The UN's Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and pledge to leave no one behind have raised the importance of ensuring equitable health outcomes and healthcare delivery. Multisectoral approaches to tackling neglected tropical diseases (NTDs), including prevention, diagnosis, treatment, and healthcare, have had a limited focus on gender. Yet, gender roles and relations shape vulnerability to NTDs, access to prevention and treatment, and experience of living with NTDs [1]. Understanding the similarities and differences of disease vulnerability and experience between genders can support NTD actors to deliver equitable prevention, diagnosis, and treatment services. The NTD community, including researchers and practitioners, needs to better understand these dynamics and take action to advance gender equality, meet the NTD roadmap 2020 goals, and contribute towards the SDGs and universal health coverage (UHC). The UHC movement is advocating for clear action to address the gender determinants of health. This viewpoint synthesizes evidence from a discussion paper [2] developed by the UN Development Programme (UNDP) and TDR (Special Programme for Research and Training in Tropical Diseases sponsored by UNICEF, UNDP, World Bank, and WHO) in partnership with the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine to support governments and nongovernment organizations to understand how to recognize and address gender inequities within NTD programs and improve delivery through gender analysis. Gender refers to the socially constructed roles, behaviors, activities, attributes, and opportunities that any society considers appropriate for men and women, boys and girls, and people with nonbinary identities [3, 4]. Gender, sex, and their intersections with other social determinants of health shape peoples' vulnerability to and experience of multiple NTDs and their ability to access care and treatment [3, 5]. This can be complex and will vary between diseases, contexts, and other social and demographic factors such as age. Fig 1 highlights differences in disability-adjusted life years (DALYS) from different NTDs by age and sex from the Global Burden of Disease (GBD) Study [6]. By examining how gender shapes who is infected with NTDs, who accesses preventive medicines, who is diagnosed and treated, who is exposed or vulnerable to NTDs, and how and whose behavior is risk prone or risk averse, inequities can be better understood, challenged, and addressed.

Background:There is limited published evidence of the effectiveness of adaptation in managing the health risks of climate variability and change in low- and middle-income countries.Objectives:To document lessons learned and good practice examples from health adaptation pilot projects in low- and middle-income countries to facilitate assessing and overcoming barriers to implementation and to scaling up.Methods:We evaluated project reports and related materials from the first five years of implementation (2008–2013) of multinational health adaptation projects in Albania, Barbados, Bhutan, China, Fiji, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Kyrgyzstan, Philippines, Russian Federation, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. We also collected qualitative data through a focus group consultation and 19 key informant interviews.Results:Our recommendations include that national health plans, policies, and budget processes need to explicitly incorporate the risks of current and projected climate variability and change. Increasing resilience is likely to be achieved through longer-term, multifaceted, and collaborative approaches, with supporting activities (and funding) for capacity building, communication, and institutionalized monitoring and evaluation. Projects should be encouraged to focus not just on shorter-term outputs to address climate variability, but also on establishing processes to address longer-term climate change challenges. Opportunities for capacity development should be created, identified, and reinforced.Conclusions:Our analyses highlight that, irrespective of resource constraints, ministries of health and other institutions working on climate-related health issues in low- and middle-income countries need to continue to prepare themselves to prevent additional health burdens in the context of a changing climate and socioeconomic development patterns. https://doi.org/10.1289/EHP405

No abstract

Background Community engagement and involvement (CEI) was crucial for the COVID-19 pandemic response, particularly among the urban poor in low-and middle-income countries (LMICs). However, no evidence synthesis explores how CEI can benefit public health emergencies. Objective We conducted a systematic scoping review of the CEI with an emphasis on stakeholder identification, accountability mapping, the support system, and the engagement process among urban poor populations in LMICs during the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods We searched eleven databases, including PubMed, Embase, Web of Science, and CINAHL, following the PRISMA-2020 guidelines to find articles published between November 2019 and August 2021. PROSPERO registration No: CRD42021283599. We performed the quality assessment using a mixed-method appraisal tool. We synthesized the findings using thematic framework analysis. Results We identified 6490 records. After the title and abstract screening, 133 studies were selected for full-text review, and finally, we included 30 articles. Many stakeholders were involved in COVID-19 support, particularly for health care, livelihoods, and WASH infrastructure, and their accountability mapping by adopting an interest – influence matrix. This review emphasizes the significance of meaningful CEI in designing and implementing public health efforts for pandemic management among urban slum populations. The interest – influence matrix findings revealed that specific community volunteers, community-based organizations, and civil society organizations had high interest but less influence, indicating that it is necessary to recognize and engage them. Conclusion Motivation is crucial for those with high influence but less interest, such as corporate responsibility/conscience and private food supply agencies, for the health system’s preparedness plan among urban populations.

BackgroundMore than half of the world’s population currently lives in urban settlements that grow both in size and number. By 2050, approximately 70% of the global population will be living in urban conglomerations, mainly in low- and middle-income countries. Mobility, poverty, different layers of inequalities as well as climate variability and change are some of the social and environmental factors that influence the exposure of human populations in urban settings to vector-borne diseases, which pose eminent public health threats. Accurate, consistent, and evidence-based interventions for prevention and control of vector-borne and other infectious diseases of poverty in urban settings are needed to implement innovative and cost-effective public policy and to promote inclusive and equitable urban health services.Main bodyWhile there is growing awareness of vector-borne diseases epidemiology at the urban level, there is still a paucity of research and action being undertaken in this area, hindering evidence-based public health policy decisions and practice and strategies for active community engagement. This paper describes the collaboration and partnership of the Special Programme for Research and Training in Tropical Diseases (TDR) hosted by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the “VEctor boRne DiseAses Scoping reviews” (VERDAS) Research Consortium as they joined efforts in response to filling this gap in knowledge and evidence by supporting the development of a series of scoping reviews that highlight priority research gaps and policy implications to address vector-borne and other infectious diseases at the urban level.ConclusionsThe set of scoping reviews proposed in this special issue presents a critical analysis of the state-of-the-art of research on urban health interventions for the prevention and control of vector-borne and other infectious diseases of poverty. The authors of the 6 reviews highlighted severe gaps in knowledge and identified organizational and theoretical limitations that need to be urgently tackled to improve cities preparedness and vector control response. The more pressing need at present is to ensure that more implementation research on vector-borne diseases in urban settings is conducted, addressing policy and practice implications and calling for more political commitment and social mobilization through adequate citizen engagement strategies.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (10.1186/s40249-018-0462-z) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.