Health
The mental health consequences of rapid onset emergencies, fragility, conflict and violence— compounded by the cyclical relationship between poverty and mental illness—are pressing challenges, especially in humanitarian settings. People with pre-existing psychosocial disabilities are also among the most vulnerable in these contexts. In this video, Alison Schafer and Mark van Ommeren from the World Health Organization discuss… Read more
Roughly half of all mental health conditions start by the mid-teens, and three-quarters by the mid-twenties. Childhood and adolescence are key developmental stages when factors such as family, peers and school, as well as poverty, violence and other forms of adversity, can have lifelong consequences for mental health. At the same time, development interventions targeted… Read more
In this video, Julian Eaton from CBM and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine discusses the ‘disease-model’ approach to mental health, the social risk factors that can contribute to mental health conditions, and explores how social development programmes can improve mental health and psychosocial support outcomes. This video was produced from a training… Read more
The 2018 Lancet Commission on global mental health and sustainable development makes the case for mental health to be integrated into all aspects of development as part of the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda. This means including people with psychosocial disabilities in the work that development organisations are already doing, incorporating more targeted approaches to mental… Read more
In this video, Jasmine Kalha, QualityRights Gujarat, discusses the benefits of a rights-based approach to mental health, the QualityRights framework in the context of health systems, the role that peer support should play in QualityRights, and her favourite Article of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD). In this video, Soumitra Pathare,… Read more
Interview: Evidence review on health systems strengthening Due to the lack of clear definitions and the potentially huge volume of evidence, comprehensive reviews of health systems strengthening (HSS) interventions are relatively uncommon. In this interview lead author Sophie Witter (Queen Margaret University, Edinburgh) discusses one such rapid evidence review, recently commissioned by the UK Department for… Read more
This blog offers advice for practitioners wanting to apply gender transformative approaches to WASH programming. This blog was written by Elaine Mercer for the CLTS Knowledge Hub and originally appeared on their website. It has been partly adapted from the workshop ‘Gender Transformative WASH’ (April 2019) that the Institute of Development Studies (IDS) co-facilitated with Dr Sue… Read more
HEART partners hera‘s Alice Behrendt and Marieke Devillé, under supervision of Dia Timmermans, are currently working on a UNFPA funded systematic review investigating factors determining women’s ability to make their own decisions regarding sexual relations, contraceptive use and reproductive health care in lower and middle income settings. The team is working with the UNFPA human… Read more
Monitoring, evaluation, and learning (MEL) is used to guide the implementation of a programme, understand the performance of the programme, and assess the best approach to future developments. To ensure the success of healthcare system reforms, and projects being implemented around them, an innovative MEL design is needed. Often, traditional models measuring the outputs of… Read more
This blog, written by Alex Jones, originally appeared on the Oxford Policy Management website and is reposted with their permission. The answer to the question ‘would you rather give birth in 1900 or 2018’ might depend on where in the world you are. In 1900 in Sweden, before the construction of modern hospitals or the… Read more
In recent years, the global health security agenda has gained prominence, as it pursues a multilateral and multi-sectoral approach to respond to health emergencies. It aims to strengthen capacity at a global and national level to prevent, detect, and respond to the spread of infectious diseases. Despite great progress in improving access to healthcare for all,… Read more