Search

The authors call for urgent action to ensure that COP27, the 5th Conference of the Parties (COP) finally delivers climate justice for Africa and vulnerable countries. Topics covered include the needs for wealthy nations to step up support for Africa and vulnerable countries in addressing past, present and future impacts of climate change, the impact of the climate crisis on the environmental and social determinants of health across Africa, and how global inaction has caused the climate crisis.

Objectives: To find what proportion of a broad set of health journals have published on climate change and health, how many articles they have published, and when they first published on the subject., Design: Bibliometric study., Setting and Participants: We conducted electronic searches in Ovid MEDLINE ALL for articles about climate change and human health published from 1860 to 31 December 2022 in 330 health journals. There were no limits by language or publication type. Results were independently screened by two raters for article eligibility., Results: After screening there were 2932 eligible articles published across 253 of the 330 journals between 1947 and 2022; most (2795/2932; 95%) were published in English. A few journals published articles in the early 90s, but there has been a rapid increase since about 2006. We were unable to categorise the types of publication but estimate that fewer than half are research papers. While articles were published in journals in 39 countries, two-thirds (1929/2932; 66%) were published in a journal published in the UK or the USA. Almost a quarter (77/330; 23%) of the journals published no eligible articles, and almost three-quarters (241/330; 73%) published five articles or fewer. The publication of joint editorials in over 200 journals in 2021 and 2022 boosted the number of journals publishing something on climate change and health. A third of the (112/330; 34%) journals in our sample published at least one of the joint editorials, and almost a third of those (32/112; 29%) were publishing on climate change and health for the first time., Conclusions: Health journals are rapidly increasing the amount they publish on climate change and health, but despite climate change being the major threat to global health many journals had until recently published little or nothing. A joint editorial published in multiple journals increased coverage, and for many journals it was the first thing they published on climate change and health., Competing Interests: Competing interests: All authors have completed the ICMJE uniform disclosure form at www.icmje.org/disclosure-of-interest/ and declare: no support from any organisation for the submitted work; SS is a full time employee of BMJ Publishing Group which published many of the articles included in this study. MLR is working on a self-funded PhD in conjunction with BMJ Publishing Group and Maastricht University. AP is working as a policy officer with the UK Health Alliance on Climate Change (UKHACC). RS was the editor of The BMJ from 1991 to 2004, an assistant editor before that from 1979, and is now chair of the UK Health Alliance on Climate Change, which organised and funded the joint editorial that has appeared in multiple journals. RS has long been concerned about environmental issues. FW recently completed a year as a sustainability fellowship at The BMJ, and she remains a freelance clinical editor at The BMJ. BR worked at UKHACC for 2 months in autumn 2022 and supported work on the second joint editorial. JM helped with the second joint editorial., (© Author(s) (or their employer(s)) 2024. Re-use permitted under CC BY-NC. No commercial re-use. See rights and permissions. Published by BMJ.)

Introduction: globally, human rights violations of persons with mental health conditions are rampant, and the quality of mental health services below that for general health services. The aim of this paper is to document the findings of an assessment of the quality of mental health services at the largest mental hospital in Kenya, and offer recommendations useful for service transformation., Methods: this was a cross-sectional study. Assessment was conducted guided by the World Health Organization (WHO) QualityRights Tool Kit, which assesses for compliance with five human rights themes drawn from the Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities. Trained assessors collected data through document review, observation, and interviews with hospital staff and service users at Mathari National Teaching and Referral Hospital. The sample was composed of 64 interviewees., Results: overall, the facility was scored as "achievement initiated" indicating that there was evidence that steps had been taken to fulfil the five human rights themes but significant improvements were necessary. Five key gaps emerged: 1) the buildings and infrastructure were in a state of disrepair; 2) staffing was inadequate; 3) patients had no right to legal capacity; 4) there was gross neglect of patients as well as physical and verbal abuse; 5) there were no strategies in place to support community reintegration and independent living., Conclusion: significant improvements to infrastructure, staffing, and the quality of services are needed before the Mathari National Teaching and Referral Hospital meets the requirements of the Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities., Competing Interests: The authors declare no competing interests., (Copyright: Joy Muhia et al.)