Search results

Over the past two decades, Community-Based Health Planning and Services (CHPS) has been a pragmatic strategy towards universal Primary Health Care (PHC) in Ghana. However, the ability and capacity of these facilities to deliver quality primary health care remain an illusion as they are still crumbling in myriad challenges. These challenges are translated to the poor-quality services provision and low community utilization of CHPS facilities. The study presents a comparative analysis of three communities in the Kassena-Nankana East Municipality, Ghana.

Using a mixed-method research design, the study gathered and analysed data from 110 households, three community health officers (CHOs) and three community leaders using semi-structured questionnaires and interview guides.

The findings indicated that the facilities do not have the requisite inputs such as drugs and supplies, logistics, appropriate health personnel, good infrastructure, funding support necessary to deliver quality and appropriate healthcare services that meet the health needs of the communities. For the CHPS to realize their full potentials as PHC facilities, it is required that the needed inputs such as logistics, drugs and appropriate staff are in place to facilitate the activities of CHOs.

Due to the limited number of participants and selection of the study communities, the results may generalization. Also, the researchers acknowledged the inability to interview the district level health officials and the Kassena-Nankana Municipal Assembly during the field visits. This could have provided in-depth knowledge on the findings of this research as well as the validation of the results from the communities' perspective. Several attempts were made to contact and interview district-level authorities which proven futile due to the unavailability of targeted respondents. This resulted in limiting the studies at the community level. However, this limitation does not disprove the findings of this study.

The article implications for planning primary health care strategies include a keen assessment of community health needs and institutional management of primary health care facilities, equip PHC facilities with adequate resources such as drugs and appropriate staffing to provide the health needs of the communities.

The paper fulfils the gap in the literature by providing empirical data on how the challenges of primary health care facilities affected the provision of high quality service and how this can affect community’s use of the facilities.

The purpose of this study is to examine the biophysical and socioeconomic impacts of climate change on maize production and food security in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) using adapted improved maize varieties and well-calibrated and validated bioeconomic models.

Using the past climate (1950-2000) as a baseline, the study estimated the biophysical impacts of climate change in 2050 (2040-2069) and 2080 (2070-2099) under the A1B emission scenario and three nitrogen levels, and the socioeconomic impacts in 2050.

Climate change will affect maize yields across SSA in 2050 and 2080, and the extent of the impact at a given period will vary considerably between input levels, regions and maize mega environments (MMEs). Greater relative yield reductions may occur under medium and high-input intensification than under low intensification, in Western and Southern Africa than in Eastern and Central Africa and in lowland and dry mid-altitude than in highland and wet mid-altitude MMEs. Climate change may worsen food insecurity in SSA in 2050 through its negative impact on maize consumption and reduction in daily calorie intake. However, international trade has the potential to offset some of the negative impacts.

The study calibrated and applied bioeconomic models to estimate the biophysical and socioeconomic impact of climate change on maize production at fine resolution. The results could be used as a baseline to evaluate measures that will be applied to adapt maize to the future climate in SSA.

COMPARISON of the amount and the variation between 1975/76 and 1976/77 of public library bookfunds is made possible by the Libtrad summary which was published in the Bookseller in mid‐April. It is encouraging to see that although there is a fair number of falls and no‐changes, many chiefs have been successful in extracting higher book‐funds from their authorities—no mean achievement in a year which has seen a pretty general standstill in rate demands. Essex is up by no less than 30%, and the percentage increases are in double figures in not a few cases. My own home borough is up by exactly one‐third, though it still only reaches the miserly total of £115,000 for a population of 200,000—well down the per capita league for London boroughs.

SEPTEMBER sees most librarians again at the daily round, although some, including those of the universities and schools, are still scattered on mountains, golf‐courses, beaches and oceans for a short while yet. To older men there is a curious feeling aroused by the knowledge that there is no Library Association Conference this month. They may, in a measure, find compensation in attending the annual meeting of the London and Home Counties Branch of the Association, which will be at St. Albans, or that of A.S.L.I.B., which has Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, as its venue. Both, by some lack of care which might have been avoided, occur on the same week‐end, September 24–26. Quite clearly the special problems of librarianship technique, such as processes, book‐selection and purchase, classification, catalogues, fines, publicity, salaries, hours, and so on almost infinitely, can no longer be discussed profitably at the Annual Meeting of the Library Association; smaller gatherings, such as these, are their fitting place. We make a suggestion to the L.A. Council, for what it is worth and without pretence to being original. It is that it should indicate to all its branches and sections the main questions to which they should devote attention, and that in due course they should produce their conclusions on them. These, being pooled, would form the basis of the L.A. Annual Meeting. This would make a purposeful programme for all, and the results of the Conference might then be considered definite and practical.

THERE are now so many meetings of the Library Association and its branches and sections that the good custom of recording meetings and the discussions at them has fallen into desuetude. In a way it is a gain, for when the discussion was commonplace the account of a meeting became a mere list of those who attended and spoke, bones without flesh; but in the days when The Library Association Record really was a record, its reports were a part of the educational and informational material of every librarian. Something should be done about this, because 1938 opened with a series of meetings which all deserved the fullest report. The principal one was the investiture meeting of the President of the Library Association on January 17th. The attendance was greater than that at any meeting of librarians in recent years, of course other than the Annual Conference. Chaucer House was beautifully arranged, decorated and lighted for the occasion, an atmosphere of cheerfulness and camaraderie pervaded the affair. The speeches were limited to a few preliminary words by the retiring President, the Archbishop of York, before placing the badge on his successor's neck; a brief, but deserved panegyric of Dr. Temple's services by Mr. Berwick Sayers; and then a delightful acknowledgment from His Grace. The serious point the Archbishop made was his surprise at learning the wide extent of the library movement and his conviction that it must be of great value to the community. His lighter touch was exquisite; especially his story of the ceremonial key, which broke in the lock and jammed it when he was opening a library in state, and of his pause to settle mentally the ethical point as to whether he could conscientiously declare he had “opened” a place when he had made it impossible for anyone to get in until a carpenter had been fetched. Altogether a memorable evening, which proved, too, as a guest rightly said, that one cannot easily entertain librarians, but, if you get them together in comfortable conditions, they entertain themselves right well.

Despite HIV being reported as one of the major global health issues, availability and accessibility of HIV services and supplies remain limited, especially in low- and middle-income countries. The effective and efficient operation of HIV supply chains is critical to tackle this problem. The purpose of this paper is to give an introduction to HIV supply chains in low- and middle-income countries and identify research opportunities for the operations research/operations management (OR/OM) community.

First, the authors review a combination of the scientific and grey literature, including both qualitative and quantitative papers, to give an overview of HIV supply chain operations in low- and middle-income countries and the challenges that are faced by organizing such supply chains. The authors then classify and discuss the relevant OR/OM literature based on seven classification criteria: decision level, methodology, type of HIV service modeled, challenges, performance measures, real-life applicability and countries covered. Because research on HIV supply chains in low- and middle-income countries is limited in the OR/OM field, this part also includes papers focusing on HIV supply chain modeling in high-income countries.

The authors conclude this study by identifying several tendencies and gaps and by proposing future research directions for OR/OM research.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this paper is the first literature review addressing this specific topic from an OR/OM perspective.