Community-Based Epidemiology: Community Involvement in Defining Social Risk
John T. Pardeck, Charles F. Longino, John W. Murphy in Reason and Rationality in Health and Human Services Delivery, 2014
According to Rogers, the alternative to the dominant paradigm could be characterized by an emphasis on equality of distribution (the trickle-down theory was not working). Rather than capital-intensive technology, emphasis was placed on quality of life and integration of traditional and modern systems in a country, as well as greater emphasis being placed on intermediate-level and labor-intensive technology. Rather than central planning, the alternative approach involves an emphasis on self-reliance in development and popular participation in decentralized self-development planning and execution. The alternative to internal causes of underdevelopment, as a redefinition of the problem, is an understanding of internal and external causes of underdevelopment (such as might be rooted in inequities and distortions in the international economic and political systems).
Equity in health services and policy advice for developing countries
Songül Çınaroğlu in Equity and Healthcare Reform in Developing Economies, 2020
The number of highly skilled healthcare professionals in developing countries is low, and many developing countries have a shortage of trained doctors. Rural areas are particularly affected negatively by the lack of availability of doctors (Wilson et al., 2011). For these reasons, clinical and nonclinical factors underlying the increase in cesarean delivery rates must be better understood (Zhang et al., 2019). In countries with social and economic underdevelopment, lack of education contributes significantly to the difficulties experienced by women delivering in healthcare facilities (Amutah-Onukagha et al., 2017). In contrast, countries with strong healthcare systems, which provide integrated, continuous, high-quality care, both routinely and in an emergency, are more likely to prevent adverse outcomes faced by women with lower levels of education. In addition to ensuring universal education as a key policy, low-cost, effective interventions implemented within strengthened healthcare systems are needed to prevent maternal morbidity and mortality and to combat maternal inequities (Tunçalp et al., 2014).
Barriers to cancer pain relief: an international perspective on drug availability and service delivery
Nigel Sykes, Michael I Bennett, Chun-Su Yuan in Clinical Pain Management, 2008
The problems we have described in this chapter are not those of poverty and underdevelopment alone, though such factors play their part. Many countries still have hugely inadequate supplies of appropriate pain medication, even though this can be made available at low cost. Some governments put in place draconian measures to limit the manufacture, sale, transportation, storage, and prescription of strong opioid drugs. Too often the balance between “regulation” and “availability” is tipped in favor of the regulators, to the extent that simple pain-relieving measures are largely unavailable. The problem is compounded by clinicians made nervous about prescribing strong painkillers for risk of social opprobrium, or even prosecution. The world of cancer pain and palliative care services is divided between the “haves” with access to a range of appropriate medications and the knowledge and will to use them – whilst the “have nots” are denied even simple formulations. The underdevelopment of cancer pain and palliative care services globally does a disservice to those who could benefit from improved provision and is frankly unjust. Good care for cancer patients, including the relief of pain at the end of life and the opportunity for a dignified death, should be regarded as basic human rights to which everyone should have access when the time comes.
Occupational justice and human scale development: A theoretical integration approach
Published in Journal of Occupational Science, 2018
For Max-Neef and Smith (2011), the inextricable relationship attributed to progress, growth and development is responsible for the deep inequalities in the quality of life of different human groups. By defining a priori and univocally what a developed and civilized society is, a single path is established to become one, thus subjecting nations and communities to certain forms of social, political and economic organization, a path that would allow them to exit from the supposed underdevelopment and barbarism. Consequently, the conceptual construction of the progress-growth-development triad has come to justify the accumulation of wealth by a reduced share of the population to the detriment of majorities, typical of a capitalistic society (Max-Neef et al., 1993; Max-Neef & Smith, 2011).
A call for a new perspective in social work and health care: the developmental-clinical social work perspective. COVID-19 pandemic through the human rights perspective
Published in Social Work in Health Care, 2022
Robert Kudakwashe Chigangaidze
COVID-19 as a pandemic has greatly exposed underdevelopment, socio-economic inequalities, and poverty prevalent in many cities, regions, and the globe at large (Krouse, 2020; Wasdani & Prasad, 2020). Reciprocally, the pandemic will exacerbate the global prevalence of extreme poverty (UNDP, 2020; Gelaw et al., 2020; Reeves & Rothwell, 2020). A crisis generates a perfect storm for corruption to flourish as the needs of the moment overwhelm fiscal caution (Putz, 2020). COVID-19 is a wakeup call to national leaders on the need to fight corruption, underdevelopment, and divergence of development funds and also abuse of resources meant for the general population. Social work will be docile if it refuses to assume its political stance to safeguard the human rights of people. Social work will be just another agent of social control if it remains silent to the socio-economic inequalities perpetuated by oppressors and exacerbating the impacts of COVID-19. Social work losses its humanness if it remains silent to the criminality of depriving people the rights to development, health, housing, and adequate food and nutrition to mention but a few. The rights to development need not be politicized or monopolized. Social work is a catalyst to social change and not an agent to social control.
Positive experience, psychological functioning, and hope for the future as factors associated with mental health among young Sub-Saharan internally displaced people (IDP): A quantitative pilot study
Published in International Journal of Mental Health, 2019
Guido Veronese, Alessandro Pepe, Giovanni Sala, Ibrahim Yamien, Marzia Vigliaroni
Forced migration is a phenomenon that goes hand in hand with severe and lasting mental health issues in populations affected by war, terror, and military violence (Ingleby, 2004; Miller & Rasmussen, 2017). Specifically, trauma-related syndromes and severe psychological and physical illness frequently undermine psychological functioning in victims of war and violence (Crepet et al., 2017; Vromans et al., 2017). Children and adolescents may be viewed as the most vulnerable and at-risk population in such scenarios, given that they are still developing and may lack external resources for dealing with serious and harmful forms of adversity. This is especially the case when war and violence strike in contexts that are also marked by poverty and chronic underdevelopment (Donà, 2014; Fellmeth, Fazel, & Plugge, 2017; Gadeberg, Montgomery, Frederiksen, & Norredam, 2017).