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Medicine for Global Health

Improvements to medical practice and delivery of treatment has been the focus of many international collaborations aiming to address the global burden of disease. Delivering appropriate health care, as well as implementation of research in low-and-middle-income countries, is compounded by resource allocation issues. Vulnerable populations continue to be seriously affected by non-communicable and infectious diseases including neglected tropical diseases, while complications during pregnancy and childbirth in these regions leave mothers and infants at risk of severe disability or death. These are ethical as well as medical problems, as many of these outcomes are preventable. To focus on the public health initiatives, the development of health care policies and evidence-based guidelines, in addition to research into the control and treatment of diseases, BMC Medicine has launched an article collection on Medicine for Global Health.

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  1. The existence of socio-economic inequalities in child mortality is well documented. African cities grow faster than cities in most other regions of the world; and inequalities in African cities are thought to ...

    Authors: Wilm Quentin, Olayinka Abosede, Joseph Aka, Patricia Akweongo, Kouassi Dinard, Alex Ezeh, Ramadan Hamed, Patrick Kalambayi Kayembe, Getnet Mitike, Gemini Mtei, Marguerite Te Bonle and Leonie Sundmacher
    Citation: BMC Medicine 2014 12:95
    Content type: Research article Published on:

  2. One of the challenges facing the Global Polio Eradication Initiative is efficiently directing limited resources, such as specially trained personnel, community outreach activities, and satellite vaccinator tra...

    Authors: Alexander M Upfill-Brown, Hil M Lyons, Muhammad A Pate, Faisal Shuaib, Shahzad Baig, Hao Hu, Philip A Eckhoff and Guillaume Chabot-Couture
    Citation: BMC Medicine 2014 12:92
    Content type: Research article Published on:

  6. Severe anemia (SA, hemoglobin <6 g/dl) is a leading cause of pediatric hospital admission in Africa, with significant in-hospital mortality. The underlying etiology is often infectious, but specific pathogens ...

    Authors: Peter Olupot-Olupot, Charles Engoru, Jennifer Thompson, Julius Nteziyaremye, Martin Chebet, Tonny Ssenyondo, Cornelius M Dambisya, Vicent Okuuny, Ronald Wokulira, Denis Amorut, Paul Ongodia, Ayub Mpoya, Thomas N Williams, Sophie Uyoga, Alex Macharia, Diana M Gibb…
    Citation: BMC Medicine 2014 12:67
    Content type: Research article Published on:

  7. Sickle cell disease (SCD) is common in many parts of sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), where it is associated with high early mortality. In the absence of newborn screening, most deaths among children with SCD go unre...

    Authors: Carolyne Ndila, Evasius Bauni, Vysaul Nyirongo, George Mochamah, Alex Makazi, Patrick Kosgei, Gideon Nyutu, Alex Macharia, Sailoki Kapesa, Peter Byass and Thomas N Williams
    Citation: BMC Medicine 2014 12:65
    Content type: Research article Published on:

  8. Armed conflicts are associated with a wide range of impacts on the mental health of children and adolescents. We evaluated the effectiveness of a school-based intervention aimed at reducing symptoms of posttra...

    Authors: Wietse A Tol, Ivan H Komproe, Mark JD Jordans, Aline Ndayisaba, Prudence Ntamutumba, Heather Sipsma, Eva S Smallegange, Robert D Macy and Joop TVM de Jong
    Citation: BMC Medicine 2014 12:56
    Content type: Research article Published on:

  9. Antiretroviral therapy (ART) and oral pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) are effective in reducing HIV transmission in heterosexual adults. The epidemiologic impact and cost-effectiveness of combined prevention a...

    Authors: Sabina S Alistar, Philip M Grant and Eran Bendavid
    Citation: BMC Medicine 2014 12:46
    Content type: Research article Published on:

  10. In this podcast, we talk to Professor Vikram Patel about the impact of global mental health in the field of medicine, and discuss the initiatives and platforms being developed to promote capacity building, res...

    Authors: Vikram Patel
    Citation: BMC Medicine 2014 12:44
    Content type: Question and Answer Published on:

  13. Computer-coded verbal autopsy (CCVA) methods to assign causes of death (CODs) for medically unattended deaths have been proposed as an alternative to physician-certified verbal autopsy (PCVA). We conducted a s...

    Authors: Jordana Leitao, Nikita Desai, Lukasz Aleksandrowicz, Peter Byass, Pierre Miasnikof, Stephen Tollman, Dewan Alam, Ying Lu, Suresh Kumar Rathi, Abhishek Singh, Wilson Suraweera, Faujdar Ram and Prabhat Jha
    Citation: BMC Medicine 2014 12:22
    Content type: Research article Published on:

  14. Verbal autopsy (VA) has been proposed to determine the cause of death (COD) distributions in settings where most deaths occur without medical attention or certification. We develop performance criteria for VA-...

    Authors: Lukasz Aleksandrowicz, Varun Malhotra, Rajesh Dikshit, Prakash C Gupta, Rajesh Kumar, Jay Sheth, Suresh Kumar Rathi, Wilson Suraweera, Pierre Miasnikof, Raju Jotkar, Dhirendra Sinha, Shally Awasthi, Prakash Bhatia and Prabhat Jha
    Citation: BMC Medicine 2014 12:21
    Content type: Research article Published on:

  15. Physician-coded verbal autopsy (PCVA) is the most widely used method to determine causes of death (CODs) in countries where medical certification of death is uncommon. Computer-coded verbal autopsy (CCVA) meth...

    Authors: Nikita Desai, Lukasz Aleksandrowicz, Pierre Miasnikof, Ying Lu, Jordana Leitao, Peter Byass, Stephen Tollman, Paul Mee, Dewan Alam, Suresh Kumar Rathi, Abhishek Singh, Rajesh Kumar, Faujdar Ram and Prabhat Jha
    Citation: BMC Medicine 2014 12:20
    Content type: Research article Published on:

  17. Verbal autopsy is a method for assessing probable causes of death from lay reporting of signs, symptoms and circumstances by family members or caregivers of a deceased person. Several methods of automated diag...

    Authors: Michel Garenne
    Citation: BMC Medicine 2014 12:18
    Content type: Commentary Published on:

  18. More than three decades after the 1978 Declaration of Alma-Ata enshrined the goal of ‘health for all’, high-quality primary care services remain undelivered to the great majority of the world’s poor. This fail...

    Authors: Ashwin Vasan, Andrew Ellner, Stephen D Lawn, Sandy Gove, Manzi Anatole, Neil Gupta, Peter Drobac, Tom Nicholson, Kwonjune Seung, David C Mabey and Paul E Farmer
    Citation: BMC Medicine 2014 12:6
    Content type: Opinion Published on:

  19. Monitoring progress with disease and injury reduction in many populations will require widespread use of verbal autopsy (VA). Multiple methods have been developed for assigning cause of death from a VA but the...

    Authors: Christopher JL Murray, Rafael Lozano, Abraham D Flaxman, Peter Serina, David Phillips, Andrea Stewart, Spencer L James, Alireza Vahdatpour, Charles Atkinson, Michael K Freeman, Summer Lockett Ohno, Robert Black, Said Mohammed Ali, Abdullah H Baqui, Lalit Dandona, Emily Dantzer…
    Citation: BMC Medicine 2014 12:5
    Content type: Research article Published on:

  20. Asia accounts for 60% of the world population and half the global burden of cancer. The incidence of cancer cases is estimated to increase from 6.1 million in 2008 to 10.6 million in 2030, due to ageing and gr...

    Authors: Rengaswamy Sankaranarayanan, Kunnambath Ramadas and You-lin Qiao
    Citation: BMC Medicine 2014 12:3
    Content type: Review Published on:

  21. Although the number of child deaths has declined globally over the past 20 years, many countries still lag behind their millennium development goal targets, and inequity in child health remains a pernicious pr...

    Authors: Stuart Gilmour and Kenji Shibuya
    Citation: BMC Medicine 2013 11:261
    Content type: Commentary Published on:

  22. In 2010 more than 7.7 million children died before their fifth birthday. Over 98% of these deaths occurred in developing countries, and recent estimates have attributed hundreds of thousands of these deaths to...

    Authors: Thomas J Roberts, Emily Carnahan and Emmanuela Gakidou
    Citation: BMC Medicine 2013 11:254
    Content type: Research article Published on:

  23. The HIV-associated tuberculosis (TB) epidemic remains a huge challenge to public health in resource-limited settings. Reducing the nearly 0.5 million deaths that result each year has been identified as a key p...

    Authors: Stephen D Lawn, Graeme Meintjes, Helen McIlleron, Anthony D Harries and Robin Wood
    Citation: BMC Medicine 2013 11:253
    Content type: Review Published on:

  24. Cardiovascular disease and mental health both hold enormous public health importance, both ranking highly in results of the recent Global Burden of Disease Study 2010 (GBD 2010). For the first time, the GBD 20...

    Authors: Fiona J Charlson, Andrew E Moran, Greg Freedman, Rosana E Norman, Nicolas JC Stapelberg, Amanda J Baxter, Theo Vos and Harvey A Whiteford
    Citation: BMC Medicine 2013 11:250
    Content type: Research article Published on:

  25. The Millennium Development Goals have galvanized efforts to improve child survival (MDG-4) and maternal health (MDG-5). There has been important progress on both MDGs at global level, although it now appears t...

    Authors: Jennifer Bryce, Robert E Black and Cesar G Victora
    Citation: BMC Medicine 2013 11:225
    Content type: Commentary Published on:

  26. The most severe HIV epidemics worldwide occur in Lesotho, Botswana and Swaziland. Here we focus on the Lesotho epidemic, which has received little attention. We determined the within-country heterogeneity in t...

    Authors: Brian J Coburn, Justin T Okano and Sally Blower
    Citation: BMC Medicine 2013 11:224
    Content type: Research article Published on:

  27. Global health is a varied field that comprises research, evaluation and policy that, by its definition, also occurs in disparate locations across the world. This forum article is introduced by our guest editor...

    Authors: Gretchen L Birbeck, Charles S Wiysonge, Edward J Mills, Julio J Frenk, Xiao-Nong Zhou and Prabhat Jha
    Citation: BMC Medicine 2013 11:223
    Content type: Forum Published on:

  28. Fetal and neonatal mortality rates in low-income countries are at least 10-fold greater than in high-income countries. These differences have been related to poor access to and poor quality of obstetric and ne...

    Authors: Omrana Pasha, Elizabeth M McClure, Linda L Wright, Sarah Saleem, Shivaprasad S Goudar, Elwyn Chomba, Archana Patel, Fabian Esamai, Ana Garces, Fernando Althabe, Bhala Kodkany, Hillary Mabeya, Albert Manasyan, Waldemar A Carlo, Richard J Derman, Patricia L Hibberd…
    Citation: BMC Medicine 2013 11:215
    Content type: Research article Published on:

  29. Cholera mainly affects developing countries where safe water supply and sanitation infrastructure are often rudimentary. Sub-Saharan Africa is a cholera hotspot. Effective cholera control requires not only a p...

    Authors: Christian Schaetti, Neisha Sundaram, Sonja Merten, Said M Ali, Erick O Nyambedha, Bruno Lapika, Claire-Lise Chaignat, Raymond Hutubessy and Mitchell G Weiss
    Citation: BMC Medicine 2013 11:206
    Content type: Research article Published on:

  30. Following US Food and Drugs Administration approval in July 2012 of daily oral tenofovir and emtricitabine for pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) to prevent HIV infection in high-risk individuals in the USA, ther...

    Authors: Jean-Michel Molina, Claire Pintado, Caroline Gatey, Diane Ponscarme, Pierre Charbonneau, Benedicte Loze, Willy Rozenbaum and Constance Delaugerre
    Citation: BMC Medicine 2013 11:186
    Content type: Review Published on:

  31. All rigorous primary cardiovascular disease (CVD) prevention guidelines recommend absolute CVD risk scores to identify high- and low-risk patients, but laboratory testing can be impractical in low- and middle-...

    Authors: Thomas A Gaziano, Ankur Pandya, Krisela Steyn, Naomi Levitt, Willie Mollentze, Gina Joubert, Corinna M Walsh, Ayesha A Motala, Annamarie Kruger, Aletta E Schutte, Datshana P Naidoo, Dorcas R Prakaschandra and Ria Laubscher
    Citation: BMC Medicine 2013 11:170
    Content type: Research article Published on:

  34. Delay in seeking care is a major impediment to effective management of tuberculosis (TB) in China. To elucidate factors that underpin patient and diagnostic delays in TB management, we conducted a systematic r...

    Authors: Ying Li, John Ehiri, Shenglan Tang, Daikun Li, Yongqiao Bian, Hui Lin, Caitlin Marshall and Jia Cao
    Citation: BMC Medicine 2013 11:156
    Content type: Research article Published on:

  35. Several factors contribute to the high mortality attributed to severe infections in resource-limited settings. While improvements in survival and processes of care have been made in high-income settings among ...

    Authors: Shevin T Jacob, Matthew Lim, Patrick Banura, Satish Bhagwanjee, Julian Bion, Allen C Cheng, Hillary Cohen, Jeremy Farrar, Sandy Gove, Philip Hopewell, Christopher C Moore, Cathy Roth and T Eoin West
    Citation: BMC Medicine 2013 11:107
    Content type: Correspondence Published on:

  40. Early rapid fluid resuscitation (boluses) in African children with severe febrileillnesses increases the 48-hour mortality by 3.3% compared with controls (nobolus). We explored the effect of boluses on 48-hour...

    Authors: Kathryn Maitland, Elizabeth C George, Jennifer A Evans, Sarah Kiguli, Peter Olupot-Olupot, Samuel O Akech, Robert O Opoka, Charles Engoru, Richard Nyeko, George Mtove, Hugh Reyburn, Bernadette Brent, Julius Nteziyaremye, Ayub Mpoya, Natalie Prevatt, Cornelius M Dambisya…
    Citation: BMC Medicine 2013 11:68
    Content type: Research article Published on:

  42. The implementation of strategic immunization plans whose development is informed by available locally-relevant research evidence should improve immunization coverage and prevent disease, disability and death i...

    Authors: Charles S Wiysonge, Olalekan A Uthman, Peter M Ndumbe and Gregory D Hussey
    Citation: BMC Medicine 2013 11:66
    Content type: Research article Published on:

  44. Low- and middle-income countries need to consider economic issues such as cost-effectiveness, affordability and sustainability before introducing a program for human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination. However, ...

    Authors: Mark Jit, Carol Levin, Marc Brisson, Ann Levin, Stephen Resch, Johannes Berkhof, Jane Kim and Raymond Hutubessy
    Citation: BMC Medicine 2013 11:23
    Content type: Correspondence Published on:

  45. Cervical cancer is the leading cause of female cancer-related deaths in Tanzania. Vaccination against human papillomavirus (HPV) offers a new opportunity to control this disease. This study aimed to estimate t...

    Authors: Wilm Quentin, Fern Terris-Prestholt, John Changalucha, Selephina Soteli, W John Edmunds, Raymond Hutubessy, David A Ross, Saidi Kapiga, Richard Hayes and Deborah Watson-Jones
    Citation: BMC Medicine 2012 10:137
    Content type: Research article Published on:

  46. The purpose, methods, data sources and assumptions behind the World Health Organization (WHO) Cervical Cancer Prevention and Control Costing (C4P) tool that was developed to assist low- and middle-income count...

    Authors: Raymond Hutubessy, Ann Levin, Susan Wang, Winthrop Morgan, Mariam Ally, Theopista John and Nathalie Broutet
    Citation: BMC Medicine 2012 10:136
    Content type: Research article Published on:

  49. Pneumonia is a leading cause of children's deaths in developing countries and hinders achievement of the fourth Millennium Development Goal. This goal aims to reduce the under-five mortality rate, by two third...

    Authors: Maheswari G Srinivasan, Grace Ndeezi, Cordelia Katureebe Mboijana, Sarah Kiguli, Gabriel S Bimenya, Victoria Nankabirwa and James K Tumwine
    Citation: BMC Medicine 2012 10:14
    Content type: Research article Published on: