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Global road mortality is a leading cause of death in many low-income and middle-income countries. Data to support priority setting under current resource constraints are urgently needed to achieve Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 3.6. This Series paper estimates the potential number of lives saved if each country implemented interventions to address risk factors for road injuries. We did a systematic review of all available evidence-based, preventive interventions for mortality reduction that targeted the four main risk factors for road injuries (ie, speeding, drink driving, helmet use, and use of seatbelt or child restraint). We used literature review variables and considered three key country-level variables (gross domestic product per capita, population density, and government effectiveness) to generate country-specific estimates on the potential annual attributable number of lives that would be saved by interventions focusing on these four risk factors in 185 countries. Our results suggest that the implementation of evidence-based road safety interventions that target the four main road safety risk factors could prevent between 25% and 40% of all fatal road injuries worldwide. Interventions addressing speed could save about 347 258 lives globally per year, and at least 16 304 lives would be saved through drink driving interventions. The implementation of seatbelt interventions could save about 121 083 lives, and 51 698 lives could be saved by helmet interventions. We identify country-specific estimates of the potential number of lives saved that would be attributable to these interventions. Our results show the potential effectiveness of the implementation and scaling of these interventions. This paper presents key evidence for priority setting on road safety interventions and shows a path for reaching SDG 3.6.

Background: The WHO recommends use of masks and social distancing to reduce transmission and death from COVID-19. Governments worldwide also rely on test-trace-isolate (TTI) programs for additional risk mitigation. This study aims to estimate the cost-effectiveness of implementing a national TTI strategy to reduce the number of severe and fatal cases of COVID-19 in Colombia. Methods: We developed a simulation model of COVID-19 infection combined with a Susceptible-Infected-Recovered structure. We estimated the incremental cost-effectiveness of a comprehensive TTI strategy compared to no intervention over a one-year horizon, from both a health system and a societal perspective. Hospitalization and mortality rates were retrieved from Colombian surveillance data. We included program costs of TTI intervention, health services utilization, PCR diagnosis test, productivity lost, and government social program costs. We used the number of deaths and quality-adjusted life years (QALYs) as health outcomes. Sensitivity analyses were performed. Findings: Compared with no intervention, the TTI strategy reduced COVID-19 mortality by 67%. In addition, the program saved an average of $1,045 and $850 per case in the social and health system perspective, respectively. These savings are equivalent to almost four to ten times the annual Colombia per capita healthcare spending. Interpretation: The TTI strategy in Colombia is a highly cost-effective public health intervention to reduce the burden of COVID-19. TTI is dependent on its capacity to identify and give early medical and social assistance to new cases. Our findings exemplify the success of using comprehensive strategies integrating telemedicine and predictive analysis to improve prevention programs. Funding Information: This study was supported by the Colombian Ministry of Health through award number PUJ-04519-20 received by E.P. AVO and SDS declined to receive any funding support for this study. Declaration of Interests: Three of the authors (JFN, MRB, and FR) are direct employees of the funding institution (Colombian Ministry of Health). The other authors do not present any conflict of interest. Ethics Approval Statement: This study was approved by the Institutional Review Board of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and deemed not human subjects research (IRB number: 14144).

Summary Background Between 1990 and 2015, the global injury mortality declined, but in countries where the poorest billion live, injuries are becoming an increasingly prevalent cause of death. The vulnerability of this population requires immediate attention from policy makers to implement effective interventions that lessen the burden of injuries in these countries. Our aim was two-fold; first, to review all the evidence on effective interventions for the five main types of unintentional injury; and second, to estimate the potential number of lives saved by effective injury interventions among the poorest billion. Methods For our systematic review we used references in the Disability Control Priorities third edition, and searched PubMed and the Cochrane database for papers published until Sept 10, 2016, using a comprehensive search strategy to find interventions for the five major causes of unintentional injuries: road traffic crashes, falls, drowning, burns, and poisoning. Studies were included if they presented evidence with significant effects sizes for any outcome; no inclusions or exclusions made on the basis of where the study was carried out (ie, low-income, middle-income, or high-income country). Then we used data from the Global Burden of Disease 2015 study and a Monte Carlo simulation technique to estimate the potential annual attributable number of lives saved among the poorest billion by these evidence-based injury interventions. We estimated results for 84 countries where the poorest billion live. Findings From the 513 papers identified, 47 were eligible for inclusion. We identified 11 interventions that had an effect on injury mortality. For road traffic deaths, the most successful interventions in preventing deaths are speed enforcement (>80 000 lives saved per year) and drink-driving enforcement (>60 000 lives saved per year). Interventions potentially most effective in preventing deaths from drowning are formal swimming lessons for children younger than 14 years (>25 000 lives saved per year) and the use of creches to supervise younger children (younger than 5 years; >10 000 lives saved per year). We did not find sufficient evidence on interventions for other causes of unintentional injuries (poisoning, burns, and falls) to run similar simulations. Interpretation Based on the little available evidence, key interventions have been identified to prevent lives lost from unintentional injuries among the poorest billion. This Article provides guidance to national authorities on evidence-based priority interventions that can reduce the burden of injuries among the most vulnerable members of the population. We also identify an important gap in knowledge on the effectiveness and the mortality impacts of injury interventions. Funding Partly supported by the Fogarty International Center of the US National Institutes of Health (Chronic Consequences of Trauma, Injuries, Disability Across the Lifespan: Uganda; #D43TW009284).

This proposal offers a unique solution for a unique challenge: using oil to pay for Venezuela’s debt. Venezuela and PDVSA’s creditors currently receive little in the way of coupon payments and have minimal means of recourse over limited assets located outside Venezuela’s borders. We suggest using a creditor trust to consolidate creditors into a single entity that would purchase the oil from Venezuela with bonds tendered by the creditors to the trust. This transaction would give the creditors trust a priority claim over oil as title holders. It allows a restructuring process with relatively few changes to current bonds, thus reducing the possibility of litigation. In addition to the legal and structural benefits offered to both Venezuela and the creditors, this proposal offers something that no other proposal does — the potential for successful execution under current U.S. sanctions based on the issuance of a specific license from OFAC. Although there is no assurance as to whether such license would be obtained, it is arguable that this structure runs outside the scope of the Executive Order No. 13,808, and that there is precedent supporting the issuance of such a license authorizing commercial transactions.

In recent years, interest on researching on antenatal care issues and other health promotion and prevention interventions has increased. However, even though there is a growing interest in publishing about antenatal care use, evidence concerning which, and how socioeconomic conditions influence whether a pregnant woman demands or not antenatal consultations on the assumption that the theoretical access to this service has not entry barriers, is still limited. In order to generate this evidence, a two-stage analysis was performed with data gathered on the Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) carried out by Profamilia in Colombia during 2005. The first stage was run as a logistic regression model showing the marginal effects on the probability of attending the first visit and an ordinary least squares model was performed for the second stage accounting for the absences to antenatal consultations once at least one visit was carried out. It was found that mothers living in the Pacific Ocean region as well as young mothers seem to have a lower probability of attending the first visit but these factors are not related to the number of absences to antenatal consultation once the first visit has been achieved. The effect of health insurance was surprising because of the differing effects that the health insurers showed. Some familiar and personal conditions such as willingness to have the last children and number of previous children, demonstrated to be important in the determination of demand. The effect of mother's educational attainment was proved as important whereas the father's educational achievement was not. This paper provides some elements for policy making in order to increase the demand inducement of antenatal care, as well as stimulating research on demand for specific issues on health.

In order to assess the differences between articles about public health published in national vs. international journals, we undertook a comparison of quantitative analysis methodologies and topics for five indexed journals (3 international, 2 national) during 1991-2005. A total of 2511 articles were reviewed from: European Journal of Public Health, American Journal of Public Health, Cuadernos de Saude Publica, Revista Nacional de Salud Publica and Revista de la Facultad Nacional de Salud Publica. International journals employed quantitative analysis techniques with more innovation and use of multivariate analysis than those employed by national journals. More reviews were found in the latter. Frequent topics for national journals included: child health, mental health, infectious diseases, zoonosis, sanitation, and health systems and policy. Frequent subjects for international journals included: social determinants, chronic disease and cancer. Both types of journals include local topics. We concluded that lack of multivariate techniques in national articles becomes a barrier for publication in international journals.(El siguiente documento muestra las diferencias tematicas y metodologicas de la publicacion internacional en salud publica con respecto a la produccion cientifica de las revistas colombianas. Se seleccionaron 5 revistas, de alto impacto y con indizacion internacional de caracter general de salud publica en el periodo de 1991-2005, y se compararon por la complejidad de la metodologias utilizadas para el analisis de los datos y por los temas publicados en cada revista. Se revisaron un total de 2511 articulos de las revistas: European Journal of Public Health, American Journal of Public Health, Cadernos de Saude Publica, Revista Nacional de Saud Publica, Revista de la Facultad Nacional de Saud Publica. En las metodologias se encontro: mayor presencia de estudios cuantitativos en revistas internacionales que en las nacionales, mayor porcentaje de revisiones en la publicacion nacional, mayor utilizacion de metodologias cuantitativas innovadoras en las revistas internacionales, incluyendo Cuadernos de Saude Publica. Las revistas internacionales, estandarizan la metodologia de sus articulos en analisis bivariado y multivariado. Todas las publicaciones presentan un gran enfasis en lo local. En temas, la publicacion nacional se centra en temas de salud infantil, salud mental, enfermedades transmisibles y zoonosis, salud sanitaria y ambiental y sistemas y politicas en salud.La publicacion internacional en temas de determinantes socioeconomicos enfermedades cronicas no transmisibles y cancer. Conclusiones: La publicacion nacional se encuentra rezagada en el uso de metodologias cuantitativas complejas para el analisis de los problemas de salud. La brecha muestra que para las publicaciones nacionales existen barreras de entrada, relacionadas no solo con idioma sino con la complejidad de metodos cuantitativos empleados y para la indizacion internacional de revistas las nacionales no han superado los estandares para entrar.)