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The influence of the International Baccalaureate (IB) has grown impressively on a global scale. In Latin America, the IB has been mainly introduced in private schools that cater for the most affluent sectors of society and, consequently, has been mostly interpreted as contributing to processes of social reproduction and the widening of inequalities However, since the mid-2000s the IB has been promoted in state schools in countries such as Ecuador, Peru, Costa Rica and in the City of Buenos Aires in Argentina. This paper analyses the enactment of the IBDP in public schools in Costa Rica and Peru drawing on a mixed methods multiple case study. It shows how, in countries with significant socioeconomic disparities, the possibility of offering the IBDP to students at public schools was mostly justified as a matter of equity, understood as opening access to an educational programme that was only available to the most privileged sectors of society. By problematising the notions of privilege and eliteness, we discuss the complex relations between inequalities and educational opportunities and question the extent to which these programmes are affecting social structures in Costa Rica and Peru. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a context of rapid technological innovation and expensive new products, the paper calls for the generation of real-world data to inform decision-making and an international discussion on the affordability of new medicines, particularly for low- and middle-income countries. Without these, the challenges of health judicialization will continue to grow. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Background: Irrational antimicrobial consumption (AMC) became one of the main global health problems in recent decades. Objective: In order to understand AMC in Latin-American Region, we performed the present research in 6 countries. Methods: Antimicrobial consumption (J01, A07A, P01AB groups) was registered in Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Paraguay, and Peru. Source of information, AMC type, DDD (Defined Daily Doses), DID (DDD/1000 inhabitants/day), population were variables explored. Data was analyzed using the Global Antimicrobial Resistance and Use Surveillance System (GLASS) tool. Results: Source of information included data from global, public, and private sectors. Total AMC was highly variable (range 1.91-36.26 DID). Penicillin was the most consumed group in all countries except in Paraguay, while macrolides and lincosamides were ranked second. In terms of type of AMC according to the WHO-AWaRe classification, it was found that for certain groups like "Reserve," there are similarities among all countries. Conclusion and Relevance: This paper shows the progress that 6 Latin-American countries made toward AMC surveillance. The study provides a standardized approach for building a national surveillance system for AMC data analysis. These steps will contribute to the inclusion of Latin-America among the regions of the world that have periodic, regular, and quality data of AMC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of IBEROAMERICANA. América Latina - España - Portugal is the property of Vervuert Verlag and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Conjuntura Austral is the property of Conjuntura Austral and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Background: Although most Latin American and the Caribbean (LAC) countries made important progress in maternal and child health indicators from the 1990s up to 2010, little is known about such progress in the last decade. This study aims at documenting progress for each country as a whole, and to assess how within-country socioeconomic inequalities are evolving over time. Methods: We identified LAC countries for which a national survey was available between 2011–2015 and a second comparable survey in 2018–2020. These included Argentina, Costa Rica, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Guyana, Honduras, Peru, and Suriname. The 16 surveys included in the analysis collected nationally representative data on 221,989 women and 152,983 children using multistage sampling. Twelve health-related outcomes were studied, seven of which related to intervention coverage: the composite coverage index, demand for family planning satisfied with modern methods, antenatal care (four or more visits and eight or more visits), skilled attendant at birth, postnatal care for the mother and full immunization coverage. Five additional impact indicators were also investigated: stunting prevalence among under-five children, tobacco use by women, adolescent fertility rate, and under-five and neonatal mortality rates. For each of these indicators, average annual relative change rates were calculated between the baseline and endline national level estimates, and changes in socioeconomic inequalities over time were assessed using the slope index of inequality. Results: Progress over time and the magnitude of inequalities varied according to country and indicator. For countries and indicators where baseline levels were high, as Argentina, Costa Rica and Cuba, progress was slow and inequalities small for most indicators. Countries that still have room for improvements, such as Guyana, Honduras, Peru and Suriname, showed faster progress for some but not all indicators, although also had wider inequalities. Among the countries studied, Peru was the top performer in terms of increasing coverage and reducing inequalities over time, followed by Honduras. Declines in family planning and immunization coverage were observed in some countries, and the widest inequalities were present for adolescent fertility and antenatal care coverage with eight or more visits. Conclusions: Although LAC countries are well placed in terms of current levels of health indicators compared to most low- and middle-income countries, important inequalities remain, and reversals are being observed in some areas. More targeted efforts and actions are needed in order to leave no one behind. Monitoring progress with an equity lens is essential, but this will require further investment in conducting surveys routinely. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study considers the role that public service announcements (PSAs) play in addressing violence against women (VAW) in Latin America. Using content analysis, the study examines 407 PSAs about VAW from 20 Latin American countries. The results show that 62.3% of the PSAs encourage bystanders to denounce violence while portraying women as victims in 48.8% of the PSAs. However, 71.7% of PSAs did not include a helpline or how to report the crime, only 11.8% of the PSAs have non-narrative, or factual information, about VAW, and just 6.4% engage in compelling narrative messaging or storytelling. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: Our study analyzes the cost-effectiveness of the COVID-19 vaccination campaigns in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Mexico, and Peru. Methods: Using a previously published SVEIR model, we analyzed the impact of a vaccination campaign (2021) from a national healthcare perspective. The primary outcomes were quality adjusted life years (QALYs) lost and total costs. Other outcomes included COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations, deaths, and life years. We applied a discount rate of 3% for health outcomes. We modeled a realistic vaccination campaign in each country (the realistic country-specific campaign). Additionally, we assessed a standard campaign (similar, "typical" for all countries), and an optimized campaign (similar in all countries with higher but plausible population coverage). One-way deterministic sensitivity analyses were performed. Findings: Vaccination was health improving as well as cost-saving in almost all countries and scenarios. Our analysis shows that vaccination in this group of countries prevented 573,141 deaths (508,826 standard; 685,442 optimized) and gained 5.07 million QALYs (4.53 standard; 6.03 optimized). Despite the incremental costs of vaccination campaigns, they had a total net cost saving to the health system of US$16.29 billion (US$16.47 standard; US$18.58 optimized). The realistic (base case) vaccination campaign in Chile was the only scenario, which was not cost saving, but it was still highly cost-effective with an ICER of US$22 per QALY gained. Main findings were robust in the sensitivity analyses. Interpretation: The COVID-19 vaccination campaign in seven Latin American and Caribbean countries -that comprise nearly 80% of the region- was beneficial for population health and was also cost-saving or highly cost-effective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

People with psychosocial disabilities are often discriminated against and experience violations of their human rights. With the QualityRights program, World Health Organisation highlights that one of element founding the quality of services is the respect for users' rights, in the belief that there is no quality of care without respect for human rights and vice versa. To date, studies explored the issue mainly in Europe. In this sense, the purpose of the study is to verify if the perception of respect for patients' rights is a component of organisational well-being for mental health workers in three countries of Latin America (Argentina, Colombia, Peru). A random sample representative of professionals working in three mental healthcare networks in Argentina, Colombia, and Peru was enrolled (n = 310). Each health worker completed a questionnaire on sociodemographic data and the Well-Being at work and respect for human rights (WWRR). The WWRR consists of seven items on satisfaction at work, beliefs about users' satisfaction in received care, the satisfaction of work's organisation, respect of users' and staff's human rights, adequacy of resources, and perceived needs of resources in the mental health service. The principal components analysis of the instrument was carried out with Varimax rotation and Kaiser normalisation (including all components with Eigen value > 1). The total explained variance was 67.2%. Item 6 saturated in one single factor, and the first five items saturated in factor 1 with factor loadings ranging from 0.52 to 0.86. Parallel test suggested a one-factor structure as acceptable. The results show in three countries of Latin America that the more workers perceive that the human rights of users are respected, the more satisfied they are of own work. This article confirms previous observations in Italy, North Macedonia, Tunisia and Palestine. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Comparative political communication scholars repeatedly debated political parallelism as a tool to conceptualize the relation of media systems to political cleavages. Despite the fact that populism/anti-populism divides (re-)emerged as central political fault-lines, scholarship has paid little attention to the concept's potential to look at how populist polarization restructures media-politics connections in Latin America and elsewhere. Through a combination of content analysis, in-depth interviews and other sources, this article traces shifts in news media alignments and journalistic practices during and following the recent experience of leftist-populist rule in Argentina. It argues that news media shifted to a distinct form of political parallelism organized around the populism/anti-populism divide in which most private mainstream news media assumed an active political role in the mobilization of anti-populism. The article provides a broader understanding of political parallelism that applies to settings of competitive-electoral populist politics and sheds light on not only news media alignments, but also media involvement in the political task of cleavage construction. Scholarly research on Latin America, given its focus on instrumental media-politics connections or its concerns over populist threats to media freedom, generally misses both the politicizing role of anti-populist media and the ways in which they mirror populist style. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Customer's trust in vendors' reputation is a key factor that facilitates economic transactions in e-commerce platforms. Although the trust-sales relationship is assumed robust and consistent, its empirical evidence remains neglected for Latin American countries. This work aims to provide a data-driven comprehensive framework for extracting valuable knowledge from public data available in the leading Latin American e-commerce platform with commercial operations in 18 countries. Only Argentina, Brasil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Mexico, Uruguay, and Venezuela showed the highest trust indexes among all nations analyzed. The trust-sales relationship was statistically inconsistent across nations but worked as the most important predictor of sales, followed by purchase intention and price. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article deals with the analysis of [Formula: see text] emissions in Latin America by using a long memory process based on fractional integration. Using data of [Formula: see text] emission and [Formula: see text] emissions per capita, for 32 Latin American and Caribbean countries, the results show significant differences according to the variable examined, the model used, and the country under examination. In particular, for the [Formula: see text] emissions, mean reversion is found in Belize and also under some circumstances in Antigua and Barbuda, Colombia, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Grenada, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama, Peru, and Uruguay. Thus, shocks in these series have a transitory effect. With respect to the time trends, only for some Caribbean countries, namely, Antigua and Barbuda, Aruba, Bahamas, Cuba, and Jamaica, the trend is insignificant; on the other hand, large countries like Brazil, Mexico, and Argentina display the highest time trend coefficients; for the [Formula: see text] emissions per capita, there are eleven countries where mean reversion is detected, and there are ten that share a lack of significance for the trend. The most significant trends now take place in Trinidad and Tobago, British Virgin Islands, Barbados, and Guyana. Policy implications of the results obtained are reported at the end of the paper., (© 2023. The Author(s).)

This literature review aims to examine the approach given to open science policy in the different studies. The main findings are that the approach given to open science has different aspects: policy framing and its geopolitical aspects are described as an asymmetries replication and epistemic governance tool. The main geopolitical aspects of open science policies described in the literature are the relations between international, regional, and national policies. There are also different components of open science covered in the literature: open data seems much discussed in the works in the English language, while open access is the main component discussed in the Portuguese and Spanish speaking papers. Finally, the relationship between open science policies and the science policy is framed by highlighting the innovation and transparency that open science can bring into it.

Background and Aims: There is ample evidence from high-income countries that fiscal policies such as alcohol taxes can affect the consumption of alcohol by increasing alcohol prices. In the case of Latin American countries, much less is known about how sensitive alcohol demand is to alcohol price changes. This study aims to expand the evidence base on the sensitivity of off-premises pure alcohol demand to price and expenditure increases in five Latin American countries: Argentina, Chile, Costa Rica, Honduras, and Uruguay, which have different socioeconomic profiles and alcohol consumption patterns., Design and Setting: Cross-sectional study MEASUREMENTS: The price and expenditure elasticities were estimated using an Almost Ideal Demand System (AIDS). Own price and expenditure elasticities for off-premises pure alcohol were estimated using representative household surveys, which collect data on households' expenses to construct the consumer basket of goods and services used to calculate the consumer price index (CPI) for the country., Findings: Own price elasticities of off-premises pure alcohol for all countries were negative, inelastic, and significant at 1 %. They were -0.418 for Argentina; -0.656 for Chile; and for Costa Rica, Honduras, and Uruguay, they were equal to -0.608, -0.509, and -0.32, respectively. Expenditure elasticities were positive and significant at 1 %, except for Costa Rica, which was significant at 10 %. They were equal to 0.865 in Argentina; 0.943 in Chile; 1.182 in Costa Rica; 0.874 in Honduras; and 0.857 in Uruguay. Elasticities for Costa Rica should be interpreted cautiously, as there is insufficient geographical price variability to identify the demand correctly., Conclusions: Results were consistent with previous literature for countries from other regions. Governments should expand this study to measure total demand elasticities to improve the design of alcohol tax policies., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2024. Published by Elsevier B.V.)

The COVID-19 outbreak and the global uncertainty it causes produce an apparent panic in stock markets. Efforts to explain the economic spillover effects of COVID-19 can guide authorities to design a control policy against the financial impacts of pandemics. The paper examines the effects of the COVID-19 cases on the stock markets in the emerging Latin American countries of Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, and Peru. The paper employs a continuous partial wavelet methodology to observe lead-lag relations between the daily variables of new COVID-19 cases and the stock market index for each Latin American country. Brazilian new COVID-19 cases led the Bovespa (BVSP) index to decline during the whole period, except February and June 2020, at one month-two month-frequency band. The wavelet and phase difference analyses indicate that, except for Brazil, COVID-19 cases did not affect the stock market indexes adversely during the whole sample period but did affect the stock exchange markets negatively during some sub-sample periods of the entire sample of each country. Dynamics of Latin American stock exchange markets in the short and long run can be explained by some other parameters of real and financial sectors and COVID-19 cases.

In this paper, the effects of economic growth and four different types of energy consumption (oil, natural gas, hydroelectricity, and renewable energy) on environmental quality in terms of carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) emissions were examined within the framework of the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) for three Latin American countries, namely, Argentina, Brazil, and Chile, from 1975 to 2018. The autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) in the form of Error Correction Mechanism (ECM) was used to verify the validity of the EKC hypothesis and the impacts of the variables in the short and the long run alike. Furthermore, the Toda-Yamamoto Granger causality test was carried out to identify the direction of causality between the variables. From ARDL-ECM estimation, the EKC was confirmed (inverted U-shaped curve between income growth and CO 2 emissions) only in Argentina in the long run but not in Brazil and Chile. Based on the findings, renewable energy can have a great potential in reducing CO 2 emissions in the future, but this advantage has not been fully exploited yet since a significant negative impact on CO 2 emissions was only found in Chile. Also, the use of other less carbon-intensive energy sources such as natural gas and hydropower if they could be combined with renewable energy would be of great benefit and contribute to enhancing environmental quality and energy security in the short and the medium term and to successful low-carbon energy transition in the long run in Argentina, Brazil, and Chile., (© 2022. The Author(s).)

A growing body of research has shown that barriers in the urban environment can be disabling by reducing the ability of older people to manage independently in the community, but also because they can negatively affect health by limiting the possibilities to move outside the home. In this study, we ask how obstacles in the urban environment are associated with the need for help to go to places in the community. To respond to this question, we used the Annual Household Survey of the City of Buenos Aires, Argentina 2018, which had a specific questionnaire for people with disabilities. From this sample, we selected adults aged 65 years or older with difficulties in at least one of six domains: vision; hearing; upper and lower body mobility; cognition; self-care; and communication. The final sample consisted of 513 persons (weighted = 109,316). First, we conducted a principal component analysis identifying three factors from variables of obstacles to access and use the urban environment: transportation; outdoor spaces; and information. Second, through a logistic regression model, we observed a direct relationship between these factors and the need for help to move in the community, controlling for sociodemographic characteristics, health status, and number of disabilities. This paper provides evidence on the significance of improving urban spaces to reduce dependent mobility. In Latin America, cities still face many challenges in becoming more age-friendly.