Short-Term Medical Relief Trips to Help Vulnerable Populations in Latin America. Bringing Clarity to the Scene.

Melodyanne Cheng,Eunice Rodriguez

doi:10.3390/ijerph16050745

Melodyanne Cheng, Eunice Rodriguez

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph16050745

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Abstract

Non-profit organizations provide international medical relief trips to low/middle-income countries (LMIC) in order to provide healthcare to medically underserved areas. Short-term medical relief trips (STMRT) take a large amount of time and resources, and arouse concerns about their actual effectiveness. Here we develop a novel tool for consistently assessing how U.S. organizations provide primary care to Latin America through short-term medical relief trips. First, in Part 1, we create a “Best Practice” (BP) framework focused on the efficacy, sustainability, and long-term impact of the organizations based on a review of the last 27 years of available literature published in peer-reviewed journals. Second, in Part 2, out of 581 total medical relief organizations in the US, we identify the 19 organizations currently providing short-term primary care services to Spanish-speaking countries in Latin America. We use the BP framework to analyze the website content and secondary sources of these 19 organizations. We find that only three of the 19 organizations met 80% or more of the criteria defining BP according to the framework and four out of the 19 did not perform well in any of the framework’s three aspects of efficacy, sustainability, and long-term impact. Because there exists no current standardized way of assessing the methods implemented and services offered by STMRT, we provide suggestions about using this novel framework as a self-assessment tool for STMRT organizations.

Highlights

The United States, followed by Canada, Australia, and the United Kingdom, is estimated to send the most short-term medical relief trips to foreign countries like Mexico, Honduras, Peru, and Tanzania [1,2]
“Best Practice” (BP) framework focused on the efficacy, sustainability, and long-term impact of the organizations based on a review of the last 27 years of available literature published in peer-reviewed journals
Because there exists no current standardized way of assessing the methods implemented and services offered by Short-term medical relief trips (STMRT), we provide suggestions about using this novel framework as a self-assessment tool for Keywords: short-term medical trips; international medical relief; quality of care; primary care

Summary

Introduction

The United States, followed by Canada, Australia, and the United Kingdom, is estimated to send the most short-term medical relief trips to foreign countries like Mexico, Honduras, Peru, and Tanzania [1,2]. Organized by non-profit organizations, private interests, and universities, short-term medical relief trips (STMRTs) often deliver either primary or specialized tertiary care to lowand middle-income countries over brief periods ranging from 1 day to 1–2 weeks [3,4]. These relief trips are a popular choice of volunteer work among college students, high schoolers, and medical professionals, with thousands of teams venturing out each year from the United States to provide free healthcare in developing countries [5,6]. Critics commonly argue that short-term medical missions act only as temporary

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