While the COVID-19 pandemic is still affecting people around the world, many of us are beginning to move forward. As we resume the practice of engaging with each other post COVID-19, it is the perfect time to reevaluate our health care systems and the role that we give to self-care within them.
Recently, the Self-Care Readiness Index 2.0 was launched by the Global Self-Care Federation. The index reaffirms the need for a greater integration of self-care into health care.
Due to a combination of demographic changes and medical progress, health care systems across the world face serious challenges, which were further exacerbated during the COVID-19 pandemic. This is precisely the reason as to why we need to undergo a process of reflection and analysis to further implement self-care.
We can, and must, learn from our experiences. Current and future public health approaches need to be centered around care that espouses personal responsibility based on a more integrated, systematic practice of self-care.
What is self-care?
Self-care has been defined by the World Health Organization as “the ability of individuals, families, and communities to promote health, prevent disease, maintain health, and to cope with illness and disability with or without the support of a health worker.”
Adopting good self-care habits and embedding self-care into national health plans will be two of the best ways we can continue to protect ourselves, our communities, and health care professionals as we continue to engage with COVID-19 and apply our lessons to other illnesses.
What self-care means to Africa
Across Africa we generally see a lack of affordability and accessibility to health care, which poses a major challenge within the region. The pandemic only highlighted and intensified the health care disparities faced around the continent. Overall, despite a wide variety of cultures and populations in more than 40 countries in Africa, self-care patterns have been shown to be quite similar.
In the Global Social and Economic Value of Self-Care research conducted earlier this year, GSCF found that the future potential economic and social value of self-care for the region would almost double the current benefits. For example, the study estimated that the cost-containment value that self-care policy would bring to sub-Saharan Africa would be up to $4 billion, and that patients would save around half a billion hours per year, currently lost to doctors visits.
In the 2021 iteration of the index, South Africa was selected as one of the first countries for analysis — showcasing the leadership role that we can play in this sector in Africa.
Overall, the analysis found that while there are systemic inequalities that impact certain people’s ability to access healthy food or to the overall health care system in general, the National Health Promotion Policy & Strategy 2015-2019 did include a critical framework “to integrate health promotion into all health programmes to allow people to increase control over their health and to make healthy choices.”
Furthermore, the South African Department of Health is deeply aware of the importance of self-care, especially in relation to mental health and those dealing with chronic conditions. The COVID-19 resources made available to the population frequently reference self-care and the role it plays in contributing to good health and well-being throughout the pandemic.
Similar results to South Africa were seen from Kenya in this year’s iteration of the index. This shows that across Africa, though there are improvements to be made on the inclusion of self-care, active steps are being taken to ensure its inclusion.
Even though self-care has been defined by the World Health Organization as “the ability of individuals, families, and communities to promote health, prevent disease, maintain health, and to cope with illness and disability with or without the support of a health worker,” there are varying definitions and there is no uniformity in approach on how self-care is practiced.
The key issue is how best to operationalize self-care at local levels and what the critical steps should be. Some considerations of the first steps can be engagement of policy makers, advocates, and other relevant role players.
Taking collective action to integrate self-care into the global health care continuum is the logical and critical next step as we move to reevaluate the status of our health care systems. To support this, there needs to be a global compact on self-care at the international level, such as at WHO, to provide a frame for national-level policymakers to operate within.
Access and literacy
Two of the most critical pieces of the self-care puzzle are access and literacy. For self-care integration to be successful, there needs to be a shift in how people access self-care treatments, services, pharmacies, and knowledge. Alongside this, the population needs to be widely informed about the tools at their disposal and how to apply them to ensure that they can successfully manage their health.
We have already seen health care providers and experts in Kenya calling for new functions to be created within the health care system for health educators who have a dedicated focus on health promotion, prevention, and patient education. As literacy and access increase, so will the success of populations engaging in self-care.
Now is the opportune moment to build on best practices and lessons learned from the past two years, as we strive to achieve more robust health care systems across the world. As we move forward, it is important that we embark on this journey together, working toward a healthier future.
The full release of the Self-Care Readiness Index 2.0 was launched at the GSCF World Congress in Cape Town on Oct. 19. To learn more about the index, visit https://selfcarepromise.org/self-care-readiness-index/
About the author
Precious Matsoso
Precious Matsoso is the former director-general of the South African National Department of Health. She was the World Health Organization director of Public Health Innovation and Intellectual Property and was the head of the medicines regulatory authority of South Africa for six years. She has served on various advisory bodies, both nationally and internationally, and was chair of the WHO executive board. She is the co-chair of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Body for the development of a legal instrument, convention, or treaty for pandemic prevention, preparedness, and response.
