From "learning from the field" to jointly driving change.

The theme of the 8th edition of the Geneva Health Forum (GHF) was Improving access to health: learning from the field. While 'the field' often denotes people, patients, communities, and healthcare workers, we challenge the notion and its usage. A group of like-minded conference participants set up a working group to examine the term 'the field' and look at questions related to language, power, participation, and rights.

The co-inheritance of alpha-thalassemia and sickle cell anemia is associated with better hematological indices and lower consultations rate in Cameroonian patients and could improve their survival.

Background: Co-inheritance of α-thalassemia was reported to be associated with a delayed age of disease onset among Cameroonian Sickle Cell Anemia (SCA) patients. The present study aimed to explore the correlation between α-thalassemia, hematological indices, and clinical events in these patients.

Methods And Findings: We studied 161 Cameroonian SCA patients and 103 controls (59.