In: Social work in health care: the journal of health care social work ; a quarterly journal adopted by the Society for Social Work Leadership in Health Care, Band 36, Heft 3, S. 25-36
Colombia used lotteries to distribute vouchers which partially covered the cost of private secondary school for students who maintained satisfactory academic progress. Three years after the lotteries, winners were about 10 percentage points more likely to have finished 8th grade, primarily because they were less likely to repeat grades, and scored 0.2 standard deviations higher on achievement tests. There is some evidence that winners worked less than losers and were less likely to marry or cohabit as teenagers. Benefits to participants likely exceeded the $24 per winner additional cost to the government of supplying vouchers instead of public-school places.
In: Journal of HIV/AIDS & social services: research, practice, and policy adopted by the National Social Work AIDS Network (NSWAN), Band 18, Heft 4, S. 313-328
The future of healthy families demands highly capable external supports. Early care and education, particularly early care and education teachers, are well positioned to support families. However, early care and education teachers are faced with challenges to their own well‐being and that of their own families. Barriers to teacher well‐being include low compensation, lack of support for education and professional development, and a larger societal context that often devalues and inadequately supports the profession. The future of healthy families can be bolstered by addressing early care and education teacher well‐being—specifically wages, work environment, and professionalism—and increasing support for high‐quality early care and education from community and societal systems.
COVID-19 is the most significant global crisis of any of our lifetimes. The numbers have been stupefying, whether of infection and mortality, the scale of public health measures, or the economic consequences of shutdown. Coronavirus Politics identifies key threads in the global comparative discussion that continue to shed light on COVID-19 and shape debates about what it means for scholarship in health and comparative politics. Editors Scott L. Greer, Elizabeth J. King, Elize Massard da Fonseca, and André Peralta-Santos bring together over 30 authors versed in politics and the health issues in order to understand the health policy decisions, the public health interventions, the social policy decisions, their interactions, and the reasons. The book's coverage is global, with a wide range of key and exemplary countries, and contains a mixture of comparative, thematic, and templated country studies. All go beyond reporting and monitoring to develop explanations that draw on the authors' expertise while engaging in structured conversations across the book.
AbstractVaccines against SARS‐CoV‐2 continue to be developed at an astonishingly quick speed and the early ones, like Pfizer and Moderna, have been shown to be more effective than many public health scientists had dared to hope. As COVID‐19 vaccine research continues to progress, the world's eyes are turning toward medicine regulators. COVID‐19 vaccines need to be authorized for use in each country in which the pharmaceutical industry intends to commercialize its product. This results in a patchwork of regulations that can influence the speed at which products are launched and the standards that govern them. In this research forum article, we discuss several key questions about COVID‐19 vaccine regulations that should shape research on the next stage of the pandemic response. We call for a research agenda that looks into the political economy of pharmaceutical regulation, particularly from a comparative perspective, including Global South countries.
Objectives: An effective vaccine to SARS-CoV-2 cannot be successfully deployed if a significant number of people worldwide are unwilling to accept it. We investigated the relationship between trust in scientists and medical professionals and perceptions of vaccine safety and effectiveness. We also build on past studies by exploring the relationship between confidence in global health organizations and vaccine hesitancy. Methods: We conducted an online survey in seventeen countries/territories across five world regions between May -June 2020. We assessed the relationship between COVID19 vaccine hesitancy, confidence in public health organizations, and trust in key experts and leaders. Results: Our findings strongly suggest that confidence in the World Health Organization combined with trust in domestic scientists and healthcare professionals is a strong driver of vaccine acceptance across multiple countries/territories. Conclusion: We find that hesitancy is widespread, and uptake would be insufficient to achieve herd immunity. There is widespread confidence in how public health organizations have responded to the current pandemic and this is related to vaccine acceptance. Our results also highlight the important role of trust in health care providers and scientists in reducing COVID19 vaccine hesitancy.
Ethical and human rights concerns have been expressed regarding the global shift in policies on HIV testing of pregnant women. The main purpose of this research was to conduct a policy analysis using a human rights-based approach of national policies for HIV testing of pregnant women. We collected HIV testing policies from 19 countries including: Cambodia, China, Guyana, Haiti, India, Jamaica, Kenya, Moldova, Papua New Guinea, Russian Federation, South Africa, Sudan, Swaziland, Tanzania, Ukraine, United States, Uzbekistan, Zambia and Zimbabwe. We analysed the HIV testing policies using a standardised framework that focused on government obligations to respect, protect and fulfil. Our results highlight the need for more attention to issues of pregnant women's autonomy in consenting to HIV testing, confidentiality in antenatal care settings and provision of counselling and care services. We conclude with a discussion about potential implications of the current testing policies and provide recommendations for ways that HIV testing policies can more effectively uphold the human rights of pregnant women.
Introduction : explaining pandemic response / Scott L. Greet, Elizabeth J. King, and Elize Massard da Fonseca -- Playing politics : the World Health Organization's response to COVID-19 / Matthew M. Kavanagh, Renu Singh, and Mara Pillinger -- State responses to the COVID-19 pandemic : governance, surveillance, coercion, and social policy / Holly Jarman -- China's Leninst response to COVID-19 : from information repression to total mobilization / Victor C. Shih -- Public policy and learning from SARS : explaining COVID-19 in Hong Kong / John P. Burns -- Institutions matter in fighting COVID-19 : public health, social policies, and the control tower in South Korea / June Park -- Unified, preventive, low-cost government respnse to COVID-19 in Việt Nam / Emma Willoughby -- Fighting COVID-19 in Japan : a success story? / Takashi Nagata, Akihito Hagihara, Alan Kawarai Lefor, Ryozo Matsuda, and Monika Steffen -- Singapore's response to COVID-19 : an explosion of cases despite being a "gold standard" / Rebecca Wai -- India's response to COVID-19 / Minakshi Raj -- COVID-19 response in Central Asia : a cautionary tale / Pauline Jones and Elizabeth J. King -- COVID-19 in the United Kingdom : how austerity and a loss of state capacity undermined the crisis response / Gemma A. Williams, Selina Rajan, and Jonathan D. Cylus -- The European Union confronts COVID-19 : another European rescue of the nation-state? / Eleanor Brooks, Anniek de Ruijter, and Scott L. Greer -- Denmark's response to COVID-19 : a participatory approach to policy innovation / Darius Ornston -- France's multidimensional COVID-19 response : ad hoc committees and the sidelining of public health agencies / Sara D. Rozenblum -- Political resonance in Austria's coronavirus crisis management / Margitta Mätzke -- Three approaches to handling the COVID crisis in federal countries : Germany, Austria, and Switzerland / Thomas Czypionka and Miriam Reiss -- Italy's response to COVID-19 / Michelle Falkenbach and Manuela Caiani -- Spain's reesponse to COVID-19 / Kenneth A. Dubin -- A tale of two pandemics in three countries : Portugal, Spain, and Italy -- André Peralta-Santos, Luis Saboga-Nunes, and Pedro C. Magahlães -- Greece at the time of COVID-19 : caught between Scylla and Charybdis / Elena Petelos, Dimitra Lingri, and Christos Lionis -- COVID-19 in Turkey : public health centralism / Saime Özçürümez -- COVID-19 in Central and Eastern Europe : focus on Czechia, Hungary, and Bulgaria / Olga Löblová, Julie Rone, and Endre Borbáth -- COVID-19 in the Russian Federation : government control during the epidemic / Elizabeth J. King and Victoria I. Dudina -- The politics and policy of Canada's COVID-19 response / Patrick Fafard, Adèle Cassola, Margaret MacAulay, and Michèle Palkovits -- Anatomy of a failure : COVID-19 in the United States / Phillip M. SInger, Charley E. Willison, N'dea Moore-Petinak, and Scott L. Greer -- COVID-19 in Brazil : presidential denialism and the subnational government's response / Elize Massard da Fonseca, Nicoli Nattrass, Luísa Bolaffi Arantes, and Francisco Inácio Bastos -- Colombia's response to COVID-19 : pragmatic command, social contention, and political challenges / Claudia Acosta, Mónica Uribe-Gómez, and Durfari Velandia-Naranjo -- The politics of the COVID-19 pandemic response in Chile / Claudio A. Méndez -- Pandemic amid political crisis : Malawi's experience with and response to COVID-19 / Kim Yi Dionne, Boniface Dulani, and Sara E. Fischer -- Adapting COVID-19 containment in Africa : lessons from Tanzania / Thespina (Nina) Yamanis, Ruth Carlitz, and Henry A. Mollel -- Confronting legacies and charting a new course? : the politics of coronavirus response in South Africa / Joseph Harris -- Comparative analysis of COVID-19 transmission and mortality in select African countries / Kanayo K. Ogujiuba and Uviwe Binase -- Conclusion / Scott L. Greer, Elize Massard da Fonseca, and Elizabeth J. King.