Gega Activities
The June conferences are finally over. It was a fruitful exchange among researchers, activists, governmental and civil society representatives working on development and equity issues. The GEGA conference focused on providing a platform for developing a participatory process to shape the global advocacy strategy for the Global Health Watch (GHW). In addition, delegates were provided with an opportunity to learn about GEGA, our activities, and opportunities to work with the organisation. The Health Equity Research to Action Short-course was also organized in Durban. Besides the GEGA events other conferences included the EQUINET, PHASA and ISEqH conferences. For more information about EQUINET conference go to www.equinetafrica.org and for more information on the PHASA/IAHP conference, Challenging health inequalities - forging progressive partnerships for public health, go to www.healthp.org, for the PHASA website go to http://www.phasa.za.org.

The South African Equity Gauge has recently published The Second Equity Gauge - Monitoring Fairness in Access to Basic Services Essential for Health. Building on the work of an earlier publications, "…. this publication highlights the fact that people do not get sick at random and that health is intimately tied up with living and working conditions. In focusing on this interdependence of socio-economic determinants with health outcomes, the document also points to the relationship between health status and geographical, racial and gender-related issues." To read more go to http://www.hst.org.za/publications/616

Global Heath Watch Newsletter
"The Global Health Watch (GHW) (http://www.ghwatch.org) is a new project which articulates civil society's vision for global health. It is a platform for the strengthening of advocacy and campaigns to promote equitable health for all. The global community has failed to achieve 'Health for All by the Year 2000'. New targets such as the Millennium Development goals look increasingly unachievable. Questions need to be asked about whether current policies in global health are working. The Global Health Watch for 2005 will not only look at some of the most important problems such as commercialisation of health and access to medicines, but also suggest solutions and monitor the efforts of institutions and governments concerned with promoting health world-wide."

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PUBLICATIONS:
A glossary for evidence based public health
J Epidemiol Community Health 2004;58:538-545

http://jech.bmjjournals.com/cgi/reprint/58/7/538
http://jech.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/58/7/538

"……….This glossary seeks to define and explain some of the main concepts underpinning evidence based public health. It draws on the published literature, experience gained over several years analysis of the topic, and discussions with public health colleagues, including researchers, practitioners, policy makers, and students…."

FUNDING OPPORTUNITIES:

Call for Proposals: Strategic Research on Governance, Equity and Health for Eastern and Southern Africa.
"The Alliance for Health Policy and Systems Research is issuing a competitive Call for Proposals (in collaboration with The International Development Research Centre (IDRC), Canada) to strengthen health systems, promote civic engagement, and make research matter. This collaboration aims to support the integration of political, economic, social and policy analysis into research on public health and health care systems and policies in Eastern and Southern Africa. Only proposals focusing on this region will be considered.
Deadline 13 August, 2004, Website: http://www2.alliance-hpsr.org/
Full details and the application form may be obtained from:Chris Zielinski
STP AHSPR-RPC/EIP
World Health Organization
Avenue Appia, CH1211, Geneva, Switzerland
Office: 004122-7914435 Home: 004122-3100551 Mobile: 0044-7971045354

PUBLICATION OPPORTUNITY:

International Journal of Economic Development
Symposium Theme: The Role of Healthcare in Global Sustainable Development

CALL FOR PAPERS
Author guidelines (IJED home page):
http://www.spaef.com/IJED_PUB/ (manuscript guidelines SPAEF eJournals)

The International Journal of Economic Development (IJED), a peer-reviewed electronic journal, invites development scholars and practitioners from healthcare related-disciplines and from different regions and countries to contribute articles addressing any of the following sub-themes:

Submission deadlines:

Send your manuscript proposal (via e-mail attachment) to guest-editor: Dr. Patricia A. Cholewka, EdD, MPA, RN,BC, CPHQ
Teachers College, Columbia University E-mail: pacholewka@aol.com

WEBSITES:

HIV/AIDS Anti-Stigma Website
The Center on AIDS & Community Health at the Academy for Educational Development created a website to focus on HIV/AIDS-related stigma and discrimination. This website is one component of an HIV/AIDS Anti-Stigma Initiative that the Ford Foundation is funding AED to implement.

Accessible at www.hivaidsstigma.org, the website contains detailed information about the AED/Ford Initiative, profiles of the projects and contact information for the five grantee organizations, general information about HIV/AIDS-related stigma and discrimination, and resources for additional information (including a literature review of recent publications and links to other sources of information on stigma).

CONFERENCES:

ALAMES, the Latin American Association of Social Medicine, will be holding its 9th Social Medicine Conference in Lima, Peru from August 11th to 15th. For details in Spanish about the conference go to their webpage www.alames.org which is now hosted on The Social Medicine Portal (www.socialmedicine.org).

Society of Social Medicine 2004 Annual Scientific Meeting
15-17 September - University of Birmingham

The conference is the leading academic Public Health conference in the UK, with over 300 delegates attending from home and abroad.

There are over 80 speakers and 50 poster presentations over the three days covering: Child Health; Policy, Implementation & Evaluation; Methods; Lifestyle and Health Behaviours; Older People; Maternal Health; Using Routinely Collected Data; Lifecourse; Health Services Research; Access, Utilisation & Inequalities and Qualitative Research & Mixed Methods.

In addition, there will be a full entertainment programme and a series of workshops including one on health equity audits.

For further information contact the organiser:
Carol Richards
SSM 2004 Conference Administrator
C/o Department of Public Health & Epidemiology
Public Health Building
University of Birmingham
Edgbaston
Birmingham B15 2TT
UK
Tel: +44(0) 121 414 3368
Fax: +44(0) 121 414 7878
e-mail: c.l.richards@bham.ac.uk

TOOLS FOR ACTION, ADVOCACY AND COMMUNITY EMPOWERMENT:

An Overview of Community-Based Health Financing
Partners for Health Reformplus - PHRplus Resource Center, 2004

Available online as PDf file [20p.] at: http://www.phrplus.org/Pubs/sp11.pdf

"..This document aims to answer basic questions on Community-based health financing (CBHF) that might be posed by policymakers and technical assistance providers interested in this topic. The questions and answers are not designed to provide a detailed guide for scheme managers on how to set up CBHF schemes; rather they aim to provide to decision makers in ministries of health and finance, international organizations, and non-governmental organizations a broad outline of how schemes are set up and how they operate, and an overview of their advantages and limitations…"

Health care priority setting: principles, practice and challenges
Cost Effectiveness and Resource Allocation 2004, 2:3
"Health organizations the world over are required to set priorities and allocate resources within the constraint of limited funding. However, decision makers may not be well equipped to make explicit rationing decisions and as such often rely on historical or political resource allocation processes. One economic approach to priority setting which has gained momentum in practice over the last three decades is Program Budgeting and Marginal Analysis (PBMA).
This paper presents a detailed step-by-step guide for carrying out a priority setting process based on the Program Budgeting and Marginal Analysis PBMA framework. This guide is based on the authors' experience in using this approach primarily in the UK and Canada, but as well draws on a growing literature of PBMA studies in various countries…"
Available online at: http://www.resource-allocation.com/content/2/1/3

Evaluation of health impact assessment learning from practice workshops
UK Health Development Agency 2004
Available online at: http://www.hda.nhs.uk/documents/hia_practice_workshops.pdf

"…. Health impact assessment (HIA) is an emerging tool in the field of public health, the principal aim of which is to assist planners and policy makers. It is used to assess the health consequences for a population of a policy, project or programme that does not necessarily have health as its primary objective.
Four Bulletins were produced under the following titles, together with an overall workshop report, all available at http://www.hiagateway.org.uk/ (- Resources - Other materials - General guidance).

Handbook for compilation of reviews on interventions in the field of public health

Knowledge-based - Public Health Work Part 2
Anna Hedin and Carina Källestål
Sweden's National Institute of Public Health, 2004

Available online as PDF file [82p.] at:
http://www.fhi.se/shop/material_pdf/r200410Knowledgebased2.pdf

"…. This handbook by the Sweden's National Institute of Public Health describes how to compile reviews of original articles on interventions for public health. It focuses on the following issues: formulating the research question, searching the literature, selection criteria, quality assessment, data extraction and synthesis, writing up and disseminating the results…."

Information provided in this newsletter is taken from a variety of sources including websites and listserves like Equidad list, Health Equity Network list, spirit of 1848 list.