Consolidated health economic evaluation reporting standards (CHEERS) statement

<p>Economic evaluations of health interventions pose a particular challenge for reporting. There is also a need to consolidate and update existing guidelines and promote their use in a user friendly manner. The Consolidated Health Economic Evaluation Reporting Standards (CHEERS) statement is an attempt to consolidate and update previous health economic evaluation guidelines efforts into one current, useful reporting guidance. The primary audiences for the CHEERS statement are researchers reporting economic evaluations and the editors and peer reviewers assessing them for publication.</p> <p>The need for new reporting guidance was identified by a survey of medical editors. A list of possible items based on a systematic review was created. A two round, modified Delphi panel consisting of representatives from academia, clinical practice, industry, government, and the editorial community was conducted. Out of 44 candidate items, 24 items and accompanying recommendations were developed. The recommendations are contained in a user friendly, 24 item checklist. A copy of the statement, accompanying checklist, and this report can be found on the ISPOR Health Economic Evaluations Publication Guidelines Task Force website (www.ispor.org/TaskForces/EconomicPubGuidelines.asp).</p> <p>We hope CHEERS will lead to better reporting, and ultimately, better health decisions. To facilitate dissemination and uptake, the CHEERS statement is being co-published across 10 health economics and medical journals. We encourage other journals and groups, to endorse CHEERS. The author team plans to review the checklist for an update in five years.</p&gt

Governing the Global Land Grab: Multipolarity, Ideas and Complexity in Transnational Governance

Since 2008, a series of new regulatory initiatives have emerged to address large-scale land grabs. These initiatives are occurring simultaneously at multiple levels of social organization instead of a single, overarching institutional site. A significant portion of this activity is taking place at the transnational level. We suggest that transnational land governance is indicative of emerging shifts in the practice of governance of global affairs. We analyze such shifts by asking two related questions: what does land grabbing tell us about developments in transnational governance, particularly with regard to North-South relations, and what do these developments in transnational governance mean for regulating land grabbing?Desde 2008, ha surgido una serie de nuevas iniciativas regulatorias para tratar acaparamientos de tierra a gran escala. Estas iniciativas están sucediendo simultáneamente a niveles múltiples de la organización social en vez de un lugar institucional predominante. Una porción importante de esta actividad está tomando lugar al nivel transnacional. Sugerimos que la gobernanza de tierras trasnacionales es indicativa de los cambios que están surgiendo en la práctica de gobernanza de los asuntos globales. Analizamos tales cambios haciendo dos preguntas relacionadas: ¿qué nos dice el acaparamiento de tierras sobre los desarrollos en la gobernanza trasnacional, particularmente con las relaciones norte-sur?, y ¿qué significan estos desarrollos en gobernanza trasnacional para regular el acaparamiento de tierras

Governing agriculture-forest landscapes to achieve climate change mitigation

This introduction to the special section on Governing Agriculture-Forest Landscapes to Achieve Climate Change Mitigation reviews external interventions to improve forest conditions and reduce deforestation, and by extension, influence carbon storage in agriculture-forest landscapes. The review is based on a careful survey of 123 cases of project-based and policy interventions to influence land use and forest cover outcomes. We propose that outcomes of interventions can be explained in terms of rights, incentives, and technologies related to land use and apply this framework to examine 12 types of interventions in agriculture-forest landscapes. The analysis of the identified 123 cases raises concerns about consistency of data and comparability of cases. Our preliminary evidence suggests limited association between the stated objective of an intervention and its success. This evidence also suggests that smaller scale and effective enforcement may be positively associated with improved forest outcomes. But the effectiveness of interventions across different agriculture-forest landscapes varies and available evidence does not permit easy generalizations. The variable effects of interventions across different agriculture-forest landscapes point to the need to better understand the forms and functions of interventions and to problems associated with assessing their relative efficacy

Review article: Use of ultrasound in the developing world

As portability and durability improve, bedside, clinician-performed ultrasound is seeing increasing use in rural, underdeveloped parts of the world. Physicians, nurses and medical officers have demonstrated the ability to perform and interpret a large variety of ultrasound exams, and a growing body of literature supports the use of point-of-care ultrasound in developing nations. We review, by region, the existing literature in support of ultrasound use in the developing world and training guidelines currently in use, and highlight indications for emergency ultrasound in the developing world. We suggest future directions for bedside ultrasound use and research to improve diagnostic capacity and patient care in the most remote areas of the globe