Welcome to the Health Exchange online edition. Health Exchange is a forum for practitioners and frontline health workers to share experiences and lessons from the field. It is a quarterly on-line and print magazine designed to have a practical focus on important health topics.
Each issue has a different theme. Future themes include health workers, human rights, medicines and public engagement in health.
Health Exchange exists so that people can communicate about health. We aim to give you strong articles, good writing and clear analysis on contemporary and relevant health themes. Authors will be developing-country and international health practitioners, policymakers and researchers. We want this to be a magazine full of practical articles you’ll find easy to read. We want to talk about practice rather than policy and address the realities that health and NGO workers face every day.
The articles are written to share experience but also to encourage comment and feedback. Please tell us what you think about an article or topic. Have you had a similar experience? What do you do that is different
Who are we?
Health Exchange is overseen by a consortium of three UK based international health agencies, Healthlink Worldwide, Merlin and RedR. Previously The Health Exchange was published quarterly from 1990 to 2006. It was developed by International Health Exchange (IHE) which has since merged with RedR.
Production and content development is overseen by an editorial board drawn from the three agencies and an international advisory group of health experts, particularly from developing countries. There is also a review process.
Healthlink Worldwide is an international NGO that works to improve the health and well-being of poor and vulnerable communities by strengthening the provision, use and impact of information. We believe that information can promote appropriate and sustainable policies and practices if developed and communicated effectively, and that local organisations in developing countries are the key players in communicating about health and disability in their countries and regions. We support around 30 partner organisations in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Middle East to strengthen their communication strategies. We work to address issues including how to support South–South links, and how to support increased dialogue between policy makers in the North and South.
Healthlink Worldwide also works with government and non-government agencies on short- and long-term information and communication projects. We offers expertise and training in various aspects of health and disability-related communication, including needs assessment and impact evaluation, project management, development of print and electronic materials, and resource centre and database development.
Merlin specialises in health, saving lives in times of crisis and helping to rebuild shattered health services. Working within existing health systems, we help to realise people’s right to accessible, appropriate and affordable health care.
We work in around 20 countries at any one time, predominantly in Africa, Asia and the Middle East. Our focus is territories affected by natural disaster, conflict, major disease threats and health system collapse, such as the Democratic Republic of Congo, Afghanistan and Somalia.
From supporting ministries of health to delivering essential health care and preparing for and responding to emergencies, our teams work at all levels to help ensure fragile health systems can respond to the needs of some of the world’s most vulnerable people.
Health workers are central to everything Merlin does and believes in. In November 2008, we launched a two-year campaign to highlight the global health worker crisis. With a shortage of four million doctors, nurses and midwives, our campaign “Hands Up for Health Workers” calls for major investment in skilled health workers.
You can find out more about us by visiting: www.merlin.org.uk. You can also show your support for health workers around the world by putting your hand up at: www.handsupforhealthworkers.org.uk
helping rebuild lives in times of disaster
Each year millions of people around the world are affected by natural disaster and conflict.
RedR is the leading training and recruitment charity working in the area of international disaster relief. We provide training, consultancy and support to relief organisations and their staff around the world, improving emergency response and assisting people affected by disaster. We also recruit experienced relief workers, including qualified health professionals, following major global emergencies and advise potential new relief workers, ensuring skilled professionals are always available to respond.
RedR provides a wide range of training programmes here in the UK, delivers bespoke courses worldwide and operates two international offices – in Sri Lanka and Sudan. Courses cover a wide range of topics including first aid and psychosocial care.
In 2008, RedR members assisted in emergencies as diverse as the cholera outbreak in Zimbabwe, requiring the intervention of water and sanitation experts, and Cyclone Nargis in Myanmar. We also assembled a highly skilled medical team, who were flown out within 48 hours, to the Chinese province of Chengdu after the devastating earthquake which claimed the lives of more than 7,600 people.
Editorial Board
Andrew Chetley, Healthlink Worldwide
Alison Dunn, Healthlink Worldwide (Editor)
Martin McCann, RedR
Carolyn Miller, Merlin
International Advisory Group
Andy Haines, London School of Tropical Medicine, UK
Ane Haaland, University of Oslo, Norway
Catherine Hodgkin, Royal Tropical Institute (KIT) Development, Policy and Practice, the Netherlands
David Sanders, University of Cape Town, South Africa
Edelina de la Paz, Health Action Information Network, Philippines
Eugenio Villar, World Health Organisation (WHO), Switzerland
Eva Ombaka, Ecumenical Pharmaceutical Network, Kenya
Jane Moore, RedR, UK
Julian Schweitzer, Director, Health, Nutrition and Population, World Bank
Kate Harrison, Comic Relief, UK
Leonard Okello, Action Aid, Kenya
Nand Wadhwani, Founder, Rehydration Project, India
Narendra Arora, International Clinical Epidemiology Network,India
Paulo Lyra, Pan American Health Organisation (PAHO), USA
Rajiv Tandon, USAID, India
Ravi Narayan, People’s Health Movement, India
Ron Waldman, USAID and Columbia University, USA
Please contact us at healthexchange@healthlink.org.uk
it is fine to see this healthexchange forum. i want to be a volunteer in improviing the health of the the women.-the other half of the world. they need recognition. i am already a signatory of no violence against woman , a campaign by unifem . i wish all the success.
dr siddhartha