Alcohol policy in Chile: a systematic review of policy developments and evaluations.

AIMS: To comprehensively review enacted and proposed alcohol laws and existing impact evaluations of national alcohol policies in Chile. METHODS: We searched enacted laws in the Chilean National Library of Congress, proposed laws in the websites of the House of Deputies and Senate and impact evaluations in PubMed, Web of Science, Scopus, Scielo, JSTOR, Epistemonikos and OpenGrey from inception to February 2019. Eligibility criteria included enacted laws and proposed laws on national alcohol policies and research studies evaluating the impact of national alcohol policies. One author screened enacted laws and proposed laws; two authors independently screened research records. We included any national alcohol policy intervention and classified policies according to 10 World Health Organization (WHO) alcohol policy domains. We used the Cochrane EPOC Review Group criteria to assess risk of bias of research records. We registered the review protocol in PROSPERO, registration record CRD42016050156. RESULTS: We identified and screened 229 enacted laws, 138 proposed laws and 1538 research records. Of these, 72 enacted laws, 118 proposed laws and three research articles were eligible for synthesis. We found enacted policies in all WHO alcohol policy domains. Regarding the most cost-effective policies, Chile has made limited use of taxation, has not regulated alcohol marketing and has weakened alcohol availability regulation. We found a large number of proposed laws, 79% of which would strengthen alcohol control. The few impact evaluation studies examined drink-driving policies and found a short-term reduction of alcohol-related injuries and deaths. CONCLUSIONS: Chile has enacted alcohol policies in all World Health Organization policy domains, but has not adopted policies with highest likely cost-effectiveness. Only the impact of drink-driving policies has been evaluated.

Priority setting for mental health research in Chile.

BACKGROUND: Scientific knowledge is a fundamental tool for making informed health policy decisions, but the link between health research and public policy decision-making is often missing. This study aims to identify and prioritize a national set of research gaps in mental health. METHODS: A multi-approach method to identify gaps in knowledge was developed, including (1) document analysis and identification of possible research questions, (2) interviews to Ministry of Health key informants, (3) focus groups with different stakeholders, and (4) a web consultation addressed to academics. The identified gaps were translated to a standardized format of research questions. Criteria for prioritization were extracted from interviews and focus groups. Then, a team of various professionals applied them for scoring each question research. FINDINGS: Fifty-four people participated in the knowledge gaps identification process through an online consultation (n = 23) and focus groups (n = 18). Prioritization criteria identified were: extent of the knowledge gap, size of the objective population, potential benefit, vulnerability, urgency and applicability. 155 research questions were prioritized, of which 44% were related to evaluation of systems and/or health programs, and 26% to evaluation of interventions, including questions related to cost-effectiveness. 30% of the research questions came from the online consultation, and 36% from key informants. Users groups contributed with 10% of total research questions. CONCLUSION: A final priority setting for mental health research was reached, making available for authorities and research agencies a list of 155 research questions ordered by relevance. The experience documented here could serve to other countries interested in developing a similar process.

Mental health in primary healthcare in Chile.

Chile has two major national health systems, the public one, which serves nearly 80% of the country's close to 17 million population, and the private one, which serves the other 20%. The public primary healthcare system has been developing in Chile since before the Alma Ata Conference in 1978 (which produced the first international declaration on the importance of primary healthcare).

Psychiatric country profile: Chile.

Chile has approximately 600 psychiatrists for its 15 million people. Although in the capital city, Santiago, the provision (per capita) is twice as high as in the rest of the territory, it is possible to see over the past decade a progressive increase in the number of these specialists in the other main cities. There are no more than 50 child psychiatrists and several cities have no local resource in this sub-speciality.

Políticas de salud mental 1990-1993 / Polices of mental health 1990-1993

Se hace una breve descripción de las actividades institucionales sanitarias dentro del campo de la salud mental, realizadas en el país entre 1990-94. Entre ellas se mencionan las unidades de salud mental de los servicios de salud, los grupos de autoayuda en el nivel primario, las comunidades terapéuticas, los centros comunitarios de salud mental familiar, etc. Los criterios básicos subyacentes a tales actividades han sido ampliar el campo de acción, la descentralización de acciones y decisiones, la red se salud mental en la atención primaria, la atención de problemas emergentes, y la formación de personal

Mesa redonda: psiquiatría comunitaria en Chile / Round table: communitary psychiatry in Chile

Se presentan diversas perspectivas propias de la psiquiatría comunitaria, enumerándose las más destacadas: la creación de redes sociales de apoyo, la utilidad de las agrupaciones de familiares de los pacientes, la incorporación de la evaluación cualitativa a la cuantitativa, y la necesidad de continuar los encuentros e intercambio entre los técnicos y tales agrupaciones