HEOR NEWS

Billions Left Behind on the Path to Universal Health Coverage (WHO)

The World Health Organization (WHO) and the World Bank, in their 2023 Universal Health Coverage Global Monitoring Report, have found that over the past 2 decades less than a third of countries have improved health service coverage and reduced catastrophic out-of-pocket health spending.
Read more

Patient Safety and Surgical Innovation: Why New Isn’t  Always Better (NICE)

Jane Blazeby, professor of surgery, University of Bristol, and the NIHR Bristol Biomedical Research Centre, says surgeon innovators in her research uniformly shared “optimism bias” of the theoretical benefits of an innovation, and in surgical consultations, only a minority of surgeons communicated the uncertainty about safety or told the patient that they had limited experience with a new procedure.
Read more

First WHO Report Details Devastating Impact of Hypertension and Ways to Stop It (WHO)

In its first-ever report on the global impact of high blood pressure, the World Health Organization found that 4 out of every 5 people with hypertension are not adequately treated. But if countries prioritize prevention, early detection, and effective management of hypertension at the primary care level, the economic benefits of improved hypertension treatment programs outweigh the costs by about 18 to 1.
Read more

Neighborhood Context and Children’s Healthcare Utilization and Health Outcomes: A Comprehensive Descriptive Analysis of National Survey Data
(Health Affairs Scholar)

Using the nationally representative sample of children from pooled 2013–2017 Medical Expenditure Panel Survey data linked to the census-tract-level Child Opportunity Index 2.0 (a composite measure of neighborhood health, education, and socioeconomic conditions), researchers found that children living in lower-opportunity neighborhoods had the highest rates of poor physical and mental health status and fewest ambulatory care visits but accounted for the highest share of emergency department visits.
Read more

Unaddressed Functional Difficulty and Care Support Among White, Black, and Hispanic Older Adults in the Last Decade (Health Affairs Scholar)

In looking at community-dwelling older adults who had difficulty with, but lacked assistance for, self-care, mobility, and household activities before and after the Affordable Care Act, researchers found the prevalence of Black and Hispanic people with functional difficulties lacking corresponding care support was consistently 1.5 times higher than that of White people.
Read more

What Is the Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Tuberculosis? (Lancet Global Health)

In trying to estimate whether the death rate from tuberculosis will rise, researchers doing a longitudinal analysis in Indonesia found that while the tuberculosis case notification rate decreased by 26% and tuberculosis treatment coverage dropped by 11% during the pandemic, the all-cause death rate during tuberculosis treatment did not change significantly. However, these researchers theorize that undiagnosed individuals with tuberculosis may have been dying from COVID-19.
Read more

Africa CDC and France Sign Memorandum of Understanding to Strengthen Public Health Systems in Africa (Africa CDC)

The goals of the memorandum of understanding are to strengthen Africa’s Centres for Disease Control and Prevention  capacity; support the development of national public health institutes; enhance disease surveillance and emergency response capacities; promote the local manufacturing of vaccines, diagnostics, and therapeutics; support workforce training; and foster research partnerships between French and African institutions.
Read more

Women Less Likely to Be Given CPR Than Men in Public Places (European Society for Emergency Medicine (EUSEM))

Bystanders are less likely to give cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) to women than men, particularly if the emergency takes place in a public area. Researchers found only around half of patients received CPR from a bystander (54%), with women being slightly less likely to be given CPR (52% of women compared to 55% of men).
Read more

Global and Regional Estimates of Genital Human Papillomavirus Prevalence Among Men: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis (Lancet Global Health)

Almost 1 in 3 men worldwide are infected with at least one genital HPV type and around 1 in 5 men are infected with one or more HR-HPV types, with HPV prevalence high in young adults, reaching a maximum between the ages of 25 years and 29 years.
Read more