Connecting mothers to care: Effectiveness and scale-up of an mHealth program in Timor-Leste.

Background: Health Alliance International (HAI) with the Ministry of Health (MoH) of Timor-Leste and Catalpa International implemented a mobile phone-based mHealth program in 2013 known as ("Connecting Mothers"). Liga Inan was designed as a sustainable and scalable effort that would support MoH efforts to improve maternal and newborn health care-seeking and home practices. Key aims were to use mobile phone technology to improve communication between pregnant women and their MoH health providers and to increase optimal maternal health behaviors.

"The PIT Experience": A Young Adult with Autism Spectrum Disorder's Opinion of how a Wellness Program Changed her Life.

Piece it Together (PIT) is a comprehensive wellness program designed for transitional age youth with Autism Spectrum Disorder and mild neurodevelopmental disabilities that focuses on exercise, nutrition, socialization, and stress-reduction. The PIT Summer Program is a 6-week program, consisting of 90-min classes, twice a week. Each class incorporates 45-min of exercise and health and wellness lessons in goal setting, nutrition, bones and muscle anatomy, and stress management.

Translating benefits of exercise on depression for youth with autism spectrum disorder and neurodevelopmental disorders.

Young adults with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) are at increased risk of poor health and depressive symptoms due to difficulty with communication, limited interests, sensory deficits, and sedentary lifestyles. The Piece It Together program was developed to provide socialization and wellness goals for teens and young adults with ASD and other mild neurocognitive deficits. The curriculum includes strength and endurance training, nutrition education, and stress reduction techniques to promote healthy lifestyle choices.

The Cuban Response to the Ebola Epidemic in West Africa: Lessons in Solidarity.

In December 2013 the first case of Ebola appeared in Guinea. In September 2014 the United Nations (UN) and its specialized agency the World Health Organization (WHO) issued a call for medical collaboration in response to the medical crisis and social disaster caused by the Ebola virus epidemic in West Africa. Cuban authorities responded immediately to the call by offering specialized help for the epidemic, in collaboration with WHO.

Does mobile phone ownership predict better utilization of maternal and newborn health services? a cross-sectional study in Timor-Leste.

Background: Increasingly popular mobile health (mHealth) programs have been proposed to promote better utilization of maternal, newborn and child health services. However, women who lack access to a mobile phone are often left out of both mHealth programs and research. In this study, we determine whether household mobile phone ownership is an independent predictor of utilization of maternal and newborn health services in Timor-Leste.

Domestic violence, marital control, and family planning, maternal, and birth outcomes in Timor-Leste.

Patriarchal traditions and a history of armed conflict in Timor-Leste provide a context that facilitates violence against women. More than a third of ever-married Timorese women report physical and/or sexual domestic violence (DV) perpetrated by their most recent partner. DV violates women's rights and may threaten their reproductive health.

The prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV cascade analysis tool: supporting health managers to improve facility-level service delivery.

Background: The objective of the prevention of Mother-to-Child Transmission (pMTCT) cascade analysis tool is to provide frontline health managers at the facility level with the means to rapidly, independently and quantitatively track patient flows through the pMTCT cascade, and readily identify priority areas for clinic-level improvement interventions. Over a period of six months, five experienced maternal-child health managers and researchers iteratively adapted and tested this systems analysis tool for pMTCT services. They prioritized components of the pMTCT cascade for inclusion, disseminated multiple versions to 27 health managers and piloted it in five facilities.

Pain management perceptions among prescription opioid dependent individuals.

Background: Nearly two-thirds of prescription opioid dependent individuals report chronic pain conditions as both an initial and current motivation for prescription opioid use. However, to date, limited information exists regarding perceptions of the adequacy of pain management and pain management behaviors among prescription opioid dependent individuals with a history of treatment for chronic pain.

Methods: The current study examined perceptions of the medical management of chronic pain among community-recruited individuals (N=39) who met DSM-IV-TR criteria for current prescription opioid dependence and reported a history of treatment for chronic pain.

The role of international NGOs in health systems strengthening: the case of Timor-Leste.

Achieving the United Nations Millennium Development Goals for health will require that programs supporting health in developing countries focus on strengthening national health care systems. However, the dominant neoliberal model of development mandates reduced public spending on health and other social services, often resulting in increased funding for nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) at the expense of support for government systems. East Timor, later Timor-Leste, is an example of a post-crisis country where international NGO efforts were initially critical to providing relief efforts to a traumatized population.

What does high and low have to do with it? Performance classification to identify health system factors associated with effective prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV delivery in Mozambique.

Introduction: Efforts to implement and take to scale highly efficacious, low-cost interventions to prevent mother-to-child HIV transmission (pMTCT) have been a cornerstone of reproductive health services in sub-Saharan Africa for over a decade. Yet efforts to increase access and utilization of these services remain far from optimal. This study developed and applied an approach to systematically classify pMTCT performance to identify modifiable health system factors associated with pMTCT performance which may be replicated in other pMTCT systems.

Evaluation of a demonstration primary health care project in rural Guatemala: the influence of predisposing, enabling and need factors on immunization coverage, equitable use of health care services and application of treatment guidelines.

In high- and low-resource settings, care is often provided inequitably, with more and higher-quality services being offered to those who need them less. We evaluated the influence of predisposing, enabling and need characteristics on immunization coverage and use of health services in a population-based primary health care model called the Inclusive Health Model in rural Guatemala. We also analyzed providers' application of treatment guidelines for children with pneumonia.

Implementation and progress of an inclusive primary health care model in Guatemala: coverage, quality, and utilization.

Objective: To describe a primary health care model designed specifically for Guatemala that has been implemented in two demonstration sites since 2004 and present results of a process evaluation of utilization, service coverage, and quality of care from 2005 to 2009.

Methods: Coverage, utilization, and quality were assessed by using an automated database linking census and clinical records and were reported over time. Key maternal and child health coverage measures were compared with national-level measures.

Intermittent preventive treatment of malaria during pregnancy in central Mozambique.

Problem: New WHO strategies for control of malaria in pregnancy (MiP) recommend intermittent preventive treatment (IPTp), bednet use and improved case management.

Approach: A pilot MiP programme in Mozambique was designed to determine requirements for scale-up.

Local Setting: The Ministry of Health worked with a nongovernmental organization and an academic institution to establish and monitor a pilot programme in two impoverished malaria-endemic districts.

Prevalence and predictors of maternal peripheral malaria parasitemia in central Mozambique.

Malaria infection during pregnancy (MiP) is heterogeneously distributed even in malaria-endemic countries. Program planners require data to facilitate identification of highest-priority populations for MiP control. Using data from two cross-sectional studies of 5,528 pregnant women in 8 neighboring sites in Mozambique, we described factors associated with maternal peripheral parasitemia by using logistic regression.

Lessons learned from bednet distribution in Central Mozambique.

Introduction: Malaria is an important cause of mortality and morbidity in sub-Saharan Africa. Use of insecticide-treated bednets (ITNs) is an important preventive intervention. Selection of the best mechanisms for distribution and promotion of ITNs to vulnerable populations is an important strategic issue.

Immunization campaigns and political agendas: retrospective from Ecuador and El Salvador.

Since the mid-1980s international donors have promoted vertical, campaign-based strategies to help improve immunization coverage in poor countries. National immunization days (NIDs) are currently in vogue and are prominent in the worldwide polio eradication efforts. In spite of their widespread use, campaigns that include NIDs have not been well evaluated for their effects on coverage, reduction in vaccine-preventable diseases, or effects on the health system.

East Timor in transition: health and health care.

East Timor was liberated from 400 years of conquest and exploitation in an armed struggle that ended, in September 1999, in a conflagration that destroyed its social and physical infrastructures. For two years the territory has been under United Nations administration. Political conditions remain unstable as the result of many intrinsic and external factors.