yet fraught with power imbalances. The study emphasizes tailored, region-specific strategies and equitable global cooperation to address urban challenges and foster effective climate governance.
- Topic:
- Climate Change, Development, Health, and Cities
- Political Geography:
- Global Focus
23. Health responses during COVID-19
- Author:
- Neha Singh, Kimberley Popple, and James Smith
- Publication Date:
- 08-2024
- Content Type:
- Commentary and Analysis
- Institution:
- ALNAP: Active Learning Network for Accountability and Performance
- Abstract:
- The novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic presented a grave global health challenge, both in terms of scale and severity. The novelty of the virus and the widespread economic impacts of efforts to contain it created an urgent global need to understand the virus, issue accurate guidance and develop effective prevention and treatment. As the pandemic progressed, many contexts already affected by humanitarian crises faced a new health threat, further compounded by the pandemic’s deleterious impact on socioeconomic indicators, food security and essential services. Many other countries, not previously considered as affected by humanitarian crises, had to reorientate to crisis response given the extent of the threat posed by COVID-19. Both the anticipated and realised impact of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic placed immense pressure on healthcare systems worldwide to both prevent and treat COVID-19 cases – something that has often required complex interventions – while simultaneously maintaining essential health services. As such, policymakers and healthcare workers were pressed to make changes to systems and practices to respond to the direct threat posed by COVID-19, and the indirect impact of COVID-19 response measures on non-COVID-19 health needs. Much of the available COVID-19 guidance primarily focused on higher-income countries, many of which became the early epicentres of the pandemic, and thus far has not necessarily been as relevant or applicable to humanitarian settings where living and working conditions, as well as the wider socio-cultural environment, are very different, and where local health systems may already be weakened by existing humanitarian crises and other challenges. Furthermore, where guidance has been developed for humanitarian settings (Interagency Standing Committee [IASC], 2020; Ramalingam, 2020), the diversity of countries and contexts that fall under such categorisation is such that any guidance produced is not able – nor intended – to be context specific. As such, humanitarian organisations at the country level have initiated adaptive interventions to respond to the specific challenges they have experienced (Lancet, 2020). These adaptations often demonstrate a complex process whereby organisations acknowledge guidance is available to support interventions, but that they must nonetheless adapt or innovate in response to contextual realities (Odlum et al., 2021).
- Topic:
- Health, COVID-19, and Humanitarian Response
- Political Geography:
- Global Focus
24. The Impact of Clubfoot Intervention on Dimensions of Human Flourishing: Evidence from the Organization Hope Walks in Ethiopia
- Author:
- Bruce Wydick, Gianna Camacho, and Patrizio Piraino
- Publication Date:
- 09-2024
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Kellogg Institute for International Studies
- Abstract:
- We study the impact of clubfoot disability and its treatment on multiple dimensions of human flourishing among children. Working with Hope Walks, a faith-based development organization that funds clubfoot interventions in numerous countries, we use a quasi difference-indifferences approach on data collected from 564 children in Ethiopia. To generate counterfactuals to clubfoot status and treatment, we use outcomes from nearest-age siblings of children born with clubfoot nested within a family-level fixed effect. We find that clubfoot status (early treatment) results in a disability (restoration) of -1.44σ (0.91σ) in physical mobility, -1.17σ (0.79σ) in mental health, -1.07σ (0.64σ) in social inclusion, -0.48σ (0.98σ) in an education index, -0.76σ (0.42σ) in religious faith, and -1.19σ (0.79σ) in an aggregate index of human flourishing (all p < 0.05). We attribute the large, broad, and significant impacts from clubfoot treatment to (i) a highly effective medical intervention that is (ii) carried out in an impoverished setting with scarce existing support for children born with disabilities, which (3) generates spillover effects into multiple facets of human flourishing.
- Topic:
- Health, Disability, Human Development, and Dignity
- Political Geography:
- Africa and Ethiopia
25. Left Behind or Forgotten? The Case of Children With Disabilities: A Multidimensional Poverty Approach
- Author:
- Khaufelo R. Lekobane and Thabile A. Samboma
- Publication Date:
- 02-2024
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Botswana Institute for Development Policy Analysis
- Abstract:
- The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development recognises the importance of multidimensional poverty and disability. Using the 2015/16 Botswana multi-topic household survey, this policy brief examined the link between childhood disability and multidimensional child poverty in Botswana¹. We employed the conceptual framing of the Leaving No One Behind principle, capability and human rights-based approaches to define multidimensional child poverty and child disability. The following are key highlights of this policy brief. Children with disabilities are particularly deprived of basic capabilities (education and health). On average, children with disabilities, as a group, experience multiple deprivations at higher rates and in higher breath, depth, and severity than children with no disabilities. Children with disabilities have higher multidimensional poverty levels than their nondisabled peers across demographic, economic, and geographical divides. Multidimensional child poverty levels vary across the type of functional disabilities and across the number of functional disabilities experienced by children.
- Topic:
- Health, Poverty, Children, Disability, and Sustainable Development
- Political Geography:
- Africa and Botswana
26. Long-term care policies in practice: a European perspective
- Author:
- Svend E. Hougaard Jensen, David Pinkus, and Nina Ruer
- Publication Date:
- 12-2024
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Bruegel
- Abstract:
- This paper offers a comprehensive study of the long-term care (LTC) systems in Germany, France, Slovenia, Italy and Denmark. In many EU countries, the demand for LTC services already exceeds supply. Without major reforms, this ‘care gap’ is likely to widen further because of population ageing. This paper highlights a number of recent reforms to reduce this care gap by affecting the demand for and supply of long-term care services. We find that most measures to increase the supply of formal LTC services focus on workforce attractiveness. By examining recent policy efforts and reforms, we aim to understand in which direction LTC policy is going, and to showcase measures to prepare for the future increase in demand for care.
- Topic:
- Health, Public Policy, Macroeconomics, and Aging
- Political Geography:
- Europe, France, Germany, Denmark, Italy, and Slovenia
27. The UN’s Response to the COVID-19 Infodemic
- Author:
- Gabriel Delsol and Albert Trithart
- Publication Date:
- 05-2023
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- International Peace Institute (IPI)
- Abstract:
- The COVID-19 pandemic has been accompanied by a related “infodemic.” This infodemic emerged as widespread demand for information about the public health emergency was met with large volumes of false and misleading information. Many of the national and international institutions leading the response to the COVID-19 pandemic, including the UN, quickly recognized that they also needed to respond to the infodemic. This led to a quick, broad-based response by a broad array of UN agencies and partners. To date, however, there has been no systematic mapping or assessment of the range of initiatives across the UN system. To begin filling that gap, this paper provides an overview of the UN system’s response to the COVID-19 infodemic across four areas: monitoring harmful information related to COVID-19; dispelling false information and providing authoritative information; building information resilience; and setting the agenda. It then assesses some of the successes and challenges of the response across four areas: external partnerships, including with governments, civil society, academia, and social media companies; coordination within the UN system; financial, human, and technological capacity; and impact assessment. The report concludes that the UN’s infodemic response finds itself at a pivotal point: Due to donor fatigue around COVID-19, funding for the infodemic response is falling even while the need for a robust infrastructure to address infodemics and other information disorders may be increasing. UN entities working to address the infodemic and other information disorders should therefore consider the following: Engaging in a consultative process to develop a shared understanding of the infodemic by defining its specific harms in relation to each of their mandates; Sustaining and building capacity to counter infodemics and other information disorders, both in communications departments and in other sections working on infodemic management; Adopting a more standardized, system-wide approach to the use of new technologies and engagement with technology platforms; and Continuing to strengthen long-term information resilience by building the capacity of governments to manage infodemics and supporting strong, independent media.
- Topic:
- Health, Science and Technology, United Nations, and COVID-19
- Political Geography:
- Global Focus
28. Disease Mix and How Economic Freedom Matters for Health Outcomes
- Author:
- Vincent Geloso, Kelly Hyde, and Ilia Murtazashvili
- Publication Date:
- 03-2023
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- The Cato Institute
- Abstract:
- We investigate the institutional foundations of public health. We argue that a key distinction in analysis of disease is between diseases of commerce (diseases associated with movement of people and with affluence) and diseases of poverty (primarily noncommunicable diseases that depend on wealth and income). We show that the mix of disease – the ratio of communicable diseases and those associated with longevity to diseases of poverty – increases in economically free countries. We argue that increasing burdens of diseases of commerce reflects the quality of institutions, as those diseases are better than living shorter, brutish lives where diseases of poverty claim many lives. This analysis also highlights an institutional trade‐off: economically free institutions reduce certain types of disease while contributing to others.
- Topic:
- Health, Infectious Diseases, Economy, Institutions, and Public Health
- Political Geography:
- Global Focus
29. Valuing Longer, Healthier Lives: Assessing the Productivity of Health Spending in South Korea
- Author:
- Karen Eggleston
- Publication Date:
- 03-2023
- Content Type:
- Special Report
- Institution:
- East-West Center
- Abstract:
- This research studies the link between medical spending and health outcomes in South Korea, providing evidence on the productivity of medical spending over recent decades. The author advocates for the Korean government to develop a “satellite account for health” to complement national income and product accounts. Current measures do not account for changing quality nor give providers any incentive for cost-effective substitution between forms of treatment for a given condition. By leveraging existing strengths of Korea’s National Health Insurance and health outcome data, Korea can develop an accurate measure of medical productivity and a more accurate measure of overall economic productivity, while becoming a global pioneer of “health satellite accounts” for overall populations. Such a productivity metric built on condition-specific net value can help Korea increase the “bang for the buck” from medical spending, mitigate wasteful spending, and promote high-value innovations for longer, healthier lives.
- Topic:
- Health, Public Spending, and Productivity
- Political Geography:
- Asia and South Korea
30. U.S. Health Care from a Global Perspective, 2022: Accelerating Spending, Worsening Outcomes
- Author:
- Munira Z. Gunja, Evan D. Gumas, and Reginald D. Williams II
- Publication Date:
- 01-2023
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Commonwealth Fund
- Abstract:
- In the previous edition of U.S. Health Care from a Global Perspective, we reported that people in the United States experience the worst health outcomes overall of any high-income nation.1 Americans are more likely to die younger, and from avoidable causes, than residents of peer countries. Between January 2020 and December 2021, life expectancy dropped in the U.S. and other countries.2 With the pandemic a continuing threat to global health and well-being, we have updated our 2019 cross-national comparison of health care systems to assess U.S. health spending, outcomes, status, and service use relative to Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Japan, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, South Korea, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom. We also compare U.S. health system performance to the OECD average for the 38 high-income countries for which data are available. The data for our analysis come from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and other international sources (see “How We Conducted This Study” for details). For every metric we examine, we used the latest data available. This means that results for certain countries may reflect the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, when mental health conditions were surging, essential health services were disrupted, and patients may not have received the same level of care
- Topic:
- Health, Health Care Policy, Inequality, and Finance
- Political Geography:
- North America and United States of America