INDEPTH WHO-SAGE study
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Background In 2004, Ghana implemented a national health insurance scheme (NHIS) as a step towards achieving universal health coverage. In this paper, we assessed the level of enrollment and factors associated with NHIS membership in two... more
Background In 2004, Ghana implemented a national health insurance scheme (NHIS) as a step towards achieving universal health coverage. In this paper, we assessed the level of enrollment and factors associated with NHIS membership in two predominantly rural districts of northern Ghana after eight years of implementation, with focus on the poor and vulnerable populations. Methods A cross-sectional survey was conducted from July 2012 to December 2012 among 11,175 randomly sampled households with their heads as respondents. Information on NHIS status, category of membership and socio-demographic characteristics of household members was obtained using a structured questionnaire. Principal component analysis was used to compute wealth index from household assets as estimates of socio-economic status (SES). The factors associated with NHIS enrollment were assessed using logistic regression models. The reasons behind enrollment decisions of each household member were further investigated ag...
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Background: Traumatic spinal cord injuries (TSCI) are a neurological condition associated with reduced well-being, increased morbidity and reductions in life expectancy. Estimates of all-cause and cause-specific mortality can aid in... more
Background: Traumatic spinal cord injuries (TSCI) are a neurological condition associated with reduced well-being, increased morbidity and reductions in life expectancy. Estimates of all-cause and cause-specific mortality can aid in identifying targets for prevention and management of contributors for premature mortality. Objectives: To compare all-cause and cause-specific rates of mortality to that of the Swiss general population; to identify differentials in risk of cause-specific mortality according to lesion characteristics. Methods: All-cause and cause-specific standardized mortality ratios (SMRs) were calculated using data from the Swiss Spinal Cord Injury cohort study. Cause-specific subhazard ratios were estimated within a competing risk framework using flexible parametric survival models. Results: Between 1990 and 2011, 2,492 persons sustained a TSCI, of which 379 died. Persons with TSCI had a mortality rate more than 2 times higher than that of the Swiss general population...
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Many households in low- and middle-income countries face financial hardships due to payments for health care, while others are pushed into poverty. Risk pooling and prepayment mechanisms help to lessen the impact of the costs of care as... more
Many households in low- and middle-income countries face financial hardships due to payments for health care, while others are pushed into poverty. Risk pooling and prepayment mechanisms help to lessen the impact of the costs of care as well as assisting to achieve universal health coverage (UHC). Ghana implemented the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) for the promotion of access to health services for all Ghanaians. In this paper, we examined the association between health insurance status and utilization of outpatient and inpatient health services in rural poor communities. The study was a cross-sectional household survey conducted in the Kassena-Nankana districts of Northern Ghana. We conducted interviews in 11,175 households and collected data on 55,992 household members. Multiple logistic regression models were used to identify factors associated with the utilization of outpatient and inpatient health services. The dependent variables were the utilization of outpatient an...
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Lack of valid and reliable data on malaria deaths continues to be a problem that plagues the global health community. To address this gap, the verbal autopsy (VA) method was developed to ascertain cause of death at the population level.... more
Lack of valid and reliable data on malaria deaths continues to be a problem that plagues the global health community. To address this gap, the verbal autopsy (VA) method was developed to ascertain cause of death at the population level. Despite the adoption and wide use of VA, there are many recognized limitations of VA tools and methods, especially for measuring malaria mortality. This study synthesizes the strengths and limitations of existing VA tools and methods for measuring malaria mortality (MM) in low- and middle-income countries through a systematic literature review. The authors searched PubMed, Cochrane Library, Popline, WHOLIS, Google Scholar, and INDEPTH Network Health and Demographic Surveillance System sites' websites from 1 January 1990 to 15 January 2016 for articles and reports on MM measurement through VA. article presented results from a VA study where malaria was a cause of death; article discussed limitations/challenges related to measurement of MM through ...
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Financial risk protection against the cost of unforeseen healthcare has gained global attention in recent years. Although Ghana implemented a nationwide health insurance scheme with a goal of reducing financial barriers to accessing... more
Financial risk protection against the cost of unforeseen healthcare has gained global attention in recent years. Although Ghana implemented a nationwide health insurance scheme with a goal of reducing financial barriers to accessing healthcare and addressing impoverishing effects of out-of-pocket (OOP) healthcare payments, there is a paucity of knowledge on the extent of financial catastrophe of such payments in Ghana. Thus, this paper assesses the catastrophic effect of OOP healthcare payments in Ghana. Ghana Living Standard Survey (GLSS 5) data collected in 2005/2006 are used in this study. Catastrophic effect of OOP healthcare payments is assessed using various thresholds of total household expenditure and non-food expenditure. Furthermore, four indices, namely the catastrophic payment headcount, catastrophic payment gap, weighted catastrophic payment headcount and weighted catastrophic payment gap, are defined and computed. As at 2005/2006, it was estimated that 11.0% of househo...
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There is a high prevalence of hypertension and related cardiovascular diseases in sub-Saharan Africa, yet few large studies exploring hypertension in Africa are available. The actual burden of disease is poorly understood and awareness... more
There is a high prevalence of hypertension and related cardiovascular diseases in sub-Saharan Africa, yet few large studies exploring hypertension in Africa are available. The actual burden of disease is poorly understood and awareness and treatment to control it is often suboptimal. The study sought to report the prevalence of measured hypertension and to assess awareness and control of blood pressure among older adults in rural and urban settings in 6 sites located in West, East, and Southern Africa. In addition, we examined regional, sex, and age differences related to hypertension. A population-based cross-sectional study was performed at 6 sites in 4 African countries: Burkina Faso (Nanoro), Ghana (Navrongo), Kenya (Nairobi), and South Africa (Agincourt, Dikgale, Soweto). Blood pressure measurements were taken using standardized procedures on 10,696 adults 40 to 60 years of age. Hypertension was defined as systolic blood pressure ≥140 mm Hg or diastolic blood pressure ≥90 mm Hg...
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Coverage of civil registration and vital statistics varies globally, with most deaths in Africa and Asia remaining either unregistered or registered without cause of death. One important constraint has been a lack of fit-for-purpose tools... more
Coverage of civil registration and vital statistics varies globally, with most deaths in Africa and Asia remaining either unregistered or registered without cause of death. One important constraint has been a lack of fit-for-purpose tools for registering deaths and assigning causes in situations where no doctor is involved. Verbal autopsy (interviewing care-givers and witnesses to deaths and interpreting their information into causes of death) is the only available solution. Automated interpretation of verbal autopsy data into cause of death information is essential for rapid, consistent and affordable processing. Verbal autopsy archives covering 54 182 deaths from five African and Asian countries were sourced on the basis of their geographical, epidemiological and methodological diversity, with existing physician-coded causes of death attributed. These data were unified into the WHO 2012 verbal autopsy standard format, and processed using the InterVA-4 model. Cause-specific mortali...
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Most childhood interventions (vaccines, micronutrients) in low-income countries are justified by their assumed effect on child survival. However, usually the interventions have only been studied with respect to their... more
Most childhood interventions (vaccines, micronutrients) in low-income countries are justified by their assumed effect on child survival. However, usually the interventions have only been studied with respect to their disease/deficiency-specific effects and not for their overall effects on morbidity and mortality. In many situations, the population-based effects have been very different from the anticipated effects; for example, the measles-preventive high-titre measles vaccine was associated with 2-fold increased female mortality; BCG reduces neonatal mortality although children do not die of tuberculosis in the neonatal period; vitamin A may be associated with increased or reduced child mortality in different situations; effects of interventions may differ for boys and girls. The reasons for these and other contrasts between expectations and observations are likely to be that the immune system learns more than specific prevention from an intervention; such training may enhance or r...
Research Interests: Statistics, Epidemiology, Vaccines, Environmental Health, Medicine, and 11 moreVitamin A, Population, Humans, Psychological Intervention, Dietary Supplements, Vaccination, Public health systems and services research, Sex Factors, Measles, Randomized Controlled Trials as Topic, and Population surveillance
The importance of tackling economic, social and health-related inequities is increasingly accepted as a core concern for the post-Millennium Development Goal framework. However, there is a global dearth of high-quality, policy-relevant... more
The importance of tackling economic, social and health-related inequities is increasingly accepted as a core concern for the post-Millennium Development Goal framework. However, there is a global dearth of high-quality, policy-relevant and actionable data on inequities within populations, which means that development solutions seldom focus on the people who need them most. INTREC (INDEPTH Training and Research Centres of Excellence) was established with this concern in mind. It aims to provide training for researchers from the INDEPTH network on associations between health inequities, the social determinants of health (SDH), and health outcomes, and on presenting their findings in a usable form to policy makers. As part of a baseline situation analysis for INTREC, this paper assesses the current status of SDH training in three of the African INTREC countries - Ghana, Tanzania, and South Africa - as well as the gaps, barriers, and opportunities for training. SDH-related courses from ...
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Research Interests: Geography, Demography, Principal Component Analysis, Kenya, Medicine, and 13 moreSocial Class, Ownership, Biological Sciences, Humans, Livestock, United States, Animals, Data Collection, Multiple Correspondence Analysis, Socio Economic Status, Occupations, Family Characteristics, and Medical and Health Sciences
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Research Interests: Demography, Epidemiology, Africa, Environmental Health, Malaria, and 15 moreAdolescent, Medicine, Humans, Child, Female, Asia, Male, Infant, Data Collection, Aged, Autopsy, Adult, Child preschool, Cause of death, and Epidemiologie
Verbal autopsy (VA) is the only available approach for determining the cause of many deaths, where routine certification is not in place. Therefore, it is important to use standards and methods for VA that maximise efficiency, consistency... more
Verbal autopsy (VA) is the only available approach for determining the cause of many deaths, where routine certification is not in place. Therefore, it is important to use standards and methods for VA that maximise efficiency, consistency and comparability. The World Health Organization (WHO) has led the development of the 2012 WHO VA instrument as a new standard, intended both as a research tool and for routine registration of deaths. A new public-domain probabilistic model for interpreting VA data, InterVA-4, is described, which builds on previous versions and is aligned with the 2012 WHO VA instrument. The new model has been designed to use the VA input indicators defined in the 2012 WHO VA instrument and to deliver causes of death compatible with the International Classification of Diseases version 10 (ICD-10) categorised into 62 groups as defined in the 2012 WHO VA instrument. In addition, known shortcomings of previous InterVA models have been addressed in this revision, as we...
Research Interests: Documentation, Developing Countries, Community, Medicine, Population, and 13 moreHumans, Verbal behavior, Caregivers, Autopsy, International Classification of Diseases, World Health Organization, Verbal Autopsy, Statistical models, Comparability, Bayes Theorem, Reference standards, Interviews as topic, and Cause of death
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Climate change has been recognized as both one of the biggest threats and the biggest opportunities for global health in the 21st century. This trend review seeks to assess and characterize the amount and type of scientific literature on... more
Climate change has been recognized as both one of the biggest threats and the biggest opportunities for global health in the 21st century. This trend review seeks to assess and characterize the amount and type of scientific literature on the link between climate change and human health. We tracked the use of climate-related terms and their co-occurrence with health terms during the 25 years since the first Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report, from 1990 to 2014, in two scientific databases and in the IPCC reports. We investigated the trends in the number of publications about health and climate change through time, by nature of the health impact under study, and by geographic area. We compared the scientific production in the health field with that of other sectors on which climate change has an impact. The number of publications was extremely low in both databases from 1990 (325 and 1,004, respectively) until around 2006 (1,332 and 4,319, respectively), which has since then increased exponentially in recent years (6,079 and 17,395, respectively, in 2014). However, the number of climate change papers regarding health is still about half that of other sectors. Certain health impacts, particularly malnutrition and non-communicable diseases (NCDs), remain substantially understudied. Approximately two-thirds of all published studies were carried out in OECD countries (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development), predominantly in Europe and North America. There is a clear need for further research on the links between climate change and health. This pertains particularly to research in and by those countries in which health will be mostly affected and capacity to adapt is least. Specific undertreated topics such as NCDs, malnutrition, and mental health should gain the priority they deserve. Funding agencies are invited to take note of and establish calls for proposals accordingly. Raising the interest in this research area in young scientists remains a challenge and should lead to innovative courses for large audiences, such as Massive Open Online Courses.
The International Network for the Demographic Evaluation of Populations and their Health (INDEPTH) has produced reliable longitudinal data about the lives of people in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) through a global network of... more
The International Network for the Demographic Evaluation of Populations and their Health (INDEPTH) has produced reliable longitudinal data about the lives of people in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) through a global network of health and demographic surveillance system (HDSS) sites. Since reliable demographic data are scarce across many LMICs, we examine the environmental and socioeconomic (ES) similarities between existing HDSS sites and the rest of the LMICs. The HDSS sites were hierarchically grouped by the similarity of their ES conditions to quantify the ES variability between sites. The entire Africa and Asia region was classified to identify which regions were most similar to existing sites, based on available ES data. Results show that the current INDEPTH network architecture does a good job in representing ES conditions, but that great heterogeneities exist, even within individual countries. The results provide valuable information in determining the confidence wi...
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Only a very few developing countries have formally institutionalised EIA practices. This paper claims that the reasons for this slow rate for adopting formal EIA principles and practices are no longer those discussed in earlier literature... more
Only a very few developing countries have formally institutionalised EIA practices. This paper claims that the reasons for this slow rate for adopting formal EIA principles and practices are no longer those discussed in earlier literature which include the absence of an enabling environment. Rather, developing countries require a system which is capable of demonstrating that environmental impact analyses are
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This paper contributes evidence documenting the continued decline in all-cause mortality and changes in the cause of death distribution over time in four developing country populations in Africa and Asia. We present levels and trends in... more
This paper contributes evidence documenting the continued decline in all-cause mortality and changes in the cause of death distribution over time in four developing country populations in Africa and Asia. We present levels and trends in age-specific mortality (all-cause and cause-specific) from four demographic surveillance sites: Agincourt (South Africa), Navrongo (Ghana) in Africa; Filabavi (Vietnam), Matlab (Bangladesh) in Asia. We model mortality using discrete time event history analysis. This study illustrates how data from INDEPTH Network centers can provide a comparative, longitudinal examination of mortality patterns and the epidemiological transition. Health care systems need to be reconfigured to deal simultaneously with continuing challenges of communicable disease and increasing incidence of non-communicable diseases that require long-term care. In populations with endemic HIV, long-term care of HIV patients on ART will add to the chronic care needs of the community.
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Empirical, longitudinal, population-based data on mortality in Africa have, until recently, been unavailable. This critical information gap for Sub-Saharan Africa became even more evident as an impediment to our understanding of health... more
Empirical, longitudinal, population-based data on mortality in Africa have, until recently, been unavailable. This critical information gap for Sub-Saharan Africa became even more evident as an impediment to our understanding of health and disease in Africa with the ...
Within relatively small areas there exist high spatial variations of mortality between villages. In rural Burkina Faso, with data from 1993 to 1998, clusters of particularly high child mortality were identified in the population of the... more
Within relatively small areas there exist high spatial variations of mortality between villages. In rural Burkina Faso, with data from 1993 to 1998, clusters of particularly high child mortality were identified in the population of the Nouna Health and Demographic Surveillance System (HDSS), a member of the INDEPTH Network. In this paper we report child mortality with respect to temporal trends, spatial clustering and disparity in this HDSS from 1993 to 2012. Poisson regression was used to describe village-specific child mortality rates and time trends in mortality. The Spatial Scan statistic was used to identify villages or village clusters with higher child mortality. Clustering of mortality in the area is still present, but not as strong as before. The disparity of child mortality between villages has decreased. The decrease occurred in the context of an overall halving of child mortality in the rural area of Nouna HDSS between 1993 and 2012. Extrapolated to the Millennium Development Goals target period 1990 to 2015, this yields an estimated reduction of 54%, which is not too far off the aim of a two-thirds reduction. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.
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The International Network for the Demographic Evaluation of Populations and Their Health (INDEPTH) is a global network of research centers that conduct longitudinal health and demographic evaluation of populations in low- and... more
The International Network for the Demographic Evaluation of Populations and Their Health (INDEPTH) is a global network of research centers that conduct longitudinal health and demographic evaluation of populations in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) currently in 52 health and demographic surveillance system (HDSS) field sites situated in sub-Saharan Africa (14 countries), Asia (India, Bangladesh, Thailand, Vietnam, and Indonesia), and Oceania (Papua New Guinea). Through this network of HDSS field sites, INDEPTH is capable of producing reliable longitudinal data about the lives of people in the research communities as well as how development policies and programs affect those lives. The aim of the INDEPTH Data Repository is to enable INDEPTH member centers and associated researchers to contribute and share fully documented, high-quality datasets with the scientific community and health policy makers.
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An expert conference on Dengue in Africa was held in Accra, Ghana, in February 2013 to consider key questions regarding the possible expansion of dengue in Africa. Four key action points were highlighted to advance our understanding of... more
An expert conference on Dengue in Africa was held in Accra, Ghana, in February 2013 to consider key questions regarding the possible expansion of dengue in Africa. Four key action points were highlighted to advance our understanding of the epidemiology of dengue in Africa. First, dengue diagnostic tools must be made more widely available in the healthcare setting in Africa. Second, representative data need to be collected across Africa to uncover the true burden of dengue. Third, established networks should collaborate to produce these types of data. Fourth, policy needs to be informed so the necessary steps can be taken to provide dengue vector control and health services.