A systematic review of social, economic and diplomatic aspects of short-term medical missions.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Short-term medical missions (STMMs) represent a grass-roots form of aid, transferring medical services rather than funds or equipment. The objective of this paper is to review empirical studies on social, economic and diplomatic aspects of STMMs.

Methods

A systematic literature review was conducted by searching PubMed and EBSCOhost for articles published from 1947-2014 about medical missions to lower and middle income countries (LMICs). Publications focused on military, disaster and dental service trips were excluded. A data extraction process was used to identify publications relevant to our objective stated above.

Results

PubMed and EBSCOhost searches provided 4138 and 3262 articles respectively for review. Most articles that provide useful information ha

SUBMITTER: Caldron PH 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4572642 | biostudies-literature | 2015 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature