Planned Sessions at ECTMIH

Topic and speakers at the ECTMIH sessions

• Porous borders, mobile migrants and malaria elimination: Estimating population size and movements of artisanal small-scale gold mining workers in Suriname and French Guiana

  Description

  Porous borders and mobile migrant populations present challenges to malaria elimination worldwide. This study estimates the size and migration patterns of mobile migrants engaged in Artisanal Small-scale Gold Mining on the Suriname-French Guiana border. Using a mixed methods approach, including primary data (site visits, head counts, network analysis), and secondary data from 2020-2023, the study shows consistent estimates. Approximately 20,000 individuals are active in gold mining in Suriname, with an additional 11,000 in French Guiana, totaling around 31,000. Population turnover is approximately 10.5%, with 95% being newcomers. These findings aid malaria elimination efforts and are of importance to any efforts to estimate hard-to-reach (mobile migrant) populations. For further reading see our study on Mobile Migrant Population in Suriname.

  Speakers

  Dr. Pierre Pratley, Senior Advisor at KIT Royal Tropical Institute

• Simulation of Social Justice: How Could Games Demonstrate Health Equity

  Description

  Simulation games, provide a unique opportunity for participants to experience and reflect on the learning messages. With good facilitation, participants can be dynamically engaged in discussions that build on their experiences, instead of being passive recipients of the information. They’re fun and captivating, leaving a lasting impression on students long after graduation. During the ECTMIH conference this year, we are glad to share examples of KIT’s games on health equity that we would love to share and demonstrate in an interactive session with the conference participants, such as the “Health Equity Walk”, and the “Health Resources Allocation Game”, that we would love to share and demonstrate in an interactive session with conference participants. These games are suitable for classrooms, workshops, meetings, or even fun game nights. During the session, we will also reveal for the first time our new game,“SDHopoly: The Game of Health Equity”, a collaborative board game that we designed and piloted over the past two years. The game explores the social determinants of health through various situations and actions. Players work together to employ their unique abilities and develop solutions to minimize the health equity gaps.

  Speakers

  Mahdi Abdelwahab, KIT Royal Tropical Institute Dinu Abdella, KIT Royal Tropical Institute

• Redesigning Maternal and Newborn Health Service Delivery for You, With You

  Qualitative methods in human-centered design for maternal and newborn health services in Niger, Chad, Democratic Republic of Congo, Pakistan, and Cote d’Ivoire 

  Description

  Despite the efforts made in the past decades to improve the health of women and children; antenatal, perinatal, postpartum and newborn health services are not delivered with the quality and impact needed for societal transformation. In 2018, the Lancet Global Health Commission recommended Service Delivery Redesign (SDR) as one of the pillars to improve health system quality for Maternal and Neonatal Health (MNH) services. To that effect, a multi-country SDR feasibility study to identify potential model(s) of care that maximize the systems’ ability to deliver quality services was designed using a Human-Centered Design (HCD) approach.   This SDR feasibility study incorporates a qualitative methodology using HCD to carry out a community assessment. This offers insights  from users and non-users who are elicited to share their stories and perspectives using open-ended questions and stimuli exercises. Conversation sparks with user groups are also carried out to validate ideas gained for the potential redesign models of care. User personas, users journey maps, and service blueprints will visualize a clearer understanding of the experience of users vis-à-vis the MNH services, where there are mismatches between services and needs, and where improvements in system organization are necessary.   Overall, HCD is an innovative approach to analyze existing gaps between the current state and the potential model(s) of the SDR for MNH services. The new potential models can lead to better outcomes for patients, improved satisfaction for patients and providers, and more efficient and effective Maternal and Neonatal services.

  Speakers

  Chantale Lakis, KIT Royal Tropical Institute

• How to scale up novel health interventions? An emerging field

  Description

  The purpose of this symposium is to inform participants about the emerging field of scaling up health innovations through the presentation of case studies and sharing of experiences, addressing the multiple dimensions of the scale-up process. Case studies will address the process of scaling up of a psychological intervention for refugees, of tuberculosis care interventions and of district health management strengthening interventions. Participants will be engaged through a discussion/debate about the barriers and enablers of scaling-up health interventions in complex systems and contexts. Provocative statements will be discussed in small groups. Finally, the speakers will summarise the session and key lessons learned from the debate (e.g. complexity of scaling up, how to plan for scale up, systems perspective).

  Speakers

  Aniek Woodward, KIT Royal Tropical Institute, Research Associate Esmée Hessel, KIT Royal Tropical Institute Mirjam Bakker, KIT Royal Tropical Institute, Health Advisor Egbert Sondorp, KIT Royal Tropical Institute Beatrice Kirubi Dr. Stephen John, Founder, Janna Health Foundation, Nigeria

• Ensuring Mother and Child Health Care in a Protracted Crisis: The Experience of Afghanistan

  Description

  The sudden regime change in Afghanistan in August 2021, with the Taliban now leading the de-facto government, has been a major shock to the health system. Major threats to the system include the withdrawal of international funding, a massive drain of clinical and public health professionals, and concerns over the negative influence of a new government that lacks the competence to run the health systems. A further threat is the regime’s perspective on human rights that negatively affects the access to health care by women and minorities.   The SEHAT and Sehatmandi public health programmes were implemented consecutively in Afghanistan until 2021 to ensure universal access to health services and health equity, with a strong focus on maternal and child health care. With the Taliban take-over international donors withdrew development funding for these programmes and they are now being sustained in a reduced form, primarily through humanitarian funding streams.   In this session we discuss the resilience of the health system in providing universal access maternal and child health service considering three phases: 1) Absorbing the shock of the 2021 Taliban take-over 2) Adaptation of the health system in response to change, and 3) The possibilities that lie ahead to transform the health system given in the new political reality, to continue ensuring equitable access to health services, despite increasingly challenging living and working conditions for women.

  Speakers

  Margo van Gurp, MSc, KIT Royal Tropical Institute Abdul Majeed Siddiqi, HealthNet TPO Nasrat Ansari, PhD, independent researcher, SRHR Egbert Sondorp, KIT Royal Tropical Institute Sandra Alba, KIT Royal Tropical Institute

• Utilizing Geospatial Methods to Drive Health Service Delivery in the Era of Climate Change

  Description

  The session aims to facilitate knowledge sharing and exchange among participants, providing valuable insights into geospatial methodologies using various sources of secondary data to inform, plan, and monitor health service delivery. Presenters will showcase a suite of different spatial analysis and geoprocessing methodologies, which have been successfully applied in different contexts, including acute crisis response and Tuberculosis care. The focus will be on current uses of geospatial methodologies in directing health service delivery and climate resilience. The session will also discuss health care planning for crisis preparedness and response, where existing health disparities are likely to be magnified and where resources need to be precisely targeted. Additionally, the session will present the conceptualization of these approaches for surveillance and projection of climate change related health impacts. The presenters will provide insights into the methodologies, while highlighting the challenges to improving, such as data caveats and knowledge exchange between different scientific disciplines. The discussion will then focus on the use of these approaches in health service delivery considering the impacts of the climate crises, including vector-borne diseases, migration of vulnerable populations, and natural hazard-induced disasters. Participants will be invited to share their experiences in the field and encouraged to share challenges and potential solutions.

  Speakers

  Mirjam Bakker, Senior Epidemiologist, KIT Royal Tropical Institute Nicolas Ray, Institute of Global Health & Institute for Environmental Sciences, University of Geneva Ente Rood, KIT Royal Tropical Institute Fleur Hierink, Institute of Global Health & Institute for Environmental Sciences, University of Geneva Marc van den Homberg, The Netherlands Red Cross

• How SRHR integration in medical curricula (should) support equitable and rights-based health around the globe

  Description

  Sexual Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR) are globally under threat. Even in settings where SRHR policy and regulations are liberalized, people face barriers to access quality, non-biased and rights-based care. Given concerns in many countries of declining numbers of health care professionals able and willing to provide SRHR care, including around sensitive issues such as abortion care, SRHR for young people and for LGBTQI+ amongst others, the need to ensure early-career training is urgent and essential. Also in less sensitive reproductive health issues the voice and rights of individuals are often challenged by cultural or political arguments of others. Failure to ensure that the next generation of professionals have appropriate levels of SRHR skills and knowledge of the SRHR discourse, will be a failure to commit to meeting the basic health care needs and rights of people. This session aims to facilitate global and local learning on the developments and needs for SRHR in medical curricula. It provides a general overview on the global status of SRHR in medical curricula, lessons learned from previous initiatives to improve SRHR in medical curricula and a call to action for the inclusion of it.

  Speakers

  Irene de Vries, MD, MA, RMNCAH advisor, KIT Royal Tropical InstituteAnke van der Kwaak, KIT Royal Tropical Institute, SRHR advisorPrisca Zwanikken, KIT Royal Tropical Institute, SRHR and education advisorFerry (ENTOG) Boekhorst Goknur Topcu Dr. Ba Sidi Yaya, President of the Association of Private Health Schools of Mali Anne Vervoort, SeksHag, general practicioner

• Fighting falsified and substandard medicines: acting on evidence in Indonesia and Afghanistan

  Description

  In this session, we focus on the fight against falsified and substandard medicines in Indonesia and Afghanistan, presenting original studies on the size and nature of the problem and proposing solutions. How big is the problem? What are the root causes and what can be done to protect patients from poor-quality medicines? We will explore different methods for assessing the quality of medicines in both the public and private sector and present empirical examples of both random and risk-based sampling, patient perceptions, and an ongoing review of which medicines in the market are most at risk. Our interactive session will center on what can be done to reduce the chance that falsified and substandard medicine penetrate the market and reach patients. We will focus on how research can be used to ensure the safety and efficacy of pharmaceutical products and the need for intergovernmental collaboration, between departments and sectors, regulatory bodies, healthcare providers, and other stakeholders who play a role in ensuring the quality of medicines. Ultimately, our goal is to contribute to the global effort to address the drug quality crisis and improve access to safe and effective medicines for all.

  Speakers

  Elisabeth Kleipool, Advisor Health Systems Strengthening, PhD, KIT Royal Tropical Institute Nima Yaghmaei, Epidemiologist, KIT Royal Tropical Institute Sandra Alba, PhD, Senior Epidemiologist, KIT Royal Tropical Institute Amalia Hasnida, Erasmus School for Health Policy and Management, Erasmus University Rotterdam Dr. Maarten Kok, Erasmus School for Health Policy and Management, Erasmus University Rotterdam, Universitas Gadjah Mada

• Subnational burden estimation: methods and applications for locally tailored public health programme planning

  Description

  A key requirement for public health preparedness and planning is the availability of reliable estimates of health needs. Globally, emerging public health threats (i.e. COVID-19, influenza, disaster relief) rely on subnational estimates of disease burden to optimally allocate limited health resources and to monitor the effectiveness of interventions. In this session, infectious disease experts and disease modelers will present novel methods and approaches to monitor and estimate disease burden at subnational level and will demonstrate how these estimates are used to inform public health decisions.

  Speakers

  – Ente Rood, Senior epidemiologist, KIT Royal Tropical Institute  – Christina Mergenthaler, Epidemiologist, KIT Royal Tropical Institute – Jake Mathewson, Epidemiologist, KIT Royal Tropical Institute – Muhammed Semakula, Epidemiologist & Statistician; Rwanda Ministry of Health/ KIT Royal Tropical Institute  – Abdullah Latif, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Grant Manager; Mercy Corps Pakistan  – Nathaniel Henry, Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation