What's the difference between 6 and 7? About 11 years ...

Gradually over the past few months I've checked the care domain links. Deleting those where the domain is now "For Sale", broken, or the content is plain out of date. The final domain was the SCIENCES. It's the largest still and while the links are monsters, it is interesting working through them occasionally.

One change caught my eye last month in the 'Environment, Sustainability, Ecology & EcoSystem Health' listing (now former h2cm website). I clicked on Six Billion and Beyond and duly found that it has been retired from pbs.org. A few weeks ago I'd shared with students and have included on the CARDI conference poster the fact that today it is believed that the Earth's human population reaches 7 billion.

Looking back Six Billion and Beyond aired in 1999. So in 11-12 years there are an extra billion souls. You have to ask:

• What will we all drink and eat?
• Will we all have a (dry) home?
• Will we all read? (Have access to information and info technology)
• What will this latest generation believe in?
• Whose beliefs will they be?
  
• Can the 7 Billionth human being of Earth be a true citizen?
• Before that - for how long will they be allowed to be a child?
• Will they pray? Who to and why - choice?
• Will they have to fight (in a uniform)?
• What will their sense of quality of life be?
•  Will that 7 Billionth person and their family have access to:
• health information?
• basic health care?
• education?
• What space is there for their human rights?
• Can technology finally deliver Socially?

Checking the links this time around proved quite a lesson in global demographics - how long till the next...?

Additional links:

https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/

The world is home to 7 billion people but how far has it come?
The population milestone is a reminder that there is much work to do on sexual and reproductive health and HIV if we are to meet the millennium development goals by 2015, The Guardian, Monday 31 October.

Global health: Care logistics in-deed

Although the previous post -

Care Logistics: have model will travel ...

- differentiated between what we might term mechanistic and humanistic logistics, there is a great deal of overlap:

communications, time, priorities, purposes, service, quality, processes ....

Global health has featured on W2tQ and it is here that the true dimensions of logistics can be defined. I may be confusing logistics and scale, but if I am then the challenge of logistics presents itself by virtue of scale and in global health the focus upon populations, nations, medical conditions and physical environments, climates and topography.

While the Wikipedia page on global health does not explicitly refer to logistics it is there in the shadows: it contributes to inequality, illiteracy, poverty, public ill-health (and mental too), pandemics ...

Logistics is there in the light too; the torch of disaster relief, the many development organisations, the ethos and values of the Millennium Development Goals. ...

Achieving the health-related MDGs. It takes a workforce!

Dear colleagues,

With reference to the upcoming MDG Summit and the UN Global Strategy for Women's and Children's Health, Dr Manuel Dayrit would like to share with you the above-mentioned page that was published today on the HRH website, which highlights the human resources for health situation in the 49 focus countries.

Achieving the health-related MDGs. It takes a workforce!


Density of doctors, nurses and midwives in the 49 priority countries

Please note that the link to the chart is:
http://www.who.int/hrh/fig_density.pdf

Kind regards,

Rebecca Bailey on behalf of Dr Manuel Dayrit
Rebecca J. Bailey, MSPH, CEd
Technical Officer
Health Workforce Education and Production
WHO/HSS/HRH

My source:
Ellen BONITO: bonitoe at wpro.who.int
GANM (Global Alliance for Nursing and Midwifery): GANM at ibp.wa-research.ch

<->

In Mevagissey, Cornwall last month browsing in Hurley Books, I came across a copy of Maps and Diagrams: Their Compilation and Construction by F.J. Monkhouse, et al. (1967). At three pounds - a historical bargain. Prompted by the charts above I will scan the cover and share some of the text/ideas here in the near future.

I was saddened to see that in Padstow The Strand Bookshop has closed - apparently in January 2009. As a listed building who knows perhaps it might smell of books once again!

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

NIGH message for GANM network - We Need Your Help with the UN General Assembly

Please assist if you can....

Dear GANM Colleagues,

The Nightingale Initiative for Global Health (NIGH) (www.nightingaledeclaration.net) team invites you to join with us to ask the 2009 UN General Assembly to consider the UN Resolution proposal (see below) as they will be voting until the end of December 2009.
Currently the NIGH team is working in and around the United Nations in New York City — to propose a UN Resolution (below) recognizing the work of global nursing.

Please write to your country's UN Ambassador in New York City.

To find your country's UN Ambassador:

1.) ...

2.) to find the mailing address and a link to your country's web page (where you can find their email address) for your country's representative - go to:
https://www.un.org/en/sections/resources-different-audiences/delegates/

Address the following message to your UN Ambassador. Finding the email address may take a little more effort, but it is quicker. We hope you will take the extra effort to let your representative know how important this issue is.

If you want to add a personal note to this example message please feel free:

≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈
re: Resolution to Acknowledge Campaign for 2010 to Support UN MDGs

(Enter the name of your UN Ambassador and country)

Permanent Mission to the United Nations

EXCELLENCY,

We ask you please to consider, now, initiating or supporting a Resolution for this 2009 General Assembly:

1/. The General Assembly, in recognition of the devotion and dedication of the world’s nurses and midwives and their care and concern for the health and well-being of the “peoples of the United Nations,” hereby acknowledges, with gratitude, their celebration of the “2010 International Year of the Nurse,” the Centennial of Florence Nightingale, through their campaign to raise global public awareness and support for the eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

2/. The Assembly recognizes, in particular, their vital contribution to reducing child mortality and improving maternal health — as specified in MDGs 4 and 5 — and expresses appreciation for their overall commitment to the achievement of these United Nations’ objectives.

Sincerely yours,

Phalakshi Manjrekar, MScN, RN, India
Barbara Dossey, PhD, RN, AHN-BC, FAAN, USA
Dionne Sinclair, MSN, RN, Jamaica
Cynda H. Rushton, PhD, RN, FAAN, USA
Deva-Marie Beck, PhD, RN, Canada

Co-Directors, Nightingale Initiative for Global Health (NIGH) on behalf of 20,000 nurses from 110 nations who have signed the ”Nightingale Declaration for a Healthy World.” See: http://www.NightingaleDeclaration.net

≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈ end of message~~~~~~~~~

”Global Public Health“ has been a key focus of the United Nations, until December 31, 2009, and then the UN focus moves to “Gender Equality” for 2010. We believe that it is, therefore, urgent that we get this Resolution into the UN General Assembly agenda for adoption before the end of 2009.

We have contacted Ambassadors from all 192 Member States, asking them to support this proposal. As well, we have sent them the attached press release, which we will also be forwarding on to all 200+ media representatives and media agencies accredited at the UN.

The NIGH team thank you for your consideration of our request. Please circulate this request to other colleagues.

Additional links: 2010 International Year of the Nurse (IYNurse)

GANM (Global Alliance for Nursing and Midwifery)
 

Millennium Development Goals - Progress and Prospects c/o The Communication Initiative Network

Here c/o The Communication Initiative Network is Drum Beat 479 which addresses progress and prospects of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

Publication Date: February 9, 2009

This issue of the Drum Beat explores communication-centred thinking and action designed to address the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) - 8 goals set in 2000 to be achieved by 2015 that respond to what some consider to be the world's main development challenges. In 2005 and 2006, The Communication Initiative (The CI) published a series of Drum Beat issues focused on communication intersections with each of the MDGs, as well as a "year in review" issue at the end of each series. As we enter 2009, having passed the halfway point in the quest to accomplish the Goals, the selections below examine progress by highlighting just a sliver of the statistics, interventions, and strategies drawing on communication to make a real impact.