ObjectiveThis study evaluates the priority given to surgical care for children within national health policies, strategies and plans (NHPSPs).Participants and settingWe reviewed the NHPSPs available in the WHO’s Country Planning Cycle Database. Countries with NHPSPs in languages different from English, Spanish, French or Chinese were excluded. A total of 124 countries met the inclusion criteria.Primary and secondary outcome measuresWe searched for child-specific and surgery-specific terms in the NHPSPs’ missions, goals and strategies using three analytic approaches: (1) count of the total number of mentions, (2) count of the number of policies with no mentions and (3) count of the number of policies with five or more mentions. Outcomes were compared across WHO regional and World Bank income-level classifications.ResultsWe found that the most frequently mentioned terms were ‘child*’, ‘infant*’ and ‘immuniz*’. The most frequently mentioned surgery term was ‘surg*’. Overall, 45% of NHPSPs discussed surgery and 7% discussed children’s surgery. The majority (93%) of countries did not mention selected essential and cost-effective children’s procedures. When stratified by WHO region and World Bank income level, the West Pacific region led the inclusion of ‘pediatric surgery’ in national health plans, with 17% of its countries mentioning this term. Likewise, low-income countries led the inclusion of surg* and ‘pediatric surgery’, with 63% and 11% of countries mentioning these terms, respectively. In both stratifications, paediatric surgery only equated to less than 1% of the total terms.ConclusionThe low prevalence of children’s surgical search terms in NHPSPs indicates that the influence of surgical care for this population remains low in the majority of countries. Increased awareness of children’s surgical needs in national health plans might constitute a critical step to scale up surgical system in these countries.

Background: Significant disparities exist for timely access to cancer care for children, with the highest disparities in low-and middle-income countries (LMICs). This study aims to conduct a systematic review that identifies the factors contributing to delayed care of childhood cancers in LMICs. Methods: We will conduct a systematic review with search strings compliant with the PICO framework: (1) the Population-children (aged 0-18 years) from LMICs; (2) the Exposure-factors contributing to timely childhood cancer care; (3) the Outcomedelays in childhood cancer care. Discussion: Our study is an essential step to guide strategic interventions to assess the myriad of factors that prevent children from accessing timely cancer care in LMICs. The results will be submitted for publication in a peer-reviewed journal and shared with institutions related to the field.

Early access to care is essential to improve survival rates for childhood cancer. This study evaluates the determinants of delays in childhood cancer care in low‐ and middle‐income countries (LMICs) through a systematic review of the literature. We proposed a novel Three‐Delay framework specific to childhood cancer in LMICs by summarizing 43 determinants and 24 risk factors of delayed cancer care from 95 studies. Traditional medicine, household income, lack of transportation, rural population, parental education, and travel distance influenced most domains of our framework. Our novel framework can be used as a policy tool toward improving cancer care and outcomes for children in LMICs.

Depressive disorders are a leading cause of global morbidity and remain disproportionately high in low- and middle-income settings. Stressful life events (SLEs) are known risk factors for depressive episodes and worsened depressive severity, yet are under-researched in comparison to other depression risk factors. As depression is often comorbid with hypertension, diabetes, and other noncommunicable diseases (NCDs), research into this relationship among patients with NCDs is particularly relevant to increasing opportunities for integrated depression and NCD care. This study aims to estimate the cross-sectional association between SLEs in the three months preceding baseline interviews and baseline depressive severity among patients with at least mild depressive symptoms who are seeking NCD care at 10 NCD clinics across Malawi. SLEs were measured by the Life Events Survey and depressive severity (mild vs. moderate to severe) was measured by the Patient Health Questionnaire-9. The study population (n = 708) was predominately currently employed, grand multiparous (5–8 children) women with a primary education level. Two thirds (63%) had mild depression while 26%, 8%, and 3% had moderate, moderately severe, and severe depression, respectively. Nearly all participants (94%) reported at least one recent SLE, with the most common reported SLEs being financial stress (48%), relationship changes (45%), death of a family member or friend (41%), or serious illness of a family member or friend (39%). Divorce/separation, estrangement from a family member, losing source of income, and major new health problems were significant predictors of greater (moderate or severe) depressive severity compared to mild severity. Having a major new health problem or experiencing divorce/separation resulted in particularly high risk of more severe depression. After adjustment, each additional SLE was associated with a 9% increased risk of moderate or worse depressive severity compared to mild depressive severity (RR: 1.09; (95% CI: 1.05, 1.13), p<0.0001). Among patients with NCDs with at least mild depressive symptoms, SLEs in the prior 3 months were associated with greater depressive severity. While many SLEs may not be preventable, this research suggests that assessment of SLEs and teaching of positive coping strategies when experiencing SLEs may play an important role in integrated NCD and depression treatment models.