ABSTRACT
Global shifts toward a disease-oriented, vertical approach to health has involved limiting the right for communities to participate in decision-making. Ecuador's authoritarian legacy has forced civil society and social organizations to adopt 'coping strategies', while large protests recently derived into violent struggles. The country has been severely hit by the COVID-19 pandemic amid corruption scandals involving hospital and food purchases by government during the response. This study critically examines how Ecuador's government took into consideration 'community participation' as a value and tenet of health promotion. Our systematic textual analysis focuses on 53 consecutive resolutions by the National Emergency Operations Committee (EOC) leading the decision-making processes, which, explicitly requires community participation. Results show that the 'lifecycle' of the central government's evolving policy framing centered on law enforcement and the private sector, followed by the social sector. Further, there is no evidence of stakeholders from civil society or organizations taking part in decision-making. Having legitimized the exclusion of community participation in Ecuador's response to the COVID-19 pandemic, it is possible that the government will fail to consider the wider social implications of its impact. In particular, the limits to local governments becoming informed and making decisions without mediation by the National EOC will further impede community participation in health decision-making in the future. This implies that local knowledge and experiences will also not inform health policy.
Subject(s)
COVID-19 , Community Participation , Ecuador , Health Policy , Humans , Pandemics , SARS-CoV-2ABSTRACT
Students were asked to (1) pre-record a three-minute lightning talk by capturing a voice narrative over a PowerPoint slide deck and (2) upload their talks, along with a written narrative, into a pre-made discussion board. Because the Canvas site was open to the OSU community for two days, participants could watch the presentations, pose questions, and provide comments. Many attendees noted benefits of hosting the symposium in a virtual environment, including an enhanced ability to devote personalized attention to presenters (e.g., by providing links to relevant publications or websites), fewer distractions, more time to craft thoughtful responses, and an ability for students to keep track of shared resources and discussants' contact information that could be used for follow-up after the event. [...]the university's virtual, Canvas-based spring undergraduate research symposium was successful in bringing student researchers and participants onto a relatively dynamic platform, despite the many disruptions of the COVID-19 crisis on university programming.
Subject(s)
Coronavirus Infections , Developing Countries , Income , Pandemics , Pneumonia, Viral , Betacoronavirus , COVID-19 , Humans , Politics , Poverty , SARS-CoV-2ABSTRACT
The COVID-19 pandemic has profoundly disrupted head and neck cancer (HNC) care delivery in ways that will likely persist long term. As we scan the horizon, this crisis has the potential to amplify preexisting racial/ethnic disparities for patients with HNC. Potential drivers of disparate HNC survival resulting from the pandemic include (a) differential access to telemedicine, timely diagnosis, and treatment; (b) implicit bias in initiatives to triage, prioritize, and schedule HNC-directed therapy; and (c) the marked changes in employment, health insurance, and dependent care. We present four strategies to mitigate these disparities: (a) collect detailed data on access to care by race/ethnicity, income, education, and community; (b) raise awareness of HNC disparities; (c) engage stakeholders in developing culturally appropriate solutions; and (d) ensure that surgical prioritization protocols minimize risk of racial/ethnic bias. Collectively, these measures address social determinants of health and the moral imperative to provide equitable, high-quality HNC care.