Changing Trends in Mental Health Care and Research in Ghana


Book Description

This Reader is about the changing trends in mental health care and research in Ghana. The book includes a brief history of Department of Psychiatry at the University of Ghana Medical School and Mental Health Care in Ghana through the eyes of professionals who have lived this history. There is also a revised situation analysis of mental health services and legislation from 2005. These are followed by three main sections on Conceptualization of Mental Illness (depression, religion and illness, autism, substance use disorders and schizophrenia), Mental Health Practice in a teaching hospital setting (referrals to Korle-Bu, how psychiatric illnesses manifest, how people's lives are affected and what skill sets and resources are available for dealing with them) and finally the Department's focus on research includes the Mental Health Information System, Sickle Cell Disease, Medical Ethics, and Liaison Psychiatry. In the concluding paragraph, read about the way forward in mental health care and research.




Contemporary Issues in Mental Health Care in sub-Saharan Africa


Book Description

Seventy percent of the global burden of mental disorders is located in low and middle income countries (LMIC),including sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). However, in Africa,only 0.62% of the national health budget is allocated to mental health compared to a global median of 2.8% and 5% in Europe. The government is the source of funding in 62%of patients with severe mental disorder in the World Health Organisation (WHO), Africa Region, the lowest of all the WHO regions, and lower compared to a global median of 79%. This is compounded by poor resources, with mental health outpatient facilities in WHO Africa Region being less that 10% of the global median. To address these problems, the WHO launched its Mental Health Action Gap Programme (mhGAP) in 2008, to scale-up mental health services in low and middle income countries (LMIC). The book is directed to all policy makers in sub-Saharan Africa to aid decision making about the urgent need for sustainable and relevant mental health care strategies, and the important areas that need priority. The book should be helpful to local and international researchers in formulating research questions relevant to the African continent and it will be of interest to medical practitioners and students in the region as adjunct to standard text books.




Global Encyclopedia of Public Administration, Public Policy, and Governance


Book Description

This global encyclopedic work serves as a comprehensive collection of global scholarship regarding the vast fields of public administration, public policy, governance, and management. Written and edited by leading international scholars and practitioners, this exhaustive resource covers all areas of the above fields and their numerous subfields of study. In keeping with the multidisciplinary spirit of these fields and subfields, the entries make use of various theoretical, empirical, analytical, practical, and methodological bases of knowledge. Expanded and updated, the second edition includes over a thousand of new entries representing the most current research in public administration, public policy, governance, nonprofit and nongovernmental organizations, and management covering such important sub-areas as: 1. organization theory, behavior, change and development; 2. administrative theory and practice; 3. Bureaucracy; 4. public budgeting and financial management; 5. public economy and public management 6. public personnel administration and labor-management relations; 7. crisis and emergency management; 8. institutional theory and public administration; 9. law and regulations; 10. ethics and accountability; 11. public governance and private governance; 12. Nonprofit management and nongovernmental organizations; 13. Social, health, and environmental policy areas; 14. pandemic and crisis management; 15. administrative and governance reforms; 16. comparative public administration and governance; 17. globalization and international issues; 18. performance management; 19. geographical areas of the world with country-focused entries like Japan, China, Latin America, Europe, Asia, Africa, the Middle East, Russia and Eastern Europe, North America; and 20. a lot more. Relevant to professionals, experts, scholars, general readers, researchers, policy makers and manger, and students worldwide, this work will serve as the most viable global reference source for those looking for an introduction and advance knowledge to the field.




Routledge Handbook of Climate Change and Health System Sustainability


Book Description

The Routledge Handbook on Climate Change and Health System Sustainability takes the reader on a journey to understand the interconnectedness of human health, climate change, and healthcare systems. The book begins by exploring how climate change is affecting human health through the increasing frequency of natural disasters, such as bush fires, droughts and heatwaves, and the emergence of new infectious diseases, such as the SARS-CoV2 virus, all of which drive up demand for health services that are already heavily burdened by increasing rates of chronic diseases and ageing populations. Chapters then turn to the contribution of the healthcare system itself to climate change— explaining how current clinical practices, including wasteful care of low value, create an unsustainable carbon footprint and threaten the very viability of healthcare systems. Throughout the volume, descriptions of practical solutions and implemented case studies are used to illustrate the feasibility of taking action in the real world of the healthcare delivery ecosystem. Bringing together a mix of forward-thinking environmental and health researchers, policymakers, leaders, managers, clinicians, patients, and health industry leaders to clarify the current state and future of sustainable healthcare systems, this book will be of interest to researchers and policymakers of climate and health systems.




Research Report


Book Description




OECD Health Policy Studies Making Mental Health Count The Social and Economic Costs of Neglecting Mental Health Care


Book Description

This book addresses the high cost of mental illness, the organisation of care, changes and future directions for the mental health workforce, indicators for mental health care and quality, and tools for better governance of the system.




Climate Change and Health


Book Description

A major objective of this volume is to create and share knowledge about the socio-economic, political and cultural dimensions of climate change. The authors analyze the effects of climate change on the social and environmental determinants of the health and well-being of communities (i.e. poverty, clean air, safe drinking water, food supplies) and on extreme events such as floods and hurricanes. The book covers topics such as the social and political dimensions of the ebola response, inequalities in urban migrant communities, as well as water-related health effects of climate change. The contributors recommend political and social-cultural strategies for mitigate, adapt and prevent the impacts of climate change to human and environmental health. The book will be of interest to scholars and practitioners interested in new methods and tools to reduce risks and to increase health resilience to climate change.




Crossing the Global Quality Chasm


Book Description

In 2015, building on the advances of the Millennium Development Goals, the United Nations adopted Sustainable Development Goals that include an explicit commitment to achieve universal health coverage by 2030. However, enormous gaps remain between what is achievable in human health and where global health stands today, and progress has been both incomplete and unevenly distributed. In order to meet this goal, a deliberate and comprehensive effort is needed to improve the quality of health care services globally. Crossing the Global Quality Chasm: Improving Health Care Worldwide focuses on one particular shortfall in health care affecting global populations: defects in the quality of care. This study reviews the available evidence on the quality of care worldwide and makes recommendations to improve health care quality globally while expanding access to preventive and therapeutic services, with a focus in low-resource areas. Crossing the Global Quality Chasm emphasizes the organization and delivery of safe and effective care at the patient/provider interface. This study explores issues of access to services and commodities, effectiveness, safety, efficiency, and equity. Focusing on front line service delivery that can directly impact health outcomes for individuals and populations, this book will be an essential guide for key stakeholders, governments, donors, health systems, and others involved in health care.




Mental Health Conditions and Services in Selected African Countries


Book Description

The mental-health conditions and services in most African countries are of great concern. There is a stark distinction of health disparities between urban and rural communities across these countries. There is an unequal divide in the allocation of resources for health related services, and mental health services have become a political decision more than the fair distribution of resources. The situation is even worse in the less developed countries across the various sub-regions. People all over the African continent are increasingly being affected by many common psychological and mental health disorders, as well as illnesses that go untreated for many years. This book is based on the assumption that there is a need to examine the conditions/services of mental health prevailing in different African countries to inform and educate people about the situation, and also to serve as an additional source of knowledge on African mental health issues. Additionally, there is a dearth of literature on mental health services from multiple African countries accessible through one anthology. Also notable is that the social work and human services professions in Africa lack textbooks written by indigenous African educators on pertinent issues affecting the people in the continent. Therefore, this book serves to fill that gap and to contribute to literature concerning Africa. The book examines mental health conditions and services in terms of diagnoses, causes, treatment and psycho-social services provided by some countries in Africa, namely Botswana, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, Rwanda, South Africa, Uganda and Zambia. Even though, mental health issues have been written about by some African mental health specialists and experts, the chapters in this book are written mostly by African social work professionals and psychologists, and this is presumably the first of its kind. Each country describes the situations, conditions, resources, stigma/discrimination, traditional beliefs and practices concerning mental health, and also discusses the ways to improve the conditions and services for these populations.




Implementation Research in Health


Book Description

Interest in implementation research is growing, largely in recognition of the contribution it can make to maximizing the beneficial impact of health interventions. As a relatively new and, until recently, rather neglected field within the health sector, implementation research is something of an unknown quantity for many. There is therefore a need for greater clarity about what exactly implementation research is, and what it can offer. This Guide is designed to provide that clarity. Intended to support those conducting implementation research, those with responsibility for implementing programs, and those who have an interest in both, the Guide provides an introduction to basic implementation research concepts and language, briefly outlines what it involves, and describes the many opportunities that it presents. The main aim of the Guide is to boost implementation research capacity as well as demand for implementation research that is aligned with need, and that is of particular relevance to health systems in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). Research on implementation requires the engagement of diverse stakeholders and multiple disciplines in order to address the complex implementation challenges they face. For this reason, the Guide is intended for a variety of actors who contribute to and/or are impacted by implementation research. This includes the decision-makers responsible for designing policies and managing programs whose decisions shape implementation and scale-up processes, as well as the practitioners and front-line workers who ultimately implement these decisions along with researchers from different disciplines who bring expertise in systematically collecting and analyzing information to inform implementation questions. The opening chapters (1-4) make the case for why implementation research is important to decision-making. They offer a workable definition of implementation research and illustrate the relevance of research to problems that are often considered to be simply administrative and provide examples of how such problems can be framed as implementation research questions. The early chapters also deal with the conduct of implementation research, emphasizing the importance of collaboration and discussing the role of implementers in the planning and designing of studies, the collection and analysis of data, as well as in the dissemination and use of results. The second half of the Guide (5-7) detail the various methods and study designs that can be used to carry out implementation research, and, using examples, illustrates the application of quantitative, qualitative, and mixed-method designs to answer complex questions related to implementation and scale-up. It offers guidance on conceptualizing an implementation research study from the identification of the problem, development of research questions, identification of implementation outcomes and variables, as well as the selection of the study design and methods while also addressing important questions of rigor.