actors working in global health often portray it as an enterprise grounded in principled concerns, advanced by individuals and organizations who draw on scientific evidence to pursue health equity. this portrait is incomplete. it is also a field of power relations—a social arena in which actors claim and draw on expertise and moral authority to gain influence and pursue career, organizational a...

introduction: the carry of heavy backpacks by school children may be associated with several potential health consequences. the aim of this study was to determine the percentage of body weight represented by school backpacks and other related factors. materials and methods: the cross-sectional study has been done in eight primary schools in yazd city in which a total of 783 students’ boys (217 ...

there are two dominant approaches to describe and understand the anatomy of complete health and well-being systems internationally. yet, neither approach has been able to either predict or explain occasional but dramatic crises in health and well-being systems around the world and in developed emerging market or developing country contexts. as the impacts of such events can be measured not simp...

background despite high immunization rates, hundreds of thousands of poor and underserved children continue to lack their necessary immunizations and are at risk of acquiring a vaccine-preventable disease. local health departments (lhds) and public health clinicians figure prominently in efforts to address this problem.   methods this exploratory research compared ten (10) north carolina lhds w...

introduction: new organization’s success depends on the efficient use of human resources in this study, we aimed to estimate the staffing needs in hospitals of shiraz university of medical sciences (sums) according to model proposed by the ministry of health and medical education in 2012. method: this is a cross-sectional definitive study conducted in three general and six specialized sums hosp...

in both developing and developed countries, health ministries closely examine use of so-called nudges to promote population health and welfare. cass sunstein and richard thaler, who developed the concept, define a nudge as “any aspect of the choice architecture that alters people’s behavior in a predictable way without forbidding any options or significantly changing their economic incentives. ...

we argue that the field of health policy and management (hpam) ought to confront the gap between theory, policy, and practice. although there are perennial efforts to reform healthcare systems, the conceptual barriers are considerable and reflect the theory-policy-practice gap. we highlight four dimensions of the gap: 1) the dominance of microeconomic thinking in health policy analysis and desi...

health systems have entered a third era embracing whole systems thinking and posing complex policy and management challenges. understanding how such systems work and agreeing what needs to be put in place to enable them to undergo effective and sustainable change are more pressing issues than ever for policy-makers. the theory-policy-practice-gap and its four dimensions, as articulated by chini...

despite a renewed focus in the field of global health on strengthening health systems, inadequate attention has been directed to a key ingredient of high-performing health systems: management. we aimed to develop the argument that management – defined here as the process of achieving predetermined objectives through human, financial, and technical resources – is a cross-cutting function necessa...

this paper comments on the principles that informed rwanda’s successful efforts to adapt its health system to population needs, and more specifically to reduce health inequities. the point is made that these may be universally applicable for countries as they deal with the challenges of post-2015 health agenda.