“In LAC, 70% of excess deaths that could have been avoided by adequate healthcare are due to low quality of care while 30% are due to lack of access to care.” This striking statistic is often used to highlight the importance of quality for health outcomes, including in the IDB’s Health Sector Framework. But what is the basis for this estimate, and what does it mean? What … [Read more...] about Preventing Unnecessary Deaths: Tackling Low Quality of Care
healthcare
Can We Do Better than Normal for Health?
In the third year of the COVID-19 pandemic it is easy to both remain stunned by the pandemic’s impact and long for some kind of normalcy. That is certainly true for health systems in Latin America and the Caribbean, which were hit hard and are struggling to recover. But what should recovery look like? While it is tempting to be nostalgic about pre-pandemic times, those were … [Read more...] about Can We Do Better than Normal for Health?
What Mesoamerica Can Teach Us About Health Equity, Impact, and Decolonizing Global Health
Mesoamerica is an isthmus land sandwiched between the Pacific and the Caribbean Sea, a world away from where the Gates Foundation focuses most of its attention. It is a socio-cultural region with a rich history that runs through Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala, Belize, and Chiapas, MX. Much of the terrain here is rugged, mountainous, and lush - … [Read more...] about What Mesoamerica Can Teach Us About Health Equity, Impact, and Decolonizing Global Health
Tuberculosis changed architecture. What changes will COVID-19 leave in its wake?
Public health crises disrupt daily life and bring about changes that remain after the crisis ebbs. Did you know that tuberculosis caused a permanent shift in certain architectural trends? Or that in England, John Snow found the key to curbing cholera, and it changed how we handle wastewater? This article looks at five changes COVID-19 will leave us with. A health crisis … [Read more...] about Tuberculosis changed architecture. What changes will COVID-19 leave in its wake?
A one-stop shop for our webinars on COVID-19
About a year ago, in March 2020, people worldwide were having their last workday in the office. Although life has slowly begun to return to some level of normalcy in some places, at least for now, in many others – perhaps most –, people with desk jobs are still working from home. At the IDB, in March 2020, we began organizing a series of webinars about COVID-19, … [Read more...] about A one-stop shop for our webinars on COVID-19