Haven Ley talks to Gary Humphreys about Pivotal's plans to address women's health, including sexual and reproductive rights, as part of broader efforts to empower women.
Haven Ley talks to Gary Humphreys about Pivotal's plans to address women's health, including sexual and reproductive rights, as part of broader efforts to empower women.
Problem: Comparing health policy measures before elections and identifying potential gaps in the health policy debate can be challenging.
Approach: We explored the use of the Health System Performance Assessment for Universal Health Coverage framework to analyse health policy proposals by classifying health policy measures outlined in political manifestos into four health system functions: governance, financing, resource generation and service delivery. As a case study, we analysed the political manifestos of all Portuguese parties with parliamentary representation ahead of the election in March 2024. We calculated the share of measures per health system function for individual political manifestos and identified potential gaps in the health policy debate. When required, we used additional classification criteria and local expertise on political and institutional knowledge.
Local setting: A snap general election was announced in Portugal in November 2023, following an alleged corruption scandal, and political parties began publishing their manifestos on their websites in January 2024.
Relevant changes: We identified and classified 350 health-related measures across the four functions: governance, 29.7% (104 measures); financing, 16.9% (59 measures); resource generation, 33.4% (117 measures); and service delivery, 20.0% (70 measures). These findings enabled characterization of the priorities of parties, facilitated cross-party comparisons and identified missing topics in the political debate.
Lessons learnt: We show that the framework can be adapted to analyse political manifestos, providing a systematic method for comparing and synthesizing health policy proposals. We further demonstrate the potential for extending the framework's applicability beyond health system performance assessment, opening new avenues for policy analysis.
Hamid Jafari talks to Gary Humphreys about the non-linear nature of progress toward polio eradication and the challenges faced in the last two polio-endemic countries in the world.
Declining total fertility rates in urban areas are causing a re-examination of traditional responses to pro-natal policy. Gary Humphreys reports.
[This corrects the article on p. 765 in vol. 102, PMID: 39318887.].
Objective: To examine changes in red-light running and distracted riding among motorcyclists and cyclists before and after the 2020 implementation of the One Helmet, One Seatbelt campaign in China.
Methods: We obtained 192 hours of film before (2019) and after (2021) implementation of the campaign in eight road intersections in Changsha. We calculated percentages and ratios of red-light running and distracted riding. To assess the associations between these traffic behaviours and the campaign, we used multivariable logistic regression models to calculate adjusted odds ratios (aOR).
Findings: We filmed 5256 motorcyclists and cyclists in 2019 and 6269 in 2021. Red-light running decreased from 45.1% to 41.5% during this period (ratio: 0.92; 95% confidence interval, CI: 0.88-0.96), while distracted riding increased from 3.5% to 5.0% (ratio: 1.42; 95% CI: 1.19-1.69). After adjusting for covariates, male riders were more likely to run a red light compared to female riders (aOR: 1.28; 95% CI: 1.06-1.55). Red-light running was also more likely among electric bicycle riders (aOR: 1.46; 95% CI: 1.10-1.95) and motorcyclists (aOR: 1.47; 95% CI: 1.13-1.90) compared to traditional cyclists. All types of riders were less prone to run a red light during peak hours than off-peak hours (aOR: 0.85; 95% CI: 0.73-0.99). Distracted riding was more common on weekends compared to weekdays (aOR: 3.01; 95% CI: 2.02-4.49).
Conclusion: China's national road safety campaign, which focuses on helmet and seatbelt use, was associated with reduced red-light running. Strict enforcement and targeted modifications could improve the campaign's effectiveness.