CPR Survival Rates Can Differ Greatly by City

A mobile health project in Ethiopia gives any health worker with a smartphone access to the information they need to deal with emergencies during childbirth. Now it's being scaled up to reach 10,000 health workers across Africa and Southeast Asia by 2017.

Despite being an island of seamen, Iceland used to experience high numbers of drownings every year, fostering a keen interest in swimming education. The government stepped up and tapped into the underground hot water generated by Iceland’s volcanic activity to create geothermal pools, which quickly became more than a humble municipal investment, but perhaps the very secret to the country’s happiness. Every town now enjoys communal pools, which create a neutral, recreational space that brings all manner of people together.

In India, failing road safety and accident respondent systems have created a nationwide crisis. SaveLife Foundation is addressing these problems head on, through outreach, legal battles, and innovative solutions to ineffective government policy.

Wildfires are inevitable, especially as forests become drier due to climate change, but it is possible to design the built environment so that fires don’t destroy as much property or as many lives. Architects now can choose different materials that resist ignition from wind-borne embers and can put more distance between homes. Spacing homes farther apart and burying power lines can help, but the changing climate is also making some places unsuitable for rebuilding destroyed communities.

A Denver group called Dispatch Health is an urgent care "delivery" service. Instead of requiring the patient to come to the hospital, Dispatch Health come to the patient's home and administers care on site. The group is working to be more economical than a traditional hospital as well, with services from $40-50 for insured patients and a flat rate of $275 for the uninsured.

Access to medical resources improves the effectiveness of health centers. In the village of Fuka, in Nigeria’s Niger State, NGOs such as the RAiSE Foundation and TY Danjuma Foundation have stepped in to support the local Primary Health Centre (PHC). Multiple initiatives, including home visits and the distribution of mosquito nets, have built relationships with the community; the most successful aspects have been the Mama Kit, given free of charge to pregnant women at the PHC, and the donation of an emergency ambulatory tricycle.

After realizing that too many people were calling 911 for issues that were not medical emergencies in Richland, Illinois, a program was launched to act as an intervention strategy. After the start, calls decreased by over 40 percent, which helped make emergency vehicles and responders available for more serious calls.

When Henrico County Fire Department began to respond to calls for people exhibiting signs of coronavirus, they began utilizing recommendations of how best to stay safe. Although restrictive, this new playbook helps emergency responders stay safe by "limiting the number of responders that go into a facility" and encourages nursing homes to bring patients "as close to the ambulance entrance as possible."

Crime-tracking mobile apps give millions of Brazilians crowdsourced data on urban violence, alerting people to dangerous places and filling gaps in government data on shootings, robberies, and other risks. But apps such as Fogo Cruzado (“Crossfire”) and Onde Tem Tiroteio (“Where There's a Shooting”) offer statistically crude glimpses of crime, distorted by media and racial biases that one expert blames for myths about the risks people actually face.

To aid in postpartum hemorrhage care, the Kisumu Medical and Education Trust distributes uterine balloon tamponade kits that can be used to stop excessive bleeding and prevent death after other measures have failed. The kits have been provided to more than 1,300 healthcare facilities in 23 countries and over 6,000 healthcare workers have been trained to use them.