Banking on Nature's Assets: How Multilateral Development Banks Can Strengthen Development by Using Ecosystem Services

Outlines the benefits of integrating the management of ecosystem services and trade-offs into strategies to improve economic development outcomes, mitigate climate change effects, and reduce economic and human costs. Recommends tools and policy options

Installment 1 of Creating a Sustainable Food Future: The Great Balancing Act

During 2013 and 2014, WRI is releasing on a rolling basis a series of "Creating a Sustainable Food Future" working paper installments. Each installment will analyze a menu item from our proposed "menu for a sustainable food future" and recommend policies and other measures for implementation. The series will not, however, cover all menu items. Questions each installment will consider include:What is the menu item?How big an impact could it make in food availability, economic development, and environmental benefits?Where might the menu item be most applicable?What are the three to five most promising, practical, and scalable approaches for achieving this menu item?What are the obstacles -- economic, political, technical, or other -- to implementing these approaches?How can these obstacles be overcome?What "bright spots" of success exist, and what can be learned from them?Each installment will be coauthored by its own cohort of WRI researchers, WRR partners, and renowned experts. Authors will engage representatives from target audiences during the research and writing phases. After the series has concluded, WRI will consolidate the installments into a final World Resources Report. To avoid overlap with upcoming installments, this first working paper does not cover many of the issues that may be important for the food-development-environment nexus. For instance, it does not cover international investments in agricultural land ("land grabs"); the merits of small-scale versus large-scale agricultural systems; the influence of land tenure, property rights, and generational succession laws and norms on agricultural productivity; and policies for providing access to clean energy services for agriculture. Future installments will address some of these issues. Many of the analyses in this series are global in nature and use global datasets. We recognize that they may not fully account for the ethical, cultural, and socioeconomic factors of specific locations. Moreover, the menu for a sustainable food future is designed for the long term; it is not a menu for tackling acute, near-term food shortage crises

InCoB celebrates its tenth anniversary as first joint conference with ISCB-Asia

In 2009 the International Society for Computational Biology (ISCB) started to roll out regional bioinformatics conferences in Africa, Latin America and Asia. The open and competitive bid for the first meeting in Asia (ISCB-Asia) was awarded to Asia-Pacific Bioinformatics Network (APBioNet) which has been running the International Conference on Bioinformatics (InCoB) in the Asia-Pacific region since 2002. InCoB/ISCB-Asia 2011 is held from November 30 to December 2, 2011 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Of 104 manuscripts submitted to BMC Genomics and BMC Bioinformatics conference supplements, 49 (47.1%) were accepted. The strong showing of Asia among submissions (82.7%) and acceptances (81.6%) signals the success of this tenth InCoB anniversary meeting, and bodes well for the future of ISCB-Asia

Designing a Planetary Health Watch: A System for Integrated Monitoring of the Health Effects of, and Responses to, Environmental Change

In the new geological epoch of the Anthropocene impacts of human activity on the Earth’s systems may pose major risks to human health. We propose the development of a Planetary Health Watch (PHW) system for integrated monitoring of health effects of, and responses to, global environmental changes. The PHW system will harness new capabilities emerging from the digital revolution to motivate and enable effective responses to threats posed by the transgression of planetary boundaries. It will build on the existing monitoring initiatives as a system aimed at integrated monitoring of environmental change, health effects, and intermediating factors along with the drivers of change and policy responses to protect health. In July 2019, we held a two-day engagement workshop at the Wellcome Trust in London, UK. We convened 59 experts, representatives of existing monitoring initiatives, and potential users of the system to discuss and make recommendations on key aspects of the design of such a system, particularly its scope, opportunities for building on existing initiatives, target users and use cases, strategies for generating impact and key communities for engagement. The scope of monitoring was defined by a framework integrating eight planetary boundaries (climate change, ocean acidification, atmospheric aerosol loading, novel entities, freshwater use, biogeochemical flows, land system change and biosphere integrity) with human health outcomes. (Discussion of the ninth boundary – ozone layer depletion – was omitted because the ozone hole is now healing as a result of the implementation of the Montreal protocol.) As the initial crosscutting areas for the prototype development of PHW, we selected cities, food systems, and links between land use change and human health (emerging diseases and air pollution) to act as foci for the discussion. To build on the existing monitoring efforts, PHW will purse three levels of integration: (1) across health and environmental monitoring, (2) across top down and bottom up monitoring approaches, (3) between advancing knowledge and action that can be taken to protect planetary health. Existing data platforms, large-scale initiatives and networks such as the Multi-Country Multi-City Collaborative Research Network, INDEPTH network of health and demographic surveillance sites in low- and middle-income countries, Resource Watch, Global Burden of Disease project, C40, Global Covenant of Mayors, Sustainable Development Solutions Network and many others will be essential to this process. PHW will aim to add to - the evidence on the emerging risks for human health and the most effective solutions by engaging researchers as a key user community; - awareness of the evidence on impacts and solutions by investing in an outreach strategy that includes clear messages, narratives, and strategically selected messengers; - action to protect planetary health by motivating and enabling decision-makers who influence relevant policies and their implementation across sectors to incorporate planetary health as a priority. The strategies for generating impact will include generation of clear messages comprised of both data and narratives compelling to the individual users, proposing solutions and engaging with those in power to implement them. Scientific oversight and inclusive governance processes will ensure the system’s credibility and legitimacy. The next steps involve engagement with key stakeholders, facilitation of new partnerships, and development of a long-term funding strategy

Towards BioDBcore: a community-defined information specification for biological databases

The present article proposes the adoption of a community-defined, uniform, generic description of the core attributes of biological databases, BioDBCore. The goals of these attributes are to provide a general overview of the database landscape, to encourage consistency and interoperability between resources and to promote the use of semantic and syntactic standards. BioDBCore will make it easier for users to evaluate the scope and relevance of available resources. This new resource will increase the collective impact of the information present in biological database

Global injury morbidity and mortality from 1990 to 2017 : results from the Global Burden of Disease Study 2017

Correction:Background Past research in population health trends has shown that injuries form a substantial burden of population health loss. Regular updates to injury burden assessments are critical. We report Global Burden of Disease (GBD) 2017 Study estimates on morbidity and mortality for all injuries. Methods We reviewed results for injuries from the GBD 2017 study. GBD 2017 measured injury-specific mortality and years of life lost (YLLs) using the Cause of Death Ensemble model. To measure non-fatal injuries, GBD 2017 modelled injury-specific incidence and converted this to prevalence and years lived with disability (YLDs). YLLs and YLDs were summed to calculate disability-adjusted life years (DALYs). Findings In 1990, there were 4 260 493 (4 085 700 to 4 396 138) injury deaths, which increased to 4 484 722 (4 332 010 to 4 585 554) deaths in 2017, while age-standardised mortality decreased from 1079 (1073 to 1086) to 738 (730 to 745) per 100 000. In 1990, there were 354 064 302 (95% uncertainty interval: 338 174 876 to 371 610 802) new cases of injury globally, which increased to 520 710 288 (493 430 247 to 547 988 635) new cases in 2017. During this time, age-standardised incidence decreased non-significantly from 6824 (6534 to 7147) to 6763 (6412 to 7118) per 100 000. Between 1990 and 2017, age-standardised DALYs decreased from 4947 (4655 to 5233) per 100 000 to 3267 (3058 to 3505). Interpretation Injuries are an important cause of health loss globally, though mortality has declined between 1990 and 2017. Future research in injury burden should focus on prevention in high-burden populations, improving data collection and ensuring access to medical care.Peer reviewe

Global, regional, and national disability-adjusted life-years (DALYs) for 315 diseases and injuries and healthy life expectancy (HALE), 1990-2015:a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2015

Background Healthy life expectancy (HALE) and disability-adjusted life-years (DALYs) provide summary measures of health across geographies and time that can inform assessments of epidemiological patterns and health system performance, help to prioritise investments in research and development, and monitor progress toward the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). We aimed to provide updated HALE and DALYs for geographies worldwide and evaluate how disease burden changes with development.Methods We used results from the Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study 2015 (GBD 2015) for all-cause mortality, cause-specific mortality, and non-fatal disease burden to derive HALE and DALYs by sex for 195 countries and territories from 1990 to 2015. We calculated DALYs by summing years of life lost (YLLs) and years of life lived with disability (YLDs) for each geography, age group, sex, and year. We estimated HALE using the Sullivan method, which draws from age-specific death rates and YLDs per capita. We then assessed how observed levels of DALYs and HALE differed from expected trends calculated with the Socio-demographic Index (SDI), a composite indicator constructed from measures of income per capita, average years of schooling, and total fertility rate.Findings Total global DALYs remained largely unchanged from 1990 to 2015, with decreases in communicable, neonatal, maternal, and nutritional (Group 1) disease DALYs off set by increased DALYs due to non-communicable diseases (NCDs). Much of this epidemiological transition was caused by changes in population growth and ageing, but it was accelerated by widespread improvements in SDI that also correlated strongly with the increasing importance of NCDs. Both total DALYs and age-standardised DALY rates due to most Group 1 causes significantly decreased by 2015, and although total burden climbed for the majority of NCDs, age-standardised DALY rates due to NCDs declined. Nonetheless, age-standardised DALY rates due to several high-burden NCDs (including osteoarthritis, drug use disorders, depression, diabetes, congenital birth defects, and skin, oral, and sense organ diseases) either increased or remained unchanged, leading to increases in their relative ranking in many geographies. From 2005 to 2015, HALE at birth increased by an average of 2.9 years (95% uncertainty interval 2.9-3.0) for men and 3.5 years (3.4-3.7) for women, while HALE at age 65 years improved by 0.85 years (0.78-0.92) and 1.2 years (1.1-1.3), respectively. Rising SDI was associated with consistently higher HALE and a somewhat smaller proportion of life spent with functional health loss; however, rising SDI was related to increases in total disability. Many countries and territories in central America and eastern sub-Saharan Africa had increasingly lower rates of disease burden than expected given their SDI. At the same time, a subset of geographies recorded a growing gap between observed and expected levels of DALYs, a trend driven mainly by rising burden due to war, interpersonal violence, and various NCDs.Interpretation Health is improving globally, but this means more populations are spending more time with functional health loss, an absolute expansion of morbidity. The proportion of life spent in ill health decreases somewhat with increasing SDI, a relative compression of morbidity, which supports continued efforts to elevate personal income, improve education, and limit fertility. Our analysis of DALYs and HALE and their relationship to SDI represents a robust framework on which to benchmark geography-specific health performance and SDG progress. Country-specific drivers of disease burden, particularly for causes with higher-than-expected DALYs, should inform financial and research investments, prevention efforts, health policies, and health system improvement initiatives for all countries along the development continuum. Copyright (C) The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd.</p

A living WHO guideline on drugs for covid-19

CITATION: Agarwal, A. et al. 2022. A living WHO guideline on drugs for covid-19. British Medical Journal, 370. doi:10.1136/bmj.m3379The original publication is available at https://jcp.bmj.com/This living guideline by Arnav Agarwal and colleagues (BMJ 2020;370:m3379, doi:10.1136/bmj.m3379) was last updated on 22 April 2022, but the infographic contained two dosing errors: the dose of ritonavir with renal failure should have read 100 mg, not 50 mg; and the suggested regimen for remdesivir should have been 3 days, not 5-10 days. The infographic has now been corrected.Publishers versio