Health systems in India: analysing barriers to inclusive health leadership through a gender lens.

Using India as a case study, argue that considering how gender perspectives operate within health systems and society can help achieve more inclusive health leadership

Market making and the production of nurses for export: a case study of India-UK health worker migration.

Background: High-income countries increasingly look to the international recruitment of health workers to address domestic shortages, especially from low-income and middle-income countries. We adapt conceptual frameworks from migration studies to examine the networked and commercialised nature of the Indian market for nurse migration to the UK.

Methods: We draw on data from 27 expert interviews conducted with migration intermediaries, healthcare providers and policymakers in India and the UK.

'Not in it for huge profits but because it's right': The contested moral economies of UK-India exports in health worker education and training.

While the growth of global markets in health-related services may have significant consequences for healthcare provisioning and training, it has received relatively little attention from the social sciences. This article examines UK-India, and specifically England-India, exports in health worker education and training as one such global market, drawing on sociological scholarship on moral economies to understand how trading in this field is constructed and legitimated by the individuals and organisations involved, what tensions evolve, and what is at stake in them. We employ a qualitative mixed methods approach using publicly available materials on existing UK-India collaborations and primary data from interviews with key stakeholders in India and the UK, including government departments, arms-length bodies, NHS Trusts, trade associations and private providers.

COVID-19 and the burden of ill-health: a double crisis of disruptions and inequalities.

In this paper, we attempt to show how the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) has disrupted routine health services in India and has created further inequalities in the society. By taking a few examples of non-COVID diseases and conditions like immunization, maternal health services, tuberculosis and non-communicable diseases, this paper shows how these services have been disrupted by the pandemic. The paper argues that these disruptions have not emerged only as a result of the current crisis, but because of the paradigm shifts in the healthcare delivery in the country towards privatization which have disproportionately marginalized particular sections of the society.

Contextualising tobacco use in the social, economic and political transformation of Punjab.

This review article provides a historical context of tobacco use in Punjab, determined by the sociopolitical transitioning of this pre-colonial province to an autonomous Indian State. Although these events were marked by a complex historical process, the state's retention of its culture offers an interesting aspect of this development. For instance, these events have been marked from the conception of Sikhism to the changing borders of the territory of Punjab while positioning the use of tobacco within these boundaries.

Peri-Urbanism in Globalizing India: A Study of Pollution, Health and Community Awareness.

This paper examines the intersection between environmental pollution and people's acknowledgements of, and responses to, health issues in Karhera, a former agricultural village situated between the rapidly expanding cities of New Delhi (India's capital) and Ghaziabad (an industrial district in Uttar Pradesh). A relational place-based view is integrated with an interpretive approach, highlighting the significance of place, people's emic experiences, and the creation of meaning through social interactions. Research included surveying 1788 households, in-depth interviews, participatory mapping exercises, and a review of media articles on environment, pollution, and health.

Emplacing India's "medicities".

Plans for 'medicities', announced in the Indian press from 2007 onwards, were to provide large scale 'one-stop-shops' of super-speciality medical services supplemented by diagnostics, education, research facilities, and other aspects of healthcare and lifestyle consumption. Placing this phenomenon within the recent domestic and global political economy of health, we then draw on recent research literatures on place and health to offer an analysis of the narration of these new healthcare places given in promotional texts from press media, official documents and marketing materials. We consider the implications of such analytic undertakings for the understanding of the evolving landscapes of contemporary health care in middle-income countries, and end with some reflections on the tensions now appearing in the medicity model.

Effects of demand-side financing on utilisation, experiences and outcomes of maternity care in low- and middle-income countries: a systematic review.

Background: Demand-side financing, where funds for specific services are channelled through, or to, prospective users, is now employed in health and education sectors in many low- and middle-income countries. This systematic review aimed to critically examine the evidence on application of this approach to promote maternal health in these settings. Five modes were considered: unconditional cash transfers, conditional cash transfers, short-term payments to offset costs of accessing maternity services, vouchers for maternity services, and vouchers for merit goods.

Universal health care: the changing international discourse.

Nearly 34 years ago, in 1978 in the face of a looming crisis in the health of the world's populations and rising health inequality, 134 countries came together to sign the historic Alma Ata Declaration where the idea of primary health care as the chosen path to "Health for All" was formulated. However even before the declaration and more so since, countries have diverse interpretations of Universalism, each setting it in the context of its own health care model. These have ranged from the minimalist to the more comprehensive welfare state.

Understanding India, globalisation and health care systems: a mapping of research in the social sciences.

National and transnational health care systems are rapidly evolving with current processes of globalisation. What is the contribution of the social sciences to an understanding of this field? A structured scoping exercise was conducted to identify relevant literature using the lens of India - a 'rising power' with a rapidly expanding healthcare economy. A five step search and analysis method was employed in order to capture as wide a range of material as possible.

Understanding health systems, health economies and globalization: the need for social science perspectives.

The complex relationship between globalization and health calls for research from many disciplinary and methodological perspectives. This editorial gives an overview of the content trajectory of the interdisciplinary journal 'Globalization and Health' over the first six years of production, 2005 to 2010. The findings show that bio-medical and population health perspectives have been dominant but that social science perspectives have become more evident in recent years.

Demand-side financing measures to increase maternal health service utilisation and improve health outcomes: a systematic review of evidence from low- and middle-income countries.

Background: In many countries financing for health services has traditionally been disbursed directly from governmental and non-governmental funding agencies to providers of services: the 'supply-side' of healthcare markets. Demand-side financing offers a supplementary model in which some funds are instead channelled through, or to, prospective users. In this review we considered evidence on five forms of demand-side financing that have been used to promote maternal health in developing countries: OBJECTIVES: The overall review objective was to assess the effects of demand-side financing interventions on maternal health service utilisation and on maternal health outcomes in low- and middle-income countries.