Short-Term Medical Relief Trips to Help Vulnerable Populations in Latin America. Bringing Clarity to the Scene.
Int J Environ Res Public Health
; 16(5)2019 03 01.
Article
en En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-30832251
Non-profit organizations provide international medical relief trips to low/middle-income countries (LMIC) in order to provide healthcare to medically underserved areas. Short-term medical relief trips (STMRT) take a large amount of time and resources, and arouse concerns about their actual effectiveness. Here we develop a novel tool for consistently assessing how U.S. organizations provide primary care to Latin America through short-term medical relief trips. First, in Part 1, we create a "Best Practice" (BP) framework focused on the efficacy, sustainability, and long-term impact of the organizations based on a review of the last 27 years of available literature published in peer-reviewed journals. Second, in Part 2, out of 581 total medical relief organizations in the US, we identify the 19 organizations currently providing short-term primary care services to Spanish-speaking countries in Latin America. We use the BP framework to analyze the website content and secondary sources of these 19 organizations. We find that only three of the 19 organizations met 80% or more of the criteria defining BP according to the framework and four out of the 19 did not perform well in any of the framework's three aspects of efficacy, sustainability, and long-term impact. Because there exists no current standardized way of assessing the methods implemented and services offered by STMRT, we provide suggestions about using this novel framework as a self-assessment tool for STMRT organizations.
Palabras clave
Texto completo:
1
Colección:
01-internacional
Base de datos:
MEDLINE
Asunto principal:
Poblaciones Vulnerables
/
Accesibilidad a los Servicios de Salud
/
Misiones Médicas
/
Área sin Atención Médica
Tipo de estudio:
Guideline
/
Prognostic_studies
Aspecto:
Determinantes_sociais_saude
Límite:
Humans
Idioma:
En
Revista:
Int J Environ Res Public Health
Año:
2019
Tipo del documento:
Article
País de afiliación:
Estados Unidos
Pais de publicación:
Suiza