Grand Challenges for Global Health: 15th - access to clean, clear, knowledge

Dear HIFA2015 colleagues,

The news item below is forwarded from the Global Health Council, which reports the mHealth Summit taking place this week in washington DC. It is especially good to see that Bill Gates is giving a keynote address. This suggests that the Gates Foundation may be poised to address the 15th Grand Challenge for Global Health, as proposed by international health leaders in The Lancet:

"The Gates Foundation identified fourteen challenges [Grand Challenges for Global Health] but a fifteenth challenge stares us plainly in the face: The 15th challenge is to ensure that everyone in the world can have access to clean, clear, knowledge - a basic human right, and a public health need as important as access to clean, clear, water, and much more easily achievable."

Tikki Pang (WHO), Muir Gray (NHS, UK), and Tim Evans (WHO): 'A 15th grand challenge for global public health.' The Lancet 2006; 367:284-286.
http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140673606680501/fulltext

When HIFA2015 was in planning back in 2006, the lead author of the above paper, Dr Tikki Pang (Director of Research policy and Cooperation at WHO) said: 'HIFA2015 is an ambitious goal but it can be achieved if all stakeholders work together'. Bill and Melinda Gates are critical stakeholders. I look forward to see Bill Gates' presentation. Will the Gates Foundation take up the 15th Challenge? Will the Gates Foundation prioritise the challenge of health information for all by 2015?

Bill Gates keynote yesterday is not yet available on the web, but it will be soon at: http://mhealthsummit.org/conference/live-webcast

I hope that Bill Gates will use this opportunity to articulate a clear and specific vision from the Gates Foundation: a vision of a world where people are no longer dying for lack of access to appropriate, reliable healthcare information. With their support, there is no doubt this vision can and will be realised.

With best wishes,
Neil

HIFA2015 profile: Neil Pakenham-Walsh is the coordinator of the HIFA2015 campaign and co-director of the Global Healthcare Information Network. He started his career as a hospital doctor in the UK, and has clinical experience in rural Ecuador and Peru.  For the last 20 years he has been committed to improving the availability of healthcare information for health workers in developing countries. He has worked with the World Health Organization, the Wellcome Trust, Medicine Digest and INASP (International Network for the Availability of Scientific Publications). www.hifa2015.org  neil.pakenham-walsh AT ghi-net.org

My source:  www.hifa2015.org

PC footprints 1981 - 2010

At the Eden Project there is a sculpture which depicts the e-hardware an average Jo will use and dispose of in a lifetime (those teeth are made up of computer mouse). Overall this amounts to 3.3 tonnes.

I've listed this before on W2tQ, but my micro - PC footprint runs as follows:

• Sinclair ZX81 - 1981
• BBC microcomputer model 'B'
• BBC Master 128 - 1986
• Elonex 286 PC
• Dell 486 PC
• MacBook Pro - October 2008
  
• Evesham Pentium 4 PC - November 2002

This w/e after Drupalcon I am adding to my pile. I've managed very well, but it is definitely time for a new PC.

Additional link:
http://weeeman.org/html/impact/about.html

Health, social care and informational emaciation

We hear a lot about information and how important it is, being in what is described as the information age, the information economy. ...

Nurses, patients and carers (plus managers) would instantly recognise that if a care plan and subsequent care delivery was based on the following assessment:

oriented, not depressed	hypertension, falls, dizziness, headaches, pyrexia
carer due hip operation	admitted 1st May 2010 1200hrs to clinical decisions unit

- we would be acutely concerned.

Clinically this is a case of informational emaciation. The information above is rather thin on the ground, this in turn affects the knowledge that can be gleaned in formulating, negotiating and agreeing actions. Even in the information sparse example above each of the care domains has some content; is that always the case?

Use of the word emaciated in this context is not intended to diminish the plight of people who are physically emaciated, poorly nourished.

This post is intended to highlight another aspect of poverty.

As the Global Healthcare Information Network (HIFA 2015) argues and campaigns - information is a means to emancipation - a way to overcome information emaciation.

Additional links:

Picker Institute Europe

Patient Information Forum

Patient Information Advisory Group

Health & holistic care in the 21st and 22nd Century

With the technical means at our disposal it is relatively easy to provide information to the masses. Facebook, Google and advertisers are increasingly better versed to target information not just our way, but your way.

Health education and preventive medicine programs depend on the dissemination of health and well-being information, that in turn also relies on access to an expanding digital infrastructure. Equality of access to information communications technologies is now the province of human rights and not just manifestos whether ambitious or binned.

There is much talk of trying to categorise the stage (and hence maturity) of our civilization: hence we talk about being in the information age.

In health care terms this is clearly the case. The provision of information is a key operation and goal of the UN and WHO as per the Millennium Development Goals. Amid the MDG and multiple other related initiatives we need to take care that the habits of many thousands of years do not dilute our efforts.

There is a danger that just as we have broadcast seeds to grow crops,
we will repeat the exercise with technology's reach and
so many seeds will fall on stony ground and
so not take root and
grow.

As people working in the development field know only too well, initiatives like Health Information for All by 2015 and national efforts are not just about the provision of information. In some respects that is not as big a problem as it once was (though is still presents a huge challenge) with community, urban and developmental informatics. Mobile phones and various technologies can get information to people. Increasingly though the problem is one of sufficient or extended literacy. This extends the conventional educational literacy and notion of the 3R's - Reading, wRiting and aRithmetic.

What knowledge do I need about my health and that of the 'other' gender and ethnic groups with whom I share this 'home'. What knowledge do I need in order to live long and then be able to prosper and do so sustainably?

Allied with the problem of literacy is seeking the attention of individuals. This perhaps is why infant, primary and secondary schooling are so important - learning to attend is the most important lesson of all. Especially as health and well-being messages must compete in the multi-spectral communications channels polluted with so much dross.

The MDG make clear the above requirement in Goal 2: Achieve universal primary education:

2.1. Net enrollment and retention in primary education
2.2. Proportion of pupils starting Grade 1 who also reach the last grade of primary education
2.3. Literacy rate of 15-24 year old #

With the requisite baseline - personalised literacies and the information that HIFA2015 and others can provide then individuals can achieve a level of health and well-being knowledge commensurate with living (and dying well) in the 21st century:

and 2nd-by-2nd the

growing proportion of the global population that will know the
22nd century. ...

# Thanks to Remi Akinmade and HIFA-2015 list
http://mdgs.un.org/unsd/mdg/Host.aspx?Content=Indicators/OfficialList.htm

Literacy on W2tQ
http://hodges-model.blogspot.com/search/label/literacy

Distorted care

Some musical performances are so polished, clear and (p)honed that we readily attribute them to the classical genre. There are experimental pieces that 'buck this quality trend' but the musicianship, melody and composition stand the test of time grabbing audiences by the ear, throat and heart. On the popular music front some bands - The Eagles spring to mind - are not universally appreciated for their sound, (sales), shine and harmonies.

Whatever the music though if you ramp up the volume enough - distortion happens. This disturbs and disrupts the artist's, composer's and producer's original intent.

The worry is that care can be similarly distorted, not only by those who can shout the loudest creating noise, but the political clamour that creates its own form of cultural background radiation. It becomes hard for everyone to listen and reflect on the track we've heard so many times since our teen years:
you know the one - 'Quality Care' by 'Informed Debate, Health & Social Lookyafters'.

Image my source: Sodahead.com

Additional link - BBC: Compulsory social care bill plan