The HEU Centre’s NTSS was the brainchild of Prof. Karl Theodore, and it was created out of a need for a forum for the presentation of research findings in the area of Health and Social Security for the University community. The NTSS quickly evolved since its inception and today it functions as a forum for the sharing of research findings and discussion on key policy issues in the area of Health and Development that are relevant to the Caribbean by Policy Specialists, Practitioners, Researchers and members of Academia...see more
Guided by the principles of Universal Health Coverage, all countries now fully recognise that good health is both a critical input to and outcome of individual, community and national development. To optimize health inputs and outcomes, governments and civil society groups have crucial roles to systematically support, supplement and sustain actions in financing, delivery and regulations of health services. From the evidence, there is much variability in capabilities, competence and performance of Caribbean countries in securing UHC in terms of providing and managing the financial resources for executing these health functions-actions...see more
The broad goals of our Social Security Webinar series are to facilitate a regional dialogue on social security in the face of all the challenges to the economic system and the health system; and to share ideas and experiences and build on best practices so that we can learn from each other and engender action to safeguard our social security systems against the multiplicity of threats we as a region are facing...see more
The University of the West Indies, HEU, Centre for Health Economics (UWI-HEU) was commissioned by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and the Rockefeller Foundation to coordinate a Caribbean Community of Practice (CCoP) for COVID-19 initiative involving three countries—Jamaica, The Bahamas, and Trinidad and Tobago. The goal of the CCoP is to foster collaboration and knowledge exchange among Caribbean countries and to identify, adapt, and scale-up best practices to improve critical pillars of responding to the COVID-19 pandemic. Further, the CCoP aims to support countries to develop a more harmonized and integrated response to the COVID-19 pandemic. It creates opportunities to for participants apply approaches to other health issues such as non-communicable diseases and mental health and contribute to the resilience objective, which countries in the region have espoused.
To this end, the CCoP for COVID-19 engaged in a series of technical online discussions held virtually from February to April 2022. These discussions allowed participants to exchange information and knowledge about interventions that have helped to mitigate problems. Participants were also exposed to solutions that have been successfully implemented in other countries, and which could be adapted for the Caribbean. Given the wide reach and severity of the pandemic, the CCoP membership is multi-sectoral in composition.