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This paper aims to provide theoretically elements to develop health models and systems in Latin America. Its objective is to analyze the attention models and the most relevant configurations of health systems, with a special focus in Primary Health Care (PHC) based models. Methodologically, a narrative no systematic review was made in databases and Google Scholar. For this purpose, it was used the following keywords: models, configurations, paradigms, and theories/health. Papers with holistic information considered relevant and appropriate were selected. For the analysis, first, a hierarchic classification of the distinct approaches identified was made. Second, classic models defined in the literature were studied. Finally, a critical analysis about some models related to PHC in Latin America and distinct modalities of attention in the 21st century was made. With regard to the structured relationships necessary to reorient the health system, it was concluded that these must be grounded in PHC approaches, and oriented toward a "communitarian attention model" to organize services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction. This research was developed in the framework of the Observatory on rurality and peace in pandemic and post-pandemic contexts, this paper presents advances of interdisciplinary research and reflections about collective health in the Antioquian subregion of Urabá, focused on rural contexts. Objective. To identify the integration/exclusion dynamics related to collective health in rural territories of the Antioquian subregion of Urabá, in the pandemic for COVID-19 context. Methods. The Scalar Model of Collective Health in Times of Pandemic was used as a tool for questioning epidemiological data and territorial readings, in dialogue with the voices of inhabitants and leaders of local social organizations. Results. Results allow to identify the dynamics of the pandemic in terms of integration/exclusion of the municipalities of the sub-region; the overlapping logics of legality and illegality in the territories; the amplification of impacts in territories with historical burdens of inequality; and the great limitations to achieve an effective level of governance in health. Conclusions. The greatest limitation has been the absence of differentiated data for the rural areas, ethnic origin, and precision about the contagion origin. This analysis leads us to affirm that pandemic for COVID-19 reveals structural imbalances, especially in the rural areas of Colombia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to document the geographic distribution of the Newborn Respiratory Distress Syndrome (NRDS) cases as well as their time evolution during the last decade in Mexico. The problem studied herein is conceptualized under the perspective of the health social determining factors, an approach that will allow setting a link towards the design of public policies. This work is carried out as an exploratory data analysis (EDA) based on the birth records kept in the Birth Information Sub-System (SINAC), an official source covering the whole nation and allowing to make estimates for comparison to the international context as it uses the international disease classification CIE-10. The analysis results allow identifying specific regions where preventive strategies should be implemented. This is a useful effort regarding the efficient application of the resources available in the health system. In particular, the southern border region is identified as an area requiring priority health services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article aims to disclose the response capacity of the Health Information Systems (HIS) in Colombia to support an inspection, surveillance and control model (ISC) driven towards the monitoring of the risks undermining the access, use and quality of the health services. This paper is based on a descriptive cross-sectional study under a risk management approach including a review of the regulations framework dealing with the threats to the effective enjoyment of the right to health (EERH) and the characteristics of the information reported by the actors in the system, which is required to carry out the said monitoring. The data supporting the monitoring to the health care processes and its impact on the population health are not enough to appropriately oversee the risks involved. Advantage should be taken from the changes currently taking place in the health system in order to rethink how the system performance is taken as monitored object. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: To explore the experiences and life events regarding the cultural competence in the public health practice. Methods: A qualitative meta-synthesis covering the databases Medline, OvidNursing, OvidJournal, Embase and BVS-LILACS, including papers in English, Spanish and Portuguese between 2009 and 2014. Ten studies were included and assessed by using the Critical Appraisal Skills Programme in Spanish (CASPe). The three stages of the meta-aggregation programme were applied to do the obtaining and synthesis of findings. Results: The findings were aggregated in six categories and two types of results: 1) paradoxes when providing public health care to people from different culture and 2) going beyond the barriers – the daring by the public health nurses. Conclusion: The nurses experienced and expressed their cultural competence from the paradoxical situation produced when encountering another culturally different people. They showed a stance open to both understand and make sense of the other's culture, even though it was hard to produce culturally competent interventions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article aims to analyze how the prevention of HIV infection in Colombia -- from the 1980s until now -- has taken place, given that it is one of the main measures to control infection. We present the epidemiological context in the world and in Colombia, the development of the prevention of infection, and conclude with some reflections on the gaps and realities of what has characterized HIV prevention in our environment. Methodology: we analyzed papers and scientific articles in Spanish, English, and Portuguese from 2000 to 2016, available in PubMed Lilacs, Ebsco, Medline, Justor, and Scielo. Seventy-five articles were reviewed out of which twenty-nine selected. Conclusions: HIV prevention must move from the assistance-based approach to policies that promote human, social, and economic development, without leaving aside the fact that the general population is at risk of acquiring the infection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: This paper proposed a conceptual framework to overcome the limitations the disciplinary approaches face when analysing the processes of implementation of health policies on the territory. Method and framework: With this purpose, it established links between the contributions from three fields: the studies on the performance on health care, the theoretical contributions provided by geography, and the research on public policies and implementation. Results: As a result of this approach, it is possible to capture phenomena and processes that, from each of the particular disciplinary perspectives, are opaque for the analysis: on one side, conceiving health attention as a point within a whole that compromises different notions of territory; on the other hand, recognise that at the moment of the implementation on the territory there is a process of recreation of the institutions, where they appear on scene and negotiate different regulation logics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article approaches the issue of philosophical perspectives of social justice and its relationship with some of the implications for health systems in Latin America and the world. Three philosophical perspectives of social justice from the radical liberal approach, egalitarian and redistributive liberal, and Marxist egalitarianism or reviewed. Society, their conceptions of health and public health approach. From the theoretical support these approaches, the relationship State are identified. Based on these concepts identify some implications for health systems in each of its representative aspects. The paper concludes with some reflections about the need to discuss the fundamental right to health as a fundamental element of universal health systems and assume a perspective as input for the design and analysis of health systems from the right to health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper I discuss the relevance of the program of social critical theory to examine the demands for justice in public health from a non-reductionist perspective —that is, a not sectorial one— that accounts for the intimate relationship between health and social arrangements and allows further exploration of the fundamental question about the necessary conditions for human self-realization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: Characterizing and evaluating information systems on the health sector in Colombia. Methodology: A conceptual frame that included the legal context of the country and organization of information systems in other countries was developed. Later on, Colombian health information system was characterized starting on interviews with important actors and papers. Finally, the organization of the system, information flows and its strengths and weaknesses were analyzed in order to propose some recommendations. Results and conclusions: information system of the Colombian health sector is divided and evidencing quality issues, as in other countries. The development of a production, diffusion and use of information culture is essential. We must take advantage of the change that is occurring in the health system for improving the information. Capture mechanisms for information require a simplification and standardization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cardiovascular disease has become a public health problem in expansion, being the leading cause of death worldwide and affecting the physical, social and emotional quality of life of patients. Therefore, it is necessary that the nurse involved in improving the quality of life, promoting the participation of patients in cardiac rehabilitation programs, using tools for determining the quality of life, thus achieving a more comprehensive measurement and valid health status of patients with cardiovascular disease and the effectiveness of care offered within the program. The purpose of this review paper is to provide research results to nurses foundation related to quality of life of patients with cardiovascular disease who attend cardiac rehabilitation programs and generic or specific instruments that can be used as tools assessment and monitoring of the quality of life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents the theoretical and methodological approach that was elaborated for the analysis of the formulation of sexual and reproductive public policies for the youth in Colombia. This is the result of a doctoral thesis and its objective is to understand the configuration of the political aspects of the public policies that are thought for a specific population: young people. This analysis intends to go deeper than a traditional evaluation about the impact of a policy. This approach assumes it not only as a technical issue, but as a result for correlating forces in which processes, conflicts and confrontations between different actors are involved. The research uses the political contention as an analysis tool. The study starts with a critical revision of previous studies with similar goals, but performed in other locations, and then, it presents the contributions of the current investigation in detail. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Human capital development is an effective method to fight poverty, which is the reason for the launch of variety of programs that work in this direction. In Mexico, the implementation of the "Oportunidades" program ("Opportunities" program) operates through three components. One of it is the food component, where nutritional supplements are given to groups considered as vulnerable, including children (Nutrisano) and pregnant or lactating (Nutrivida) women. Both have been evaluated under an anthropometric scope, although the studies related to the acceptance and the proper uses of it are scarced. The paper addresses this undeveloped issue taking as a base a study made in the metropolitan area of Monterrey, Mexico. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The practice of dentistry has undergone a process of reflection relative to other academic disciplines. This paper proposes the implementation of a new political field in the oral health agenda in Colombia by means of exploring some social and health indicators. Furthermore, principles in collective oral health were addressed: oral health as a fundamental right, community capacity for assuming the monitoring of health and its determinants, and the participation of social, economic, and academic actors and the health care services. A protagonist role by society as well as greater collective consciousness on the part of professionals, decision-makers and the health sector in general are needed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies the public policies and components of the healthcare system affecting Colombian women with HIV/AIDS. Although there is national interest in controlling the HIV/ AIDS epidemic, current policies are not linked to specific lines of action and do not include a coherent gender approach that can guarantee comprehensive healthcare. HIV/AIDS policies are formulated within the frame of current economic policies and health reform implemented as part of Law 100 of 1993. These policies must be supported by economic plans that make it possible for the most vulnerable population to overcome the conditions of social inequity and by a healthcare system which guarantees complete access to appropriate healthcare. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper shows the relationship between Psychology and Public Health. The main tensions among these fields and the possible interdisciplinary conditions that will allow the production of beneficial effects in individual and population health are presented. Then, the encounters between Health Psychology -with a behavioral approach- and the dominant current of Public Health -based on an individualistic notion of the social and public issues- are described, especially in the areas of Health Promotion and Disease Prevention. Finally, some challenges for Colombian Psychology in order to advance in the integration with the Public Health in five scenarios are presented: as a field of knowledge, education, practice, research and as a scientific and professional community. The principal challenge is to develop a renovated approach from Health Psychology, constructing new models and approaches of individuality in relation to collectivity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Given that public health resources are limited and alternatives rival, a comparison in terms of costs and consequences, of conventional versus newer and faster diagnostic strategies for extrapulmonary tuberculosis (TB) diagnosis within a TB control program, is expected to aid informed decision making based on efficiency and equity criteria. This paper describes key elements for economical evaluation, shows a decision tree for extrapulmonary TB diagnosis in a TB endemic country, and describes necessary items for cost estimation. Shortcomings and challenges of research on economic evaluation of early detection of diseases of public health interest are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines different theoretical and empirical research papers on service quality and on measuring it locally and worldwide in the health sector, which have been reported in specialized publications since the early 1990s. Findings make the lack of consensus in defining and determining the dimensions that make up quality in health services evident and such dimensions are necessary for developing reliable measurement instruments that enable offering users better quality. To that regard, in Colombia diverse methodologies for measuring and evaluating the quality of health services have been tried out. SERVQUAL is the most used instrument for such purpose worldwide; notwithstanding, after applying it in Colombia, the results obtained did not allow any generalizations. That situation reveals the need to conduct research using other theoretical models, such as SERVPERF or the multidimensional hierarchical approach, which enable the development of valid, appropriate measurement scales for the local context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The objective of this article is to present a discussion on major problems related to impact evaluation of social and public health policies, plans and programs. Impact evaluation is a specific but interdisciplinary field, with an important amount of new knowledge in the lasts decades. Latin America's countries invest important founds in order to evaluate social interventions, following the multilateral agencies directions. Based on the newest experience in Colombia and other Latin American countries, this paper discusses conceptual and practical issues what evaluation teams have to deal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]