Challenges Facing Global Health Networks: The NCD Alliance Experience Comment on “Four Challenges that Global Health Networks Face”

Abstract Successful prevention and control of the epidemic of noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) cannot be achieved by the health sector alone: a wide range of organisations from multiple sectors and across government must also be involved. This requires a new, inclusive approach to advocacy and to coordinating, convening and catalysing action across civil society, best achieved by a broad-based network. This comment maps the experience of the NCD Alliance (NCDA) on to Shiffman’s challenges for global health networks – framing (problem definition and positioning), coalition-building and governance – and highlights some further areas overlooked in his analysis

Improving Decision-Making for Population Health in Nonhealth Sectors in Urban Environments: the Example of the Transportation Sector in Three Megacities—the 3-D Commission.

Noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) represent a significant global public health burden. As more countries experience both epidemiologic transition and increasing urbanization, it is clear that we need approaches to mitigate the growing burden of NCDs. Large and growing urban environments play an important role in shaping risk factors that influence NCDs, pointing to the ineluctable need to engage sectors beyond the health sector in these settings if we are to improve health. By way of one example, the transportation sector plays a critical role in building and sustaining health outcomes in urban environments in general and in megacities in particular. We conducted a qualitative comparative case study design. We compared Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) policies in 3 megacities-Lagos (Africa), Bogotá (South America), and Beijing (Asia). We examined the extent to which data on the social determinants of health, equity considerations, and multisectoral approaches were incorporated into local politics and the decision-making processes surrounding BRT. We found that all three megacities paid inadequate attention to health in their agenda-setting, despite having considerable healthy transportation policies in principle. BRT system policies have the opportunity to improve lifestyle choices for NCDs through a focus on safe, affordable, and effective forms of transportation. There are opportunities to improve decision-making for health by involving more available data for health, building on existing infrastructures, building stronger political leadership and commitments, and establishing formal frameworks to improve multisectoral collaborations within megacities. Future research will benefit from addressing the political and bureaucratic processes of using health data when designing public transportation services, the political and social obstacles involved, and the cross-national lessons that can be learned from other megacities

Integrating Social Determinants in Decision-Making Processes for Health: Insights from Conceptual Frameworks—the 3-D Commission.

The inclusion of social determinants of health offers a more comprehensive lens to fully appreciate and effectively address health. However, decision-makers across sectors still struggle to appropriately recognise and act upon these determinants, as illustrated by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Consequently, improving the health of populations remains challenging. This paper seeks to draw insights from the literature to better understand decision-making processes affecting health and the potential to integrate data on social determinants. We summarised commonly cited conceptual approaches across all stages of the policy process, from agenda-setting to evaluation. Nine conceptual approaches were identified, including two frameworks, two models and five theories. From across the selected literature, it became clear that the context, the actors and the type of the health issue are critical variables in decision-making for health, a process that by nature is a dynamic and adaptable one. The majority of these conceptual approaches implicitly suggest a possible role for data on social determinants of health in decision-making. We suggest two main avenues to make the link more explicit: the use of data in giving health problems the appropriate visibility and credibility they require and the use of social determinants of health as a broader framing to more effectively attract the attention of a diverse group of decision-makers with the power to allocate resources. Social determinants of health present opportunities for decision-making, which can target modifiable factors influencing health-i.e. interventions to improve or reduce risks to population health. Future work is needed to build on this review and propose an improved, people-centred and evidence-informed decision-making tool that strongly and explicitly integrates data on social determinants of health

Challenges Facing Global Health Networks: The NCD Alliance Experience; Comment on “Four Challenges that Global Health Networks Face”

Successful prevention and control of the epidemic of noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) cannot be achieved by the health sector alone: a wide range of organisations from multiple sectors and across government must also be involved. This requires a new, inclusive approach to advocacy and to coordinating, convening and catalysing action across civil society, best achieved by a broad-based network. This comment maps the experience of the NCD Alliance (NCDA) on to Shiffman’s challenges for global health networks – framing (problem definition and positioning), coalition-building and governance – and highlights some further areas overlooked in his analysis

Advocacy: How to Create Political will for Mental Health and Epilepsy in Low‑ and Middle‑income Countries?

International audienceAlthough psychiatric and neurological disorders are among the first contributors to the global burden of disease, they remain among the most neglected topics of Global Health. There is a real need to raise their profile, to improve advocacy so that the impact of these diseases is better understood, and greater political efforts are made to improve access to health care for mental disorders and epilepsy. This is the reason why in September 2019, the Interactive Meetings Promoting Access to Care and Treatment (IMPACT) Forum co-organized by the Institute of Epidemiology and Tropical Neurology UMR 1094 Inserm, the World Association of Social Psychiatry (WASP), and Sanofi Global Health was focused on “Advocacy: how to create political will for mental health and epilepsy in low- and middle-income countries?” This forum involved 40 people from 20 countries (from Africa, Asia, Latin America, but also from Europe), from various backgrounds (public, private, associative, and academic sectors), all committed to developing access to care for people living with mental disorders or epilepsy in low- and middle-income countries. The 2-day meeting combining plenary didactic sessions and group workshops provided participants with an opportunity to get a better understanding of advocacy, of its importance to drive policy and societal changes, and encouraged them to develop local advocacy plans. A survey conducted at the start of the IMPACT Forum, to evaluate the baseline understanding and attitudes toward advocacy, and repeated at the end, showed improvements in the overall score, as well as in every single item