Publication:
The Role of Belize’s Primary Health Care System in Pandemic Preparedness and Response: A Qualitative Study

Loading...
Thumbnail Image
Files in English
English PDF (7.61 MB)
295 downloads
Date
2023-10-17
ISSN
Published
2023-10-17
Editor(s)
Abstract
While the incidence of COVID-19 in Belize has subsided, the lasting health and economic impacts caused by the pandemic have demonstrated the need to build a resilient health system. The most recent figures from the Statistical institute of Belize confirm that there have been over 60,000 cases and 678 deaths due to COVID-19. Additionally, a rapid phone survey of over 2,000 households, conducted between December 2021 and January 2023, found that 20.6 percent and 26.8 percent of respondents reported losing their job permanently or temporarily, respectively, and an additional 64 percent of respondents reported a reduction in their income during pandemic. Ensuring the health system remains resilient to shocks is critical, especially given the pandemic’s impacts on heath and the economy.
Link to Data Set
Citation
World Bank Group. 2023. The Role of Belize’s Primary Health Care System in Pandemic Preparedness and Response: A Qualitative Study. © World Bank Group. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/40480 License: CC BY-NC 3.0 IGO.
Associated URLs
Associated content
Report Series
Other publications in this report series
Journal
Journal Volume
Journal Issue

Related items

Showing items related by metadata.

  • Publication
    Case Study on the Role of Primary Health Care in the SARS COV-2 Pandemic in Colombia
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2020-12) World Bank Group
    The reforms of the Colombian Health System in the last decade have sought to position primary health care (PHC) as an essential strategy to guarantee integrated and comprehensive care of the population’s health needs. The Primary Health Care approach includes three integrated, interdependent components: health services, intersectoriality, and social participation in terms of empowering individuals, families and communities to take charge of their own health. Within this conceptual framework, Colombia has tackled the SARS CoV-2 (COVID-19) pandemic formally announcedby the World Health Organization (WHO) on March 11, 2020. This report examines the role of PHC in Colombia›s preparation for, response to, and recovery from the pandemic. The main features of the pandemic affecting the country are described first, followed by observations stemming from analysis of the regulatory component, the healthcare services delivered, and the role of public health communication and surveillance. The report ends with conclusions on the analysis.
  • Publication
    Primary Health Care in the World Bank’s COVID-19 Multiphase Programmatic Approach Portfolio Response
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2022-06) Feil, Cameron; Vicencio, Jasmine; Villar Uribe, Manuela; Secci, Federica
    Soon after the World Health Organization (WHO) declared a pandemic, the World Bank made available rapid financing to strengthen countries' ability to respond to COVID-19 through a multiphase programmatic approach (MPA). The MPA's immediate objective is to prevent, detect, and respond to the COVID-19 pandemic. By July 2020, the World Bank’s board of directors had approved financing for 74 countries. This evaluation aims to determine the extent to which response activities were planned at the primary health care (PHC) level, and the extent to which PHC was leveraged within the first wave of MPA projects was determined by the number of PHC activities listed in the project components and indicators. Of 74 projects evaluated, 70 (94 percent) had at least one PHC-related activity listed in the components. Frequently planned activities at the PHC level primarily included surveillance, handwashing, and community engagement–related activities. MPA projects did not prioritize a commitment to maintaining essential service delivery at the PHC level. Several projects showed a greater commitment to integrating response activities at the PHC level, including Côte d’Ivoire, Egypt, Liberia, and Papua New Guinea, Senegal, the Republic of Congo. Notably, except for Egypt and Papua New Guinea, these projects were in countries that have been affected or threatened by the Ebola pandemic. These countries emphasized the integration of pandemic response activities at the community level. Overall, this evaluation highlights three takeaways: (1) the most common project activities related to PHC focused on surveillance, community engagement, and disease prevention; (2) among MPA projects, those in the sub-Saharan African region integrated more pandemic response activities at the PHC level than did other regions; and (3) maintaining essential primary health care services was not a priority among MPA projects in the initial phase of the response.
  • Publication
    Assessment of Guinea-Bissau’s Pandemic Prevention, Preparedness, and Response Capacity
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-06-03) World Bank
    This report represents a comprehensive assessment of Guinea-Bissau’s PPR capacity conducted by the World Bank. The report details key gaps and findings about Guinea-Bissau’s health system and sets out priority recommendations to strengthen its PPR capacity and health system resilience. Key findings are grouped into five areas identified as most critical and in urgent need of attention to prepare for future threats.
  • Publication
    The Primary Health Care System in Fiji
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-01-22) World Bank Group
    This report presents the findings of the Vital Signs Profile (VSP) assessment conducted by the World Bank and the Primary Health Care Performance Initiative (PHCPI) in collaboration with Fiji’s Ministry of Health and Medical Services (MHMS). The VSP provides an opportunity to assess the state of the primary health care (PHC) system in Fiji, highlighting areas of strength and challenges through the lens of the PHCPI framework. The framework organizes various domains and subdomains of primary health care using a logic model approach that encompasses the traditional inputs and outputs of PHC systems and emphasizes the capacity and processes of PHC service delivery and performance. Notably, while PHCPI recognizes the role of social determinants of health and intersectoral health promotion and prevention efforts as important factors influencing population health, the VSP is primarily focused on aspects of health service delivery. Fiji is one of four Pacific countries - alongside Kiribati, the Republic of the Marshall Islands, and Solomon Islands that have, with support of the World Bank, used PHCPI tools to take stock of current performance, safeguard what works well, and lay out a vision for areas requiring improvement.
  • Publication
    What Can Financing Schemes and Payment Systems Do to Improve Pandemic Response?
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2023-12-06) Lee, Tae-Jin; Moon, Juhyeon
    The budget allocation in response to the COVID-19 pandemic indicates an increase in both health and non-health sectors, together with policy prioritization to mitigate socioeconomic damage globally. In contrast with responses to previous economic crises, many governments instead expanded their budget, resulting in increased support for the health care sector. However, a significant portion of the budget was allocated to economic stimulus and industrial investment. Accordingly, the budget allocated to prevention and response to infectious diseases in the health care sector was relatively small, or it was spent from ear-marked resources such as social health insurance. However, health crises such as the pandemic required an essential workforce and additional services to protect population health and expedite the socioeconomic recovery. In this sense, strengthening the sustainability and resilience of the health care system was a way toward national security and economic growth. Governments would need to allocate additional budgets to the health sector in response to health crisis, and mobilize earmarked funds collected from social insurance contributions. The latter enables the provision of essential health services with or without governments’ financial support. A mixed payment system could boost surge capacity in the health care system and provide incentives for medical providers.

Users also downloaded

Showing related downloaded files

  • Publication
    Strategic Planning for Poverty Reduction in Vietnam : Progress and Challenges for Meeting the Localized Millennium Development Goals
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2003-01) Swinkels, Rob; Turk, Carrie
    This paper discusses the progress that Vietnam has made toward meeting a core set of development goals that the government recently adopted as part of its Comprehensive Poverty Reduction and Growth Strategy (CPRGS). These goals are strongly related to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), but are adapted and expanded to reflect Vietnam's national challenges and the government's ambitious development plans. For each Vietnam Development Goal, the authors describe recent trends in relation to the trajectories implied by the MDGs, outline the intermediate targets identified by the government, and discuss the challenges involved in meeting these. Relative to other countries of similar per capita expenditures, Vietnam has made rapid progress in a number of key areas. Poverty has halved over the 1990s, enrollment rates in primary education have risen to 91 percent (although there is a quality problem), indicators of gender equity have been strengthened, child mortality has been reduced, maternal health has improved, and real progress has been made in combating malaria and other communicable diseases. In contrast, Vietnam scores worse than other comparable countries in the areas of child malnutrition, access to clean water, and combating HIV/AIDS. A number of important crosscutting issues emerge from this analysis that need to be addressed. One such challenge is improving equity, both in terms of ensuring that the benefits of growth are distributed evenly across the population and in terms of access to public services. This will involve addressing the affordability of education and curative health care for poor households. Improvements in public expenditure planning are needed to align resources better to stated desired outcomes and to link nationally-defined targets to subnational planning and budgeting processes. There is also a need to address capacity and data gaps which will be crucial for effective monitoring.
  • Publication
    International Debt Report 2024
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-12-03) World Bank
    For more than five decades, the World Bank’s premier annual publication on debt, now titled the International Debt Report (IDR), along with the associated International Debt Statistics (IDS) database, have helped shape policies in development finance by sharing timely and comprehensive external debt data and analysis with the international community. Drawing on data collected through the World Bank’s Debtor Reporting System, this publication has kept pace with evolving borrowing patterns and new lending instruments, measured the impact of initiatives to relieve debt burdens, and promoted best practices in debt recording and reporting. Each year the report presents timely analysis of evolving trends in external debt stocks and flows of low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), as well as issues and challenges for development finance. The IDS database provides comprehensive information on external debt stocks and flows of public and private borrowers in LMICs by borrower and creditor, the terms on which external loans are contracted, current and future debt service, and debt indicators in relation to key economic variables. IDR 2024 encompasses: (1) a two-page foreword signed by the World Bank’s chief economist; (2) key takeaways from the report; (3) analysis of external debt stocks and flows for 2013–2023; (4) the macroeconomic and debt outlook for 2024 and beyond; (5) the debt transparency agenda: moving it forward; and (6) one-page summaries per country, plus global, regional and income-group aggregates showing debt stocks and flows, relevant debt indicators and metadata for 5 years (2019–2023). For more information on IDR 2024 and related products, please visit the World Bank’s Debt Statistics website at www.worldbank.org/debtstatistics.
  • Publication
    Central African Republic Country Climate and Development Report
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-10-23) World Bank Group
    The Central African Republic (CAR) Climate Change and Development Report (CCDR) provides an in-depth analysis of the country’s vulnerability to climate change and its implications for sustainable development. The report identifies key challenges, including frequent extreme weather events such as floods and droughts, deforestation, and weak institutional capacity. These challenges threaten the livelihoods of rural populations, exacerbate food insecurity, and hinder economic development. However, the CCDR also highlights significant opportunities for CAR to transition toward a more resilient and sustainable future. By promoting climate-smart agriculture, sustainable forest management, and renewable energy development, the country can mitigate the effects of climate change while unlocking new economic growth avenues. The report provides strategic recommendations to strengthen institutional capacities, integrate climate action into national development plans, and mobilize climate finance to support resilience-building initiatives. The CCDR serves as a roadmap for operationalizing climate action in CAR, calling for stronger governance, enhanced stakeholder engagement, and innovative financing mechanisms to help the country adapt to climate challenges while promoting sustainable development.
  • Publication
    Rising to the Challenge
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-10-31) World Bank
    About 1.2 billion people - one in five people in the world – are at high risk from climate-related hazards, but much can be done to make people, business, communities, and countries more resilient. The new World Bank flagship report “Rising to the Challenge” argues that reducing climate and disaster impacts requires a combination of more rapid development, more resilient development, and targeted adaptation interventions. Development plays a key role as nobody can be resilient without access to basic infrastructure and social services, decent housing, or while living in poverty. While a 10-percent increase in income is associated with a decrease in the population at high risk by close to 100 million people, current development patterns will not be enough. An assessment of 44 countries shows that, in spite of growing attention and adaptation planning, most countries are still lagging in implementing resilience interventions, especially those related to policies and macro-fiscal dimensions, and in the monitoring and evaluation of their actions. However, the report dispels the idea that no progress is being done: a collection of case studies - with firms, governments, and public-private partnerships - shows that the private and public actors are undertaking promising adaptation and resilience efforts with measurable results and good practices that can replicated to scale up action and to build resilience for all.
  • Publication
    Unbreakable
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2017) Bangalore, Mook; Hallegatte, Stephane; Vogt-Schilb, Adrien; Rozenberg, Julie
    “Economic losses from natural disasters totaled $92 billion in 2015.” Such statements, all too commonplace, assess the severity of disasters by no other measure than the damage inflicted on buildings, infrastructure, and agricultural production. But $1 in losses does not mean the same thing to a rich person that it does to a poor person; the gravity of a $92 billion loss depends on who experiences it. By focusing on aggregate losses—the traditional approach to disaster risk—we restrict our consideration to how disasters affect those wealthy enough to have assets to lose in the first place, and largely ignore the plight of poor people. This report moves beyond asset and production losses and shifts its attention to how natural disasters affect people’s well-being. Disasters are far greater threats to well-being than traditional estimates suggest. This approach provides a more nuanced view of natural disasters than usual reporting, and a perspective that takes fuller account of poor people’s vulnerabilities. Poor people suffer only a fraction of economic losses caused by disasters, but they bear the brunt of their consequences. Understanding the disproportionate vulnerability of poor people also makes the case for setting new intervention priorities to lessen the impact of natural disasters on the world’s poor, such as expanding financial inclusion, disaster risk and health insurance, social protection and adaptive safety nets, contingent finance and reserve funds, and universal access to early warning systems. Efforts to reduce disaster risk and poverty go hand in hand. Because disasters impoverish so many, disaster risk management is inseparable from poverty reduction policy, and vice versa. As climate change magnifies natural hazards, and because protection infrastructure alone cannot eliminate risk, a more resilient population has never been more critical to breaking the cycle of disaster-induced poverty.