Modeling population-wide testing of SARS-CoV-2 for containing COVID-19 pandemic in Okinawa, Japan.

To break the chains of SARS-CoV-2 transmission and contain the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, population-wide testing has been practiced in various countries. However, scant research has addressed this topic in Japan. In this modeling exercise, we extracted the number of daily reported cases of COVID-19 in Okinawa from October 1 to November 30, 2020, and explored possible scenarios for decreasing COVID-19 incidence by combining population-wide screening and/or social distancing policy.

Universal health coverage as a global public health goal: the work of the International Labour Organisation, c.1925-2018.

We examine the efforts of the International Labour Organisation (ILO) to extend medical care under social security, through international conventions, advocacy and technical assistance. We consider the challenges faced by the ILO in advancing global health coverage through its labourist, social security model. The narrative begins in the interwar period, with the early conventions on sickness insurance, then discusses the rights-based universalistic vision expressed in the Philadelphia Declaration (1944).

Prolonged health worker strikes in Kenya- perspectives and experiences of frontline health managers and local communities in Kilifi County.

Background: While health worker strikes are experienced globally, the effects can be worst in countries with infrastructural and resource challenges, weak institutional arrangements, underdeveloped organizational ethics codes, and unaffordable alternative options for the poor. In Kenya, there have been a series of public health worker strikes in the post devolution period. We explored the perceptions and experiences of frontline health managers and community members of the 2017 prolonged health workers' strikes.

Employment relations and dismissal regulations: Does employment legislation protect the health of workers?

Sociologists have long acknowledged that being in a precarious labour market position, whether employed or unemployed, can harm peoples' health. However, scholars have yet to fully investigate the possible contextual, institutional determinants of this relationship. Two institutions that were overlooked in previous empirical studies are the regulations that set minimum compensation for dismissal, severance payments, and entitlements to a period of notice before dismissal, notice periods.

Organisational culture and trust as influences over the implementation of equity-oriented policy in two South African case study hospitals.

Background: This paper uses the concepts of organisational culture and organisational trust to explore the implementation of equity-oriented policies - the Uniform Patient Fee Schedule (UPFS) and Patients' Rights Charter (PRC) - in two South African district hospitals. It contributes to the small literatures on organisational culture and trust in low- and middle-income country health systems, and broader work on health systems' people-centeredness and "software".

Methods: The research entailed semi-structured interviews (Hospital A n = 115, Hospital B n = 80) with provincial, regional, district and hospital managers, as well as clinical and non-clinical hospital staff, hospital board members, and patients; observations of policy implementation, organisational functioning, staff interactions and patient-provider interactions; and structured surveys operationalising the Competing Values Framework for measuring organisational culture (Hospital A n = 155, Hospital B n = 77) and Organisational Trust Inventory (Hospital A n = 185, Hospital B n = 92) for assessing staff-manager trust.

Devolution and its effects on health workforce and commodities management - early implementation experiences in Kilifi County, Kenya.

Background: Decentralisation is argued to promote community participation, accountability, technical efficiency, and equity in the management of resources, and has been a recurring theme in health system reforms for several decades. In 2010, Kenya passed a new constitution that introduced 47 semi-autonomous county governments, with substantial transfer of responsibility for health service delivery from the central government to these counties. Focusing on two key elements of the health system, Human Resources for Health (HRH) and Essential Medicines and Medical Supplies (EMMS) management, we analysed the early implementation experiences of this major governance reform at county level.

How does decentralisation affect health sector planning and financial management? a case study of early effects of devolution in Kilifi County, Kenya.

Background: A common challenge for health sector planning and budgeting has been the misalignment between policies, technical planning and budgetary allocation; and inadequate community involvement in priority setting. Health system decentralisation has often been promoted to address health sector planning and budgeting challenges through promoting community participation, accountability, and technical efficiency in resource management. In 2010, Kenya passed a new constitution that introduced 47 semi-autonomous devolved county governments, and a substantial transfer of responsibility for healthcare from the central government to these counties.

UK medical tourists in Thailand: they are not who you think they are.

Background: Travel for medical treatment is an aspect of globalization and health that is comparatively less understood. Little is known about volume, characteristic and motivation of medical tourists, limiting understanding of effects on health systems and patients. Thailand is amongst a handful of countries that have positioned themselves as medical tourism destination.

Understanding the dynamic interactions driving Zambian health centre performance: a case-based health systems analysis.

Background: Despite being central to achieving improved population health outcomes, primary health centres in low- and middle-income settings continue to underperform. Little research exists to adequately explain how and why this is the case. This study aimed to test the relevance and usefulness of an adapted conceptual framework for improving our understanding of the mechanisms and causal pathways influencing primary health centre performance.

Regression to the mean and alcohol consumption: a cohort study exploring implications for the interpretation of change in control groups in brief intervention trials.

Background: Reductions in drinking among individuals randomised to control groups in brief alcohol intervention trials are common and suggest that asking study participants about their drinking may itself cause them to reduce their consumption. We sought to test the hypothesis that the statistical artefact regression to the mean (RTM) explains part of the reduction in such studies.

Methods: 967 participants in a cohort study of alcohol consumption in New Zealand provided data at baseline and again six months later.