Lessons learned from recent public health events such as the COVID-19 pandemic, Ebola virus disease, Zika virus disease outbreaks, and other public health threats, including earthquakes and floods, have highlighted the need for countries to continuously develop, strengthen, and maintain capacities r...equired under the International Health Regulations (2005) (IHR (2005)).
Developing capacities for health security in a country requires the engagement of public and private entities across a broad range of sectors, including human and animal health, agriculture, environment, finance, security, emergency management, education, and transportation. The World Health Organization (WHO) is mandated through various resolutions, decisions, and reports of the World Health Assembly, and through the IHR (2005), to provide technical guidance and support to its Member States in developing, strengthening, and maintaining their health systems, including capacities required under the IHR (2005).
For countries to better prevent, prepare for, detect, notify, respond to, and recover from public health emergencies, they must build and maintain IHR core capacities and support the strengthening of health emergency prevention, preparedness, response, and resilience (HEPR) capacities. National Action Plans for Health Security (NAPHS), as capacity development plans, provide the tasks and resources needed to ensure adequate capacities are in place to prevent, detect, respond to, and recover from public health events in a sustainable manner. Investing in the resilience of these capacities within national health systems at national and local levels not only improves national health security but also helps safeguard economic, social, and political developments.
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The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations has launched a new Compendium of forgotten foods in Africa which is a first-of-its-kind comprehensive collection of 100 African forgotten food crops.
Also referred to as neglected, underutilized or orphan crops, these species offer valua...ble benefits, including nutrition and diet diversification, while supporting resilient, climate-smart agriculture but they are at risk of being lost as foods such as maize, rice and wheat dominate African diets.
The compendium list includes details on each crop's botanical classification, agroecological suitability, agronomic requirements, traditional and medicinal uses, value-added prospects and nutritional content. Among the entries are: African locust beans, African nightshade, baobab, Bambara nut, bush mango, cassava, fonio, marula, moringa, teff and tigernut.
Produced by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO)'s Regional Office for Africa with the Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa (FARA), the Compendium is a direct response to the UN Food Systems Summit and the Call for Collective Action in the Global Manifesto on Forgotten Foods.
Embracing both agricultural heritage and innovation can transform agrifood systems across Africa. By cataloguing these forgotten or underutilized crops, traditional knowledge is being honoured in the push to unlock the potential for better nutrition, sustainable agriculture, and resilience against the climate crisis.
In a joint foreword to the publication, FAO Assistant Director-General and Regional Representative for Africa Abebe Haile-Gabriel and FARA Executive Director Aggrey Agumya urged the mainstreaming of forgotten foods into African agrifood systems.
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The 2030 health-related Sustainable Development Goals call on countries to end AIDS as a public health threat and also to achieve universal health coverage. The World Health Organization (WHO) promotes primary health care (PHC) as the key mechanism for achieving universal health coverage, and the PH...C approach is also essential for ending AIDS and reaching other Sustainable Development Goal targets.
The PHC approach is defined as a whole-of-society approach to health that aims to maximize the level and distribution of health and well-being through three components: (1) primary care and essential public health functions as the core of integrated health services; (2) multisectoral policy and action; and (3) empowered people and communities.
This publication helps decision-makers to consider and optimize the synergies between existing and future assets and investments intended for both PHC and disease-specific responses, including HIV. Specifically, it aims to:
• provide guidance to policy-makers, health system managers and programmatic leads from both PHC and HIV backgrounds regarding opportunities to jointly advance their respective efforts to strengthen PHC and end AIDS as a public health threat; and
• provide a resource for all stakeholders who seek to contribute to strengthening PHC and ending AIDS as a public health threat in a synergistic manner, including people living with HIV, members of key and vulnerable populations, community and civil society representatives, people working in all areas of health systems, researchers, funders and private-sector decision-makers.
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Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2018, 15(12), 2626; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph15122626
Climate change is increasing risks to human health and to the health systems that seek to protect the safety and well-being of populations. Health authorities require information about current associatio...ns between health outcomes and weather or climate, vulnerable populations, projections of future risks and adaptation opportunities in order to reduce exposures, empower individuals to take needed protective actions and build climate-resilient health systems. An increasing number of health authorities from local to national levels seek this information by conducting climate change and health vulnerability and adaptation assessments. While assessments can provide valuable information to plan for climate change impacts, the results of many studies are not helping to build the global evidence-base of knowledge in this area. They are also often not integrated into adaptation decision making, sometimes because the health sector is not involved in climate change policy making processes at the national level. Significant barriers related to data accessibility, a limited number of climate and health models, uncertainty in climate projections, and a lack of funding and expertise, particularly in developing countries, challenge health authority efforts to conduct rigorous assessments and apply the findings. This paper examines the evolution of climate change and health vulnerability and adaptation assessments, including guidance developed for such projects, the number of assessments that have been conducted globally and implementation of the findings to support health adaptation action. Greater capacity building that facilitates assessments from local to national scales will support collaborative efforts to protect health from current climate hazards and future climate change. Health sector officials will benefit from additional resources and partnership opportunities to ensure that evidence about climate change impacts on health is effectively translated into needed actions to build health resilience.
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WHO/Europe has launched a new guide, providing support to countries on how to apply behavioural and cultural insights (BCI) for health. It presents a simple step-wise approach, complemented by a rich collection of detailed considerations, tools and exercises. The guide is the first of its kind, spec...ifically developed for use by public health professionals developing policies, services and communications informed by BCI across health topics.
Some of the most persistent public health challenges involve human behaviour. Using a BCI lens means that health policies, services and communications can be tailored to the needs and circumstances of people and communities, and thereby help combat these challenges. The new Tailoring Health Programmes (THP) guide describes how this can be done.
Building on several topic-specific guides that focused on applying BCI to routine and influenza vaccination and tackling antimicrobial resistance, as well as external evaluations and a rigorous peer-review process, this guide is the result of over a decade of work by WHO/Europe. The THP approach has already been adopted in over 20 countries and has received positive feedback from public health agencies.
“This guide is the culmination of a decade of work involving many colleagues at country, regional and global levels. The guide is our “BCI bible”, guiding our work with and in countries to help tackle persistent health challenges,” said Katrine Bach Habersaat, Regional Advisor for BCI at WHO/Europe.
Karina Godoy, Senior Analyst and National Focal Point for Behavioural Insights at the Public Health Agency of Sweden, who is employing the approach described in the guide across several health projects, comments: “The THP guide is easy to use and at the same time provides detailed guidance and inspiration where needed. We have decided to translate the document into Swedish and use the approach widely”.
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Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2018 Jun; 15(6): 1279.
Published online 2018 Jun 16. doi: 10.3390/ijerph15061279
The Participation Handbook for humanitarian field workers contains detailed practical advice on the participation of affected people in humanitarian action. It has three sections:
Developing a participatory approach (main issues, key factors, building mutual respect, communication methods and... advice on reviewing your approach);
Implementing your participatory approach at every stage of the project cycle (initial assessment, project design, implementation, monitoring and final evaluation);
A list of tools and additional resources (books, internet sites, etc.)
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A Program To Improve The Care For Patients With Common Mental Disorders In Primary Health Care.
The essence of the MANAS model is to shift mental health care from mental health specialists to primarycare doctors and lay HCs (someone similar to other more widely available... health workers) working as aprimary care team to improve the coverage and efficiency in treating CMD. This manual has been prepared based on the experience gained through the MANAS program and incorporates feedback from doctors who were involved in the program implementation. It outlines the details of the MANAS model and provides information on treatments that are relevant to doctors working in Primary Health Clinics
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The report shows that where people and communities living with and affected by HIV are engaged in decision-making and HIV service delivery, new infections decline and more people living with HIV gain access to treatment. When people have the power to choose, to know, to thrive, to demand and to work... together, lives are saved, injustices are prevented and dignity is restored.
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BMC Health Services Research 2012, 12:352
http://www.biomedcentral.com/1472-6963/12/352
These Guidelines comprise a General Guidelines document that provides the basic parameters of DG ECHO humanitarian health assistance, complemented by specific Technical Guidance in annex.
The Handbook on Law and Disaster Risk Reduction (the Handbook) has been developed to provide guidance on how to use the Checklist and conduct related legislative reviews and reform processes. While the methodology for using the Checklist needs to be tailored to each country’s context and respectiv...e needs, the Handbook is intended to provide general guidance on key steps to consider.
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7 April 2020. This document and risk assessment tool provides practical guidance and recommendations to support the special role of religious leaders, faith-based organizations, and faith communities in COVID-19 education, preparedness, and response.
You can download the risk assessment tool here:...
https://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/331772/WHO-2019-nCoV-Religious_Leaders_RAtool-2020.1-eng.xlsx
and the decision tree here:
https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/who-2019-ncov-mg-decision-tree-religious.pdf?sfvrsn=f3433c0a_2
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AACAP OFFICIAL ACTION | This Practice Parameter identifies best approaches to the assessment and management of children and adolescents across all phases of a disaster. Delivered within a disaster system of care, many interventions are appropriate for implementation in the weeks and months after a d...isaster. These include psychological first aid, family outreach, psychoeducation, social support, screening, and anxiety reduction techniques. The clinician should assess and monitor risk and protective factors across all phases of a disaster. Schools are a natural site for conducting assessments and delivering services to children. Multimodal approaches using social support, psychoeducation, and cognitive behavioral techniques have the strongest evidence base. Psychopharmacologic interventions are not generally used but may be necessary as an adjunct to other interventions for children with severe reactions or coexisting psychiatric conditions
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