Person:
Rabie, Tamer Samah
Author Name Variants
Fields of Specialization
Health systems,
Public health,
Quality of care,
Epidemiology,
Governance
Degrees
Departments
Health, Nutrition and Population Global Practice
Externally Hosted Work
Contact Information
Last updated
January 31, 2023
Biography
Dr. Tamer Samah Rabie is a Lead Health Specialist in the World Bank's Health, Nutrition and Population Global Practice. He is a Medical Doctor with a Master in Public Health from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, and with twenty years of experience spanning clinical medicine, public health, and health systems and policy. Dr. Rabie has worked in over twenty countries in Europe and Central Asia, South Asia, East Asia, and the Middle East and North Africa regions in areas related to health system reform, quality of care, evaluations, infectious disease epidemiology, nutrition, as well as governance and social accountability. Since joining the World Bank in 2005, he has developed a number of analytical products, and led in-country operations and policy dialogue in the health sector, including the World Bank program in Jordan which he has been leading over the past three years.
Publication Search Results
1 - 7 of 7
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Publication
Transforming Family Planning Outlook and Practice in Egypt : A Rights-Based Approach
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2013-07-16)Family planning (FP) program contributed to Egypt s progress in reducing infant and maternal mortality and the total fertility and population growth rates. The Arab spring has brought to the forefront long-held aspirations, which can only be fulfilled by a clear shift to a rights-based and person-centered family planning approach and away from an imposed top-down program with targets for family size and fertility rate. The essence of a rights-based approach to FP is interacting with people as individuals with rights to control ones lives, not as a target of a particular program. The FP program also needs to determine and mitigate the factors that make it difficult for the poor, young, and marginalized groups to exercise rights to receive the services needed. The authors of this report examined the challenges facing Egypt s FP program through a human rights lens, exploring whether individuals and couples are able to exercise their rights to financial and physical access to good quality FP services. The research also investigated whether client demand for services, and the acceptability of those services, is guided by human rights aspects of service delivery, such as the rights to information, privacy, confidentiality, method choice, and the autonomy to choose the number and spacing of births. This report synthesizes the findings from three sources: (i) an analysis of legal and ethical codes and institutions for upholding reproductive rights in Egypt; (ii) a literature review of past studies and surveys in Egypt; and (iii) a field study in four governorates, using quantitative and qualitative methods to assess the accessibility and quality of FP services in family health units; the views of clients through in exit interviews; and the views of community members in focus group discussions with married women, husbands, and mothers-in-law on perception of FP, the quality of services, and service responsiveness to their needs. This study reconfirmed the need to focus on redressing staff turnover in rural primary health care (PHC) facilities, as well as improving the qualifications and skills of existing staff, both key constraints to quality improvement. -
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Comparing the Performance of Indicators of Hand-Washing Practices in Rural Indian Households
( 2008)OBJECTIVE To compare the results obtained from 26 proxy indicators of domestic hand-washing practices with those obtained from direct, 'structured' observation of hand-washing in a sample of 387 households and to assess the potential of these indicators for use in the evaluation of hygiene promotion campaigns. METHODS Fieldwork in rural India between February 2005 and April 2006. Household-level data on hand-washing practices and the availability of soap and water were collected by structured observation, questionnaire survey, pocket voting, hand-wash demonstration and environmental check. Between them these techniques produced 27 binary indicators of hand-washing practices, each of which was used to classify households as 'hand-washing' or 'non-hand-washing. To assess the extent to which household classification based on each of 26 proxy indicators concurred with classification based on observation, we used the kappa statistic. The prevalence of households defined as 'hand-washing' according to each indicator was compared statistically with the prevalence according to structured observations by testing for a significant difference between two proportions. RESULTS Agreement between all the proxy indicators and the observation data was poor and all but two of the indicators produced estimates of hand-washing prevalence that were significantly different from that resulting from observation. CONCLUSION Although some interventions may be able to use proxy indicators as a guide to the magnitude and direction of their impact, these indicators do not provide an accurate guide to the actual practice or prevalence of hand-washing. Structured observation remains the best indicator of those tested. -
Publication
Health Sector Reform in the Middle East and North Africa: Prospects and Experiences
(Taylor and Francis, 2017-01-31)The mass protests that swept the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region since December 2010 called for social justice and a dignified life and well-being for all citizens. Beyond the political and economic dimensions, these popular uprisings were also fueled by a strong sense of discontent with struggling health systems that have not delivered on the promise for better, more affordable, and equitable healthcare. This special issue of Health Systems & Reform examines government efforts that have been adopted since 2011 to address imminent health system challenges in the MENA region. It attempts to capture some of the fundamental health sector reforms that have been adopted by MENA countries to address their population‟s demands for better health care service delivery, access, and equity. The articles included in this special issue relate to projects that have been financed by the World Bank in the last six years, or where technical assistance was provided by the World Bank to MENA governments. -
Publication
How Labor Laws Can Transform Health Systems: The Case of Saudi Arabia
(Taylor and Francis, 2017-01-31)In 1999, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia enacted a law that compels private employers to cover non-Saudi employees with health insurance. In the 16 years that followed, the health sector in the Kingdom has seen a dramatic shift in how services are provided and paid for, and the change continues at an accelerated speed. Based on interviews with 12 large private sector providers in Riyadh, Jeddah, and Khobar, we found that a labor law enacted in 1999 led to rapid expansion of the insured population, both expatriates and Saudis, which led to a drastic change in how hospitals and other facilities are paid, and considerable more consistency in revenue stream. This article describes how the 1999 labor law, combined with other market conditions and public incentives, led to unprecedented growth in private sector capacity and how the insurance system changed the labor market for health care providers and put more pressure on physicians to engage in dual job holding in both the public and private sectors. The Kingdom later introduced another labor program, known as Nitaqat, designed to implement the Saudization initiative that started in 2011, which put pressure on all private companies to hire Saudi nationals. The interviews with large private health providers found the Nitaqat program to be the largest barrier to the growth of the sector. The Kingdom presents a striking case of how the health sector can be drastically impacted by laws and policies outside the sector and how health systems and reforms can, and should, take into account the whole range of policy instruments available to a country. -
Publication
The Last Mile to Quality Service Delivery in Jordan
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2017-05-11)A growing body of research suggests that the quantity and quality of structural inputs of education and healthcare services such as infrastructure, classroom and medical supplies, and even teacher and medical training are largely irrelevant if teachers and healthcare providers do not exert the requisite effort to translate these inputs into effective teaching and medical service. To exert adquate effort, providers must feel they are accountable for the quality of service they provide. Yet a sense of accountability among providers does not necessarily occur naturally, often requiring mechanisms to monitor and incentivize provider effort. The literature on improving provider accountability has under-emphasized the role of monitoring practices by school principals and chief medical officers. This study begins to fill this gap by investigating the role of within-facility accountability mechanisms in the education and health sectors of Jordan. To do this, an analysis of existing and original data from these sectors was conducted in which the association of within-facility monitoring and provider effort was quantified. The results indicate that within-facility monitoring is underutilized in both sectors and is a consistent predictor of higher provider effort. -
Publication
Breathing Heavy: New Evidence on Air Pollution and Health in Bangladesh
(Washington, DC : World Bank, 2022)Globally, air pollution has been identified as a major risk factor for premature mortality and morbidity; it caused an estimated 6.7 million deaths in 2019. The burden of disease falls particularly heavily on low- and middle-income countries, where the exposure levels tend to be significantly higher. Bangladesh is among the hardest hit. The country was ranked as the most polluted country in the world between 2018 and 2021; its capital, Dhaka, was ranked as the second-most polluted city. In 2019, air pollution was the second-largest risk factor for deaths and disability in the country. Four of the top five causes of total deaths were directly associated with air pollution—stroke, ischemic heart disease, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and lower respiratory tract infection. The most vulnerable populations are children, the elderly, and people with underlying health conditions. Higher rates of mortality and morbidity are further compounded by substantial associated economic costs. Global evidence on the relationship between air pollution and adverse health events has been widely available. Data points specific to Bangladesh, however, have been comparably sparse, and the quality of the available evidence has been limited. Breathing Heavy: New Evidence on Air Pollution and Health in Bangladesh addresses this paucity by combining primary data from Bangladesh and global evidence to establish the relationship between air pollution and reduced health. The evidence, in particular, identifies the urgent need for new initiatives to strengthen the health sector. These initiatives include bolstering public health response mechanisms along with health care service delivery, expanding the scope and accuracy of air pollution data, and understanding better the issues surrounding air pollution and its effects on health through further research. With climate change projected to further exacerbate air quality, it is increasingly critical for countries like Bangladesh to implement adaptation and mitigation measures. This seminal work will be of value to policy makers, practitioners, and subject matter experts as they address the growing challenges in policy dialogue under the overall framework of the government’s Mujib Climate Prosperity Plan Decade 2030. -
Publication
Air Pollution and Climate Change: From Co-Benefits to Coherent Policies
(Washington, DC : World Bank, 2022)Achieving carbon neutral development will take a roughly 40-year-long structural transformation, especially in developing and emerging economies, where most people exposed to poor air quality live. In the meantime, 6-7 million people die each year by breathing polluted air. But does climate action always lead to better air quality? Likewise, do air pollution policies always lead to cooler climate? The answers are not as obvious as one might expect. For example, while short-lived climate pollutants contribute to air pollution, some important air pollutants cool the climate with an equal countervailing force. Retrofitting coal-fired power plants with modern air pollution filters can quickly reduce most air pollution but slightly increases carbon emissions. In the absence of effective carbon pricing, this can lock in carbon-intensive installations for decades. On the other hand, putting a price on carbon in the absence of effective air-quality policies can encourage firms to switch off air pollution filters. Carbon pricing can also push lower-income households to use biomass and waste instead of gas, electricity, or district heating for cooking and heating and increase population exposure to air pollution. These tensions do not justify inaction on any of these major market failures. But neither of these environmental problems can be solved effectively by pursuing one-sided environmental policies. This report brings much-needed realism to the climate and air pollution debate. It analyzes international experience to identify effective pathways to coherent policy packages that harness synergies and manage inevitable tensions between climate mitigation and air-quality management. It helps decision makers to prioritize pollutants and emission sources and implement regulations that will encourage economic actors to implement technical and behavioral measures in a way that quickly saves people's lives while navigating the longer journey to a low-carbon future.