The Australia-India Institute Taskforce on Tobacco Control pushes for policy change

The plain truth of why India needs plain packaging of tobacco products
The Australia-India Institute (AII) Taskforce on Tobacco Control set up to examine the feasibility of plain packaging of tobacco products in the Indian context released a policy document titled ‘The Case for Plain Packaging Made Plain - From Australia to the Indian People: Assessing the Socio-Political Scenario of Introducing Plain Packaging as a Policy Intervention’. Plain packaging legislation seeks to remove extraneous colours, embossing and misleading elements on tobacco packs, thus eliminating the “badge value” of all forms of tobacco product packaging. Brand and product names can be used in a standardised, prescribed style, font and colour


More Details: http://phfi.org/images/pdf/Press_release_Plain%20_Packaging_Jul%2023_12.pdf

World Bank's Country Strategy for India (2013-16)- Drafting process ongoing

The World Bank is holding a series of consultations to seek inputs on its proposed Country Program Strategy (CPS) for India for 2013-2016. The CPS is the Bank’s roadmap for engagement in the country over the next four years. Oriented toward results, the CPS aims to support India’s development agenda of faster, sustainable and more inclusive growth as outlined in the government’s upcoming 12th Five Year Plan.

The CPS identifies key areas where the World Bank's assistance can have the greatest impact on poverty reduction. This, in turn, determines the level and composition of the World Bank Group’s financial, advisory, and technical support to the country over a four-year period.

The CPS is developed in consultation with country authorities, civil society organizations, development partners, the media, the private sector, and other stakeholders. Consultations provide a platform for the World Bank Group to tap into the experience and knowledge of a broad range of stakeholders, and listen to their ideas about how the Bank can work with them to help the country meet its development challenges. Discussions not only cover the country’s long-standing development agenda but also the new challenges thrown up by unprecedented economic growth, and the recent slowdown.

Accordingly, the World Bank Group is holding a series of consultation workshops in a number of cities across India to determine its CPS for 2013-2016.  These include Delhi and four state capitals – Bangalore, Raipur, Guwahati, and Lucknow. Each capital has been specifically chosen to represent the broad range of development challenges facing the different regions in the country today. Feedback, ideas and comments received as part of the consultations will be integrated into the Bank’s final CPS. They will also find echoes in the Bank’s subsequent projects, policies and documents.

For further details please refer to:

http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/NEWS/0,,contentMDK:23216208~pagePK:34370~piPK:34424~theSitePK:4607,00.html

http://siteresources.worldbank.org/SOUTHASIAEXT/Resources/223546-1328913542665/CPS-CSO-consultation-chhattisgarh.ppt

India, Norway to extend partnership in healthcare sector

India and Norway have decided to extend by five years its partnership in healthcare sector after the success of their joint efforts in delivering child and maternal health services. 

At a meeting in Oslo on Monday between Health Secretary P K Pradhan and Norway's Secretary General from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Bente Angell-Hansen signed a letter of intent to initiate Phase II of the Norway India Partnership Initiative (NIPI) on reducing child and maternal mortality. 

NIPI is a partnership between India and Norway to improve delivery of child and maternal health services in select states under the National Rural Health Mission (NRHM). 

The partnership was initiated in 2006 by the Prime Ministers of India and Norway Manmohan Singh and Jens Stoltenberg. 

"India has achieved impressive gains in reducing maternal and child mortality since the introduction of the National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) in 2006. We would like to contribute to keeping this momentum going and strengthen it further with the Norway India Partnership Initiative," Angell-Hansen was quoted as saying in a NIPI statement.


Source: http://www.norwaynews.com/en/~view.php?72O8454ILd4822v285Qoi844QP3887PU76CCh353K8J8

Health research in India poor: Lancet study

Proportion of published papers increased from 0·4 % in 1988 to 1·8 % in 2008

Only 1/4 public health research reports rated as being of adequate quality

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NEW DELHI: Expressing concern over the scarcity of research on the routine health-information system in both reports and published papers, which is crucial to track the response of the health system to the health needs of the population, a paper on “Research to achieve health care for all in India” published in the latest edition of The Lancet medical journal has suggested that major national organisations of health research in India come together to provide effective stewardship.

Co-authored, among others, by Vishwa Mohan Katoch, Director-General of the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), the paper suggests that these organisations collaboratively develop mechanisms that enable agreement on tangible mid-term and long-term targets for health research in the country, create a plan of action and methods to track the progress in research utilisation to achieve health care for all. Although solutions for India will have to be tailored to its circumstances, there are useful lessons to be learnt from the systematic efforts of other countries aimed at matching research with public health priorities to more effectively improve population health, says the paper written by Lalit Dandona and Rakhi Dandona along with Dr. Katoch.

Quoting PubMed — United States National Library of Medicine — the paper says that the proportion of published papers from India increased from 0·4 per cent of the global total in 1988 to 1·8 per cent in 2008, but the proportion of public health research continues to be small, at 5 per cent of the total health research published.

Additionally, many of the leading causes of disease burden across communicable diseases, non-communicable diseases, and injuries continue to be under-represented in this published research, indicating that even among the limited papers on public health research, public health priority conditions in India are not adequately addressed.

An analysis of public health research reports produced in India also showed that the leading chronic non-communicable diseases and injuries were under-represented between 2001 and 2008. Health system research was more evident in public health research reports than in published public health papers. Only one in four public health research reports were rated as being of adequate quality. The quality was higher for reports produced by collaborations between Indian and international organisations, indicating that there is merit in promoting such collaborations for more useful research output

The paper suggests that a national research-tracking mechanism be developed to guide funding and commissioning of high-quality research. It calls for creation of a systematic plan to integrate research initiatives with policies and implementation of health programmes, so that research is more relevant for the health system and policy, and the knowledge generated is used more often by policy makers. It also suggests that rigorous evaluation research be made an essential component of all major population health programmes and policies to understand how these could be refined to improve health outcomes and how the underserved segments of the Indian population could be better reached to improve health equity

The ICMR has been the nodal organisation for health research in India since 1949. To widen coordination between health research and various sectors, the Department of Health Research was established under the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. This department aims to: encourage innovation related to diagnostics, treatment methods, and prevention; translate innovations into products or processes by facilitating their evaluation; and introduce innovation through health-systems research.

Although a full analysis of all present funding for health research in India and what it is spent on is not available, the funding from both domestic and international sources has increased substantially in India over the past decade.

(The article has been taken from one of the editions of 'The Hindu' newspaper) 

In India: footsteps towards NCD prevention

Members of Global Alliance for Chronic Diseases fund landmark research initiative to reduce impact of hypertension. Research will focus on implementing high blood pressure prevention and control programs in 15 low- and middle-income countries
The following research projects have been approved under the programme:


Funding organization: National Health and Medical Research Council

Project title: Improving the control of hypertension in rural India: Overcoming the barriers to diagnosis and effective treatment
Location (LMIC): India
Award recipient(s): Dr. Amanda Thrift, Monash University, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
Dr. Pallab Maulik, George Institute for Global Health, Hyderabad, India
Dr. Nihal Thomas, Christian Medical College, Vellore, India
Dr. Kavumpurathu Thankappan, Sree Chitra Tirunal Institute for Medical Sciences and Technology, Kerala India


Project title: A smartphone-based clinical decision support system for primary health care workers in rural India
Location (LMIC): India
Award recipient(s): Dr. David Peiris, George Institute for Global Health, University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia
Dr. Pallab Maulik, George Institute for Global Health, Hyderabad, India

Project title: Improving blood pressure control using a simplified treatment strategy including a three-in-one blood pressure lowering pill in Indian patients Location (LMIC): India
Award recipient(s): Anushka Patel, George Institute for Global Health, University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia
Dr. Pallab Maulik, George Institute for Global Health, Hyderabad, India
Dr. Dorairaj Prabhakaran, Centre for Chronic Disease Control, New Delhi, India

Project title: Developing a national salt reduction program for India
Location (LMIC): India
Award recipient(s): Dr. Bruce Neal, George Institute for Global Health, University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia
Dr. Pallab Maulik, George Institute for Global Health, Hyderabad, India
Dr. Dorairaj Prabhakaran, Centre for Chronic Disease Control, New Delhi, India

for more details follow the link: www.ga-cd.org/img/HypertensionReleaseFINAL.pdf

Indo-US Public Health Research Fellowships

In an effort to augment scientific excellence in areas of public health, the Indo-US Science and Technology Forum (IUSSTF) in partnership with the Public Health Foundation of India announces the ‘Indo-US Public Health Research Fellowships for Indian Researchers’ program supported by the Science and Engineering Research Board (SERB), Government of India. The objective of this program is to promote research and capacity building in the crucial area of public health. It is envisaged that these fellowships will help strengthen and expand the knowledge base of Indian

Public health research and education.

Last Date: 31st July 2012

Fellowship Duration: 3 to 12 months

For eligibility criteria and more about programme please follow the link:

http://indousstf.org/ResearchFellowship/Indo-US-Public-Health-Research-Fellowships-Flyer.pdf

Conference of INDIAN HEALTH ECONOMICS AND POLICY ASSOCIATION (IHEPA) BETTER HEALTH ACCESS – THE ROUGH ROAD AHEAD

Conference of
INDIAN HEALTH ECONOMICS AND POLICY ASSOCIATION (IHEPA)
BETTER HEALTH ACCESS – THE ROUGH ROAD AHEAD

Venue & Date
INSTITUTE FOR SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC CHANGE
Dr.V.K.R.V. Rao Road, Nagarbhavi
Bangalore – 560072
20-21, December 2012



Call for papers on the following
broad themes:

• Universal Health Coverage
• Human Resources and Infrastructure in Health
• MDGs, NRHM – achievements, lessons and future directions
• Innovations in Health Financing
• Karnataka Health System – Achievements and Challenges
• Other related issues relevant to current context
• Proposed to have dedicated session/s on Healthcare issues of Karnataka