Soumen Das: From LMIC to LRS – Rethinking Global Health
Soumen Das, Head of Surgical Oncology Department at Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose Cancer Hospital and Founder Director of The Institute of Breast Disease, Kolkata, shared a post on LinkedIn:
“From LMIC to LRS: Rethinking Global Health
India is growing. The United States has already grown. Yet, in both nations, there are two realities. In India, advanced cancer centers thrive while many districts lack basic diagnostic facilities. In the U.S., world-class hospitals coexist with rural counties struggling with shortages of staff and access to care.
This paradox exposes a limitation in the term Low- and Middle-Income Countries (LMICs). The classification assumes homogeneity across entire nations, when in reality, healthcare access is determined more by resource availability than by national income.
- High-resource settings (HRS) exist in LMICs — tertiary hospitals in Delhi, São Paulo, or Cape Town can match global standards.
- Low-resource settings (LRS) exist in HICs — rural America, parts of Eastern Europe, or remote Australia often face barriers similar to those in LMIC rural regions.
Why We Need LRS-Focused Healthcare?
The real axis of inequity is not income groupings of countries, but resource distribution within health systems. By shifting focus from LMIC to LRS (Low-Resource Settings):
- Research and policy can be designed with greater precision.
- Equity is acknowledged both within and across countries.
- Solutions developed for LRS—like task-shifting, mobile health, and frugal diagnostics—can benefit underserved populations everywhere.
- Universal Health Coverage (UHC) efforts become more contextual and scalable.
The Way Forward…
The global health community must adopt LRS-focused healthcare and research. This framing is analytically sharper, ethically fairer, and globally inclusive. It recognizes that inequities are resource-dependent, not income-dependent—a shift that is essential if we are to build health systems that truly leave no one.”
More posts featuring Soumen Das.
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Challenging the Status Quo in Colorectal Cancer 2024
December 6-8, 2024
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ESMO 2024 Congress
September 13-17, 2024
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ASCO Annual Meeting
May 30 - June 4, 2024
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Yvonne Award 2024
May 31, 2024
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OncoThon 2024, Online
Feb. 15, 2024
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Global Summit on War & Cancer 2023, Online
Dec. 14-16, 2023