Assessing capacities to strengthen intersectoral collaboration in Territorial Public Health Councils in the Republic of Moldova.

Autor: Lozan O; School of Public Health Management, Nicolae Testemitanu State University of Medicine and Pharmacy, Chișinău, Republic of Moldova., Mîţa V; School of Public Health Management, Nicolae Testemitanu State University of Medicine and Pharmacy, Chișinău, Republic of Moldova., Demişcan D; School of Public Health Management, Nicolae Testemitanu State University of Medicine and Pharmacy, Chișinău, Republic of Moldova., Buzeti T; WHO European Office for Investment for Health and Development, Venice, Italy., Beznec P; The Centre for Health and Development Murska Sobota (CHD), Murska Sobota, Slovenia., Sava V; Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC), Chisinau, Republic of Moldova., Curteanu A; Healthy Life Project: Reducing the Burden of Non-Communicable Diseases in Moldova, Chisinau, Republic of Moldova.; Mother and Child Institute, Chisinau, Republic of Moldova., Rîmiş C; Healthy Life Project: Reducing the Burden of Non-Communicable Diseases in Moldova, Chisinau, Republic of Moldova., Canavan R; Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute, Allschwil, Switzerland.; University of Basel, Basel, Switzerland., Prytherch H; Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute, Allschwil, Switzerland.; University of Basel, Basel, Switzerland.
Jazyk: angličtina
Zdroj: PloS one [PLoS One] 2024 May 30; Vol. 19 (5), pp. e0303821. Date of Electronic Publication: 2024 May 30 (Print Publication: 2024).
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0303821
Abstrakt: Background: The government of the Republic of Moldova, endorsed the principle of Health in All Policies (HiAP) through its health sector reforms to address the rising burden of non-communicable diseases and health inequalities. Territorial Public Health Councils (TPHCs) were created to ensure the coordination and management of the population's health in their respective district. This study assessed the capacities of the TPHCs to identify areas in need of support for strengthening their intersectoral collaboration role in public health at local level.
Methods: A mixed-method approach, using qualitative and quantitative techniques, was used to compare the perceptions of all TPHC members (n = 112) and invitees (n = 53) to council meetings from 10 districts covering all geographical areas of Moldova. The quantitative information was obtained using a cross-sectional survey, while the qualitative aspects were assessed within focus group discussions (FGDs).
Results: Half of all TPHC members, including 75% from groups with a non-medical background, did not attend a public health course within the last three years. Overall, groups with a medical background were more aware of the legislation that governs TPHC activity and intersectoral collaboration compared with those with a non-medical background. The FGDs of TPHC meetings revealed that members had an insufficient level of understanding of intersectoral collaboration to solve public health issues and lacked clarity about their place and role within the TPHC.
Conclusions: HiAP implementation was found to be suboptimal with insufficient capacity at local level. TPHC members' ability to deal with public health issues were severely impaired by a general lack of knowledge and understanding of how to utilize the TPHC platform for maximum benefit. Reforming TPHC regulation is required in addition to extensive capacity building for TPHC members to increase member understanding of their roles as intended by TPHC regulations, including the facilitation of intersectoral collaborations.
Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.
(Copyright: © 2024 Lozan et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.)
Databáze: MEDLINE
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