Springer Science and Business Media LLC

The United Nations adopted an historic international Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) in April 2013. A 1997 meeting of Nobel Peace Prize laureates who called for an International Code of Conduct to address the ‘destructive effects of the unregulated arms trade’ initiated discussions that led to the Treaty. Public health institutions, including the World Health Organization and the International Committee of the Red Cross, and nongovernmental health groups such as International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, made adoption of the ATT a public health imperative. The poorly regulated $70 billion annual trade in conventional arms fuels conflict, with devastating effects on global health. The ATT aims to ‘reduce human suffering’. It prohibits arms’ sales if there is knowledge that the arms would be used in the commission of genocide, attacks against civilians, or war crimes. The health community has much to contribute to ensuring ratification and implementation of the ATT.

Các Viện Y tế Công cộng Quốc gia (NPHIs) thực hiện các chức năng thiết yếu giúp bảo vệ và hỗ trợ sức khoẻ cộng đồng. Tại Maroc, các chức năng này được chia sẻ giữa ba cơ quan khác nhau. Việc hợp nhất các chức năng này vào một cơ quan duy nhất sẽ khuyến khích một cách tiếp cận toàn diện đối với sức khỏe cộng đồng ở Maroc, tạo ra một môi trường có thể hỗ trợ công việc trong các lĩnh vực sức khỏe cộng đồng mới (chẳng hạn như bệnh mãn tính), giảm thiểu sự cạnh tranh và trùng lặp giữa các cơ quan, đồng thời tăng cường hiệu quả. Khi làm việc cùng nhau, các NPHIs cần phát triển dữ liệu và hỗ trợ vận động để nguồn tài trợ không chỉ hướng tới các bệnh đang được chú ý và đề cập, mà còn cho những Chức năng Cốt lõi góp phần hàng ngày vào sức khoẻ và an toàn của tất cả mọi người.

This article, written with American readers in mind, contains a number of comparisons of health data between the two countries—demographic and epidemiological, health care resources and expenditures. Although Canada sustains a much higher rate of institutional care (both acute and chronic) for the elderly than the United States, and has about the same level of availability of physicians, it expends considerably less per capita and as a percentage of the GNP or GDP. Part of the answer may be found in the much lower proportion of funding in the private sector in Canada. Federal funding for long term care has been provided not only through Canada's national hospital and medical insurance schemes but also in its Extended Health Care Services Program and Canada Assistance Plan. Provincial developments include a rapidly increasing variety of long term care services (both institutional and community) and much more readily available long term care insurance. This is occurring in all parts of the country though at different rates. A recently completed key informant survey emphasized the following issues: interprofessional rivalry and competition between the medical and social models; excessive institutionalization and medicalization; lack of interest in prevention of disease in the elderly; and cost constraints. The importance of housing, income and support for caregivers was also emphasized.

We comment on developments in and impacts of medical opioid control and availability in the province of British Columbia (Canada). Population-level dispensing of (strong) prescription opioids doubled in 2005–2011, yet subsequently declined by half 2011–2018 following implementation of various opioid control measures. Notwithstanding this inversion, BC has featured the highest population rates of opioid-related mortality and morbidity in Canada. The erratic opioid availability patterns presumably facilitated major increases in opioid misuse, morbidity, and mortality. Tangible benefits for pain care from increased medical opioid availability remain un-evidenced. Rather, recent decreases in medical opioid dispensing have not been matched by equivalent reductions in demand for (non-)medical use yet have coincided with widespread proliferation of toxic, illicit opioid supply and related major increases in opioid-related mortality. These developments appear to have undermined rather than benefitted public health and offer a poignant case study in ineffective psychotropic drug control and public health policy towards preventing similar experiences elsewhere.