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BACKGROUND: Stepped-wedge cluster randomized trials (SW-CRTs) are increasingly popular in health-related research in both high- and low-resource settings. There may be specific ethical issues that researchers face when designing and conducting SW-CRTs in low-resource settings. Knowledge of these issues can help to improve the ethical conduct of SW-CRTs in a global health context. METHODS: We performed an ethical analysis of two studies using SW-CRT designs in low-resource settings: the Que Vivan Las Madres study conducted from 2014 to 2017 in Guatemala and the Atmiyata study conducted from 2017 to 2018 in rural parts of India. For both case studies, we identified and evaluated the classification of the study as research or nonresearch and the ethical issues regarding the justification of the design, including the delayed rollout of an intervention that had a promising effect. RESULTS: In our case studies, some minor ethical issues surfaced about the registration and stakeholder pressure on the order of randomization, but both included good justification for the design and delayed rollout. Our analysis did, however, demonstrate that careful consideration of the role of randomization and registration of the trials is important. DISCUSSION: SW-CRTs can provide an opportunity for rigorous evaluation of interventions destined to be rolled out on the basis of limited evidence. Furthermore, in SW-CRTs, the underlying objective is often to provide a robust evaluation of the effectiveness for generalized dissemination, and this makes the SW-CRT no less a research study than any other form of cluster randomized trial. CONCLUSION: The design and conduct of stepped-wedge cluster randomized trials raises at least two ethical issues that need special consideration in both high- and low-resource settings: the justification for using the design, specifically the delayed rollout of the intervention to the control group, and the classification of the study as research or nonresearch. In our case studies, these issues did not seem to raise special ethical scrutiny in low-resource settings. Further ethical evaluation will hopefully result in specific ethical guidelines for the use of SW-CRTs in both high- and low-resource settings to contribute to responsible functioning of these trials and adequate protection of participants.

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The article discusses psychology training in health care at the Federal University of São Paulo. It places curriculum guidelines in a changing movement of training for health professions, proposing Work in Health Care as one of its common axes. In the Baixada Santista campus, the course is based on learning by experience, public health services and multidisciplinary team work. Three vectors derived from the experience in this project and its assessment are discussed: a common clinic, work in health care as an ethics and the idea of good training by insufficiency.

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INTRODUCTION: Many countries have demonstrated interest in expanding their medical tourism sectors because of its potential economic and health system benefits. However, medical tourism poses challenges to the equitable distribution of health resources between international and local patients and private and public medical facilities. Currently, very little is known about how medical tourism is perceived among front line workers and users of health systems in medical tourism 'destinations'. Barbados is one such country currently seeking to expand its medical tourism sector. Barbadian nurses and health care users were consulted about the challenges and benefits posed by ongoing medical tourism development there. METHODS: Focus groups were held with two stakeholder groups in May, 2013. Nine (n = 9) citizens who use the public health system participated in the first focus group and seven (n = 7) nurses participated in the second. Each focus group ran for 1.5 hours and was digitally recorded. Following transcription, thematic analysis of the digitally coded focus group data was conducted to identify cross-cutting themes and issues. RESULTS: Three core concerns regarding medical tourism's health equity impacts were raised; its potential to 1) incentivize migration of health workers from public to private facilities, 2) burden Barbados' lone tertiary health care centre, and 3) produce different tiers of quality of care within the same health system. These concerns were informed and tempered by the existing a) health system structure that incorporates both universal public healthcare and a significant private medical sector, b) international mobility among patients and health workers, and c) Barbados' large recreational tourism sector, which served as the main reference in discussions about medical tourism's impacts. Incorporating these concerns and contextual influences, participants' shared their expectations of how medical tourism should locally develop and operate. CONCLUSIONS: By engaging with local health workers and users, we begin to unpack how potential health equity impacts of medical tourism in an emerging destination are understood by local stakeholders who are not directing sector development. This further outlines how these groups employ knowledge from their home context to ground and reconcile their hopes and concerns for the impacts posed by medical tourism.

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Within the context of global health development approaches, surgical missions to provide care for underserved populations remain the least studied interventions with regard to their methodology. Because of the unique logistical needs of delivering operative care, surgical missions are often described solely in terms of cases performed, with a paucity of discourse on medical ethics. Within surgery, subspecialties that serve patients on a non-elective basis should, it could be argued, create mission strategies that involve a didactic approach and the propagation of sustainable surgical care. The ethical considerations have yet to be described for paediatric neurosurgical outreach missions. We present here the perspectives of neurosurgeons who have participated in surgical outreach missions in Central America, South America, Eastern Europe and sub-Saharan Africa from the vantage point of both the visiting mission team and the host team that accommodates the mission efforts.

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Technology transfer is a promising approach to increase vaccine production at an affordable price in developing countries. In the case of influenza, it is imperative that developing countries acquire the technology to produce pandemic vaccines through the transfer of know-how, as this will be the only way for the majority of these countries to face the huge demand for vaccine created by influenza pandemics. Access to domestically produced influenza vaccine in such health crises is thus an important national defence strategy. However, technology transfer is not a simple undertaking. It requires a committed provider who is willing to transfer a complete production process, and not just the formulation and fill-finish parts of the process. It requires a recipient with established experience in vaccine production for human use and the ability to conduct research into new developments. In addition, the country of the recipient should preferably have sufficient financial resources to support the undertaking, and an internal market for the new vaccine. Technology transfer should create a solid partnership that results in the joint development of new competency, improvements to the product, and to further innovation.The Instituto Butantan–sanofi pasteur partnership can be seen as a model for successful technology transfer and has led to the technological independence of the Instituto Butantan in the use a strategic public health tool.

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Estudo exploratório qualitativo objetivou conhecer e analisar critérios levantados por bioeticistas sobre o estabelecimento de prioridades para o sistema de saúde brasileiro em face da escassez de recursos. Os dados foram obtidos no período de julho de 2007 a fevereiro de 2009 mediante entrevistas semiestruturadas com 21 professores universitários de bioética, diretores e ex-diretores da Sociedade Brasileira de Bioética (SBB) e de suas diretorias regionais. A maior parte dos discursos apontou a validade de se limitar recursos em situação de escassez e contrariedadeà utilização dos recursos voltados para ações que se enquadram na denominação de medicina de desejo. Também demonstram posicionamentos, ora orientados pela equidade, priorizando os mais desfavorecidos, ora orientados pela maximização dos benefícios. Conclui-se nesta análise parcial pela existência de um pluralismo moral que traz dificuldades para decidir-se sobre o que seria um sistema de saúde justo, do que se pode depreender ser necessário exaustivo diálogo para se chegar aos consensos possíveis.

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Siempre la distribución de recursos económicos tiene un componente ético. Como ética aplicada hay que situarla en su circunstancia. Por lo tanto, varía según su época histórica. En este trabajo se hace un brevísimo recorrido histórico para situarse en el hoy, en que este tema es más candente. Tema siempre abierto a la deliberación y a la racionalidad prudente y responsable.

The distribution of economic resources always has an ethical element. As applied ethics, the same must be placed according to its circumstances, which varies according to its moment in history. We present a brief historical look in order to position ourselves in the present, where the issue has taken on unsuspected importance. Ethics is always open to deliberation, as well as prudent and responsible rationality.

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The purpose of this article is to reflect on the pertinence and moral legitimacy of basing the allocation of public resources for health on the age variable, considered from the perspective of the theory of "justice as equity" as formulated by John Rawls. After characterizing the problem of public resource allocation for health -- confronted with the challenge posed by population aging -- and briefly presenting the concept of equity adopted in this study, as well as discussing the approach by Norman Daniels and Daniel Callahan to resource allocation among different age groups, we conclude that basing resource allocation on the age variable may be considered ethically adequate if we conceive the individual's life as a limited cycle of existence formed by different stages (childhood, adolescence, maturity, old age, and death), during which the needs vary, such that the distribution of resources among different age groups should be based on an ethics of protection.

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