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Health Development (health + development)

Distribution by Scientific Domains

Medical Sciences	100%

Selected Abstracts

Life Course Health Development: An Integrated Framework for Developing Health, Policy, and Research

THE MILBANK QUARTERLY, Issue 3 2002
Neal Halfon
This article describes the Life Course Health Development (LCHD) framework, which was created to explain how health trajectories develop over an individual's lifetime and how this knowledge can guide new approaches to policy and research. Using recent research from the fields of public health, medicine, human development, and social sciences, the LCHD framework shows that ,Health is a consequence of multiple determinants operating in nested genetic, biological, behavioral, social, and economic contexts that change as a person develops. ,Health development is an adaptive process composed of multiple transactions between these contexts and the biobehavioral regulatory systems that define human functions. ,Different health trajectories are the product of cumulative risk and protective factors and other influences that are programmed into biobehavioral regulatory systems during critical and sensitive periods. ,The timing and sequence of biological, psychological, cultural, and historical events and experiences influence the health and development of both individuals and populations. The life course health development (LCHD) framework organizes research from several fields into a conceptual approach explaining how individual and population health develops and how developmental trajectories are determined by interactions between biological and environmental factors during the lifetime. This approach thus provides a construct for interpreting how people's experiences in the early years of life influence later health conditions and functional status. By focusing on the relationship between experiences and the biology of development, the LCHD framework offers a better understanding of how diseases occur. By suggesting new strategies for health measurement, service delivery, and research, as well as for improving health outcomes, this framework also supports health care-purchasing strategies to develop health throughout life and to build human health capital. [source]

Challenges to achieving sustainable community health development within a donor aid business model

AUSTRALIAN AND NEW ZEALAND JOURNAL OF PUBLIC HEALTH, Issue 3 2010
Helen Ashwell
Abstract Objective: This paper explores the paradox of donor aid being delivered through a business model through a case study in Papua New Guinea. Methods: A retrospective review of project implementation and an outcome evaluation provided an opportunity to examine the long-term results and sustainability of a large project. Analysis was informed by data collected from 175 interviews (national, provincial, district and village), 93 community discussions and observations across 10 provinces. Results: Problems with the business model of delivering aid were evident from implementation data and in an evaluation conducted two years after project completion (2006). Compounding the business model effect were challenges of over-ambitious project goals with limited flexibility to adapt to changing circumstances, a donor payment system requiring short-term productivity and excessive reporting requirements. Conclusion: An overly ambitious project design, donor dominance within the business model and limited local counterpart capacity created problems in the community initiatives component of the project. Contractual pressures can negatively influence long-term outcomes that require development of local leadership and capacity. Future planning for donor project designs needs to be flexible, smaller in scope and have a longer timeframe of seven to 10 years. Implications: Donor-funded projects need to be sufficiently flexible to apply proven principles of community development, build local ownership and allow adequate time to build counterpart knowledge and skills. [source]

Water supply and sanitation in remote Indigenous communities-priorities for health development

AUSTRALIAN AND NEW ZEALAND JOURNAL OF PUBLIC HEALTH, Issue 5 2004
Ross S. Bailie
Objective:To review available national and State/Territory survey data on water supply and sanitation in remote Indigenous Australian communities and to discuss the findings in terms of priorities for health and infrastructure development. Methods:Descriptive analysis of data on relevant variables from available data sources. Results:All relevant published reports arose from only two data sources: the Community Housing and Infrastructure Needs Surveys, and from a Northern Territory-wide survey of community-owned dwellings. The data show that many communities do not have a reliable water supply and experience frequent and prolonged breakdown in sewerage systems. For example, 12% of communities of 50 people or more experienced five or more periods of water restrictions in a one-year period, and 10% of communities experienced sewage overflow or leakage 20 or more times in a one-year period. Items of basic household infrastructure regarded as essential for household hygiene are missing or not functional in many community-owned dwellings. For example, in about one-third of houses bathroom taps and toilet drainage required major repairs. Conclusion and Implications:Given the widely accepted importance of water and sanitation to health, the data support the contention that poor environmental conditions are a major cause of poor health in remote communities and provide some measure at a national level of the magnitude of the problem. Action to ensure easy access to adequate quantities of water and secure sanitation should receive greater priority. There is need for better quality information systems to monitor progress, equity and accountability in the delivery of water and sanitation services. [source]