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Geographical Locations - Cuba
Categories
Country Information
- (Statistical) Number of Inhabitants per Doctor: 303
- CIA - World Factbook : Cuba
Organisations and Networks
UN and Multinational
Government]
Cuba - Sitio del Gobierno de la República de Cuba
Ministerio de Salud Pública de Cuba
- Dirección Nacional de Estadística
Dossier Cuba Salud
Salud en Cuba
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Non-Government
Academic Institutions
National Policy and Related Documents
Reports, Guidelines, and Projects
- Approaches to the Management of HIV/AIDS in Cuba: Case study - Perspectives and practice in antiretroviral treatment
Cuba is one of the few developing countries to provide comprehensive health care for people living with HIV/AIDS. Key to its success has been the political will to act and not wait for external assistance. Their HIV/AIDS programme is based on a comprehensive health care system that has facilitated good control over blood transfusion and blood products as well as prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV. Access to antiretroviral drugs has been possible largely through Cuban resources. [publication summary] [World Health Organization, Geneva, 2004]
- Civil society and health system in Cuba
This 2007 paper by Francisco Rojas Ochoa and Leticia Artiles Visbal on behalf of the Health Systems Knowledge Network, the WHO Commission on the Social Determinants of Health, was translated from the Spanish. Its purpose was "to provide information on Cuba's experience in social participation in the construction of a national health system, its development and control."
- Comparison of Health Care Financing Arrangements in Egypt and Cuba: Lessons for Health Reform in Egypt
Egypt and Cuba are both lower-middle income countries with a history of socialist rule and which have embarked on economic liberalisation since the 1990s. Health status in both countries is extremely different. While life expectancy of the Cuban population in all age-groups is similar to that of many high-income industrialised countries, health status in Egypt is relatively poor compared to countries with a similar national income and compared to regional comparators. Health care systems in both countries are also markedly different, although both share a socialist origin with centralised administration of funding and delivery, funding mainly from general taxation, and state-employed providers. In this article, health care financing mechanisms in both countries are analysed on their effectiveness, efficiency, and equity, with the objective of identifying the determinants of success in the Cuban health care system from which valuable lessons for current health reforms in Egypt may be derived. [author abstract] [Technische Universität Berlin, Discussion Paper 3, March 2004]
- Global Pharmaceutical Development and Access: Critical Issues of Ethics and Equity
The article presents global data on access to pharmaceuticals and discusses underlying barriers. Two are highly visible: pricing policies and intellectual property rights; two are less recognized: the regulatory environment and scientific and technological capacities. Two ongoing transitions influence and even distort the problem of universal access to medications: the epidemiologic transition to an increasing burden of chronic non-communicable diseases; and the growing role of biotechnology products (especially immunobiologicals) in the pharmacopeia. Examples from Cuba and Brazil are used to explore what can and should be done to address commercial, regulatory, and technological aspects of assuring universal access to medications. [author abstract] [MEDICC Review Vol. 13, No 3, PP.16-22, July 2011]
- Health in Cuba
The poorer countries of the world continue to struggle with an enormous health burden from diseases that we have long had the capacity to eliminate. Similarly, the health systems of some countries, rich and poor alike, are fragmented and inefficient, leaving many population groups underserved and often without health care access entirely. Cuba represents an important alternative example where modest infrastructure investments combined with a well-developed public health strategy have generated health status measures comparable with those of industrialized countries. Areas of success include control of infectious diseases, reduction in infant mortality, establishment of a research and biotechnology industry, and progress in control of chronic diseases, among others. If the Cuban experience were generalized to other poor and middle-income countries human health would be transformed. Given current political alignments, however, the major public health advances in Cuba, and the underlying strategy that has guided its health gains, have been systematically ignored. Scientists make claims to objectivity and empiricism that are often used to support an argument that they make unique contributions to social welfare. To justify those claims in the arena of international health, an open discussion should take place on the potential lessons to be learned from the Cuban experience. [author abstract] [International Journal of Epidemiology 2006; 35: 817–824]
- Health in the Americas 2007: Cuba
As a health agency, the Pan American Health Organization’s core discipline is epidemiology, which enables the measurement, definition, and comparison of health problems and conditions and their distribution from the perspectives of population, geography, and time. This publication on Cuba addresses the issue of health as a human right, taking into account both the individual and community contexts, and examines various critical determinants of health, including those of a biological, social, cultural, economic, and political nature. That examination reveals the existence of gaps, disparities, and inequities that persist in Cuba, especially those related to access to basic services, health, nutrition, housing, and adequate living conditions as well as to the lack of opportunities for human development—all of which contribute to the greater vulnerability to diseases and health risks of some population groups. [Adapted from the preface of Health in the Americas 2007]
- HIV/AIDS in Cuba: lessons and challenges
"Cuba, a relatively poor, socialist, developing country has the lowest rate of HIV infection in the Caribbean subregion and a rate among the lowest in the world. Yet when we look at the published explanations for this, outside Cuba, we face a wall of controversy and disdain. A fair amount of the criticism seems due to ideological wars and the economic blockade by the United States of America (US) imposed on Cuba. The latter certainly undermines communication, scientific exchange, and understanding. Cuba’s achievements in public health and its relative success in containing the HIV/AIDS pandemic deserve restating, but they are relatively uncontroversial. This paper suggests that it is Cuban methods and the understandings of those methods that deserve greater attention. Particular ideas persist, outside Cuba, about the Cuban HIV program: that its success has been due to policies of isolation, coercive testing, and an anti-homosexual approach. Very little of this forms part of the perspective of contemporary Cuban health professionals, who typically say that their program has both drawn from and contributed to global themes of health promotion, participatory education, sexual inclusiveness, contact tracing, and targeted and voluntary testing. There is also a broader Cuban theme called ‘intersectoral cooperation’ that stresses a coordinated social response to health challenges." [Rev Panam Salud Publica, vol.26, no.1, July 2009, pp.78-86]
- Re-examining the Cuban Health Care System: Towards a Qualitative Critique
"Based on such key statistical indicators as infant mortality, longevity, infectious disease rates, and provision of health services, Cuba appears far superior to neighboring countries. The vast majority of scholarly analyses of Cuba’s health care system have been positive, and the Cuban government continues to respond to international criticism of its human rights record by citing this praise for its achievements in health and medicine. In fact, some scholars continue to argue that despite the debilitating economic crisis brought on by the collapse of the Soviet Union, Cuba’s health system remains superior to neighboring countries such as the Dominican Republic. My own research, however, suggests that the unequivocally positive descriptions of the Cuban health care system in the social science literature are somewhat misleading. In the late 1990s, I conducted over nine months of qualitative ethnographic and archival research in Cuba. During that time I shadowed physicians in family health clinics, conducted formal and informal interviews with a number of health professionals, lived in local communities, and sought to participate in everyday life as much as possible. Throughout the course of this research, I found a number of discrepancies between the way the Cuban health care system has been described in the scholarly literature, and the way it appears to be described and experienced by Cubans themselves. This paper will provide a brief overview of several of these issues, with the goal of offering a more balanced and ethnographically informed portrait of the Cuban health care system. A final section will discuss these issues in the context of the assumptions social scientists have historically made regarding the nature of health and health systems in socialist countries." [Cuban Affairs Vol. 2, Issue 3, July 2007]
- Thomas McKeown, Meet Fidel Castro: Physicians, Population Health and the Cuban Paradox
"About 40 years ago, Thomas McKeown demonstrated that the historic decline in the great killer diseases owed little or nothing to progress in medicine. A generation of research on population health followed, highlighting the large social gradients in health within populations. These vary greatly across societies, but appear largely unrelated to medical care. Medicine was acknowledged as 'powerful, but within limits'; the major determinants of health lie elsewhere. We may have missed something. Cuba has achieved 'first world' population health status despite a minimal economic base. Far from marginalizing medicine, Cuba has by far the world's largest physician workforce. But doctors' roles are significantly expanded. The system seems to work." [Healthcare Policy / Politiques de Santé, 3(4) 2008: 21-32]
- Womens' [sic] opinions on antenatal care in developing countries: results of a study in Cuba, Thailand, Saudi Arabia and Argentina
Background: The results of a qualitative study carried out in four developing countries (Cuba, Thailand, Saudi Arabia and Argentina) are presented. The study was conducted in the context of a randomised controlled trial to test the benefits of a new antenatal care protocol that reduced the number of visits to the doctor, rationalised the application of technology, and improved the provision of information to women in relation to the traditional protocol applied in each country. Methods: Through focus groups discussions we were able to assess the concepts and expectations underlying women's evaluation of concepts and experiences of the care received in antenatal care clinics. 164 women participated in 24 focus groups discussion in all countries. Results: Three areas are particularly addressed in this paper: a) concepts about pregnancy and health care, b) experience with health services and health providers, and c) opinions about the modified Antenatal Care (ANC) programme. In all three topics similarities were identified as well as particular opinions related to country specific social and cultural values. In general women have a positive view of the new ANC protocol, particularly regarding the information they receive. However, controversial issues emerged such as the reduction in the number of visits, particularly in Cuba where women are used to have 18 ANC visits in one pregnancy period. Conclusion: Recommendations to improve ANC services performance are being proposed. Any country interested in the application of a new ANC protocol should regard the opinion and acceptability of women towards changes. [author abstract] [BMC Public Health 2003, 3: 17]
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