In 2014, the Ministry of Health (MOH) in Malawi conducted a nationwide assessment of emergency obstetric and newborn care (EmONC) services. This cross-sectional facility-based survey used 10 data collection modules. Data collection began on 23rd September 2014 and concluded on 17th October 2014, in ...all 28 districts. Facilities in both the public and private sector (for-profit and not-for-profit) were included. Since the focus of the assessment was obstetric and newborn care, health facilities that did not offer maternal and newborn health (MNH) services were not selected. In all districts, a census of all hospitals and a 60 percent random sample of health centres that ought to have performed deliveries in the previous year yielded a total of 365 facilities: 87 hospitals and 278 health centres. All these facilities were visited during the assessment. During analysis, weighting procedures were applied to extrapolate results to the district and national level, representing all 87 hospitals and 464 health centres. Such weighting was necessary as a stratified random sample of health centres was taken and weighting applied to all indicators and presentations that have health facility as a unit of measurement. Case reviews and provider’s interviews, on the other hand, are not weighted as their sampling strategy is based on convenience.
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Recently, Sri Lanka has been impacted by multiple natural disasters. Sri Lanka experienced a landslide in October 2014, and flooding in December 2014.8 Sri Lanka withstood the worst drought conditions witnessed in four decades in 2016; the extreme drought conditions extended into 2017 and produced s...ubstantial economic and social effects. The drought was responsible for an increase in national poverty levels, due to reduced cultivation income, especially for rural farmers. ... In May 2017, Sri Lanka experienced continuous rains causing flash floods and extreme devastation. However, despite natural disasters and challenges posed by a complex political environment, Sri Lanka’s financial performance remained largely satisfactory in the first half of 2017.
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The article "Asthma in South African adolescents: a time trend and risk factor analysis over two decades" investigates the prevalence and risk factors for asthma in Cape Town adolescents from 2002 to 2017. The study finds that while the overall prevalence of asthma remained similar, the severity of ...the condition increased significantly. Risk factors for asthma and severe cases include smoking, pet exposure, outdoor pollution, and living in informal housing. Despite these trends, underdiagnosis remains a concern, as only one-third of adolescents with current or severe asthma had been formally diagnosed. The article emphasizes the need for better public health strategies to address environmental exposures and improve asthma diagnosis and treatment.
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ARC resource pack - Study material
UNHCR, the UN Refuge Agency, and NGO partners are launching an appeal for US$2.7 billion to address the live-saving humanitarian needs of South Sudanese refugees in 2019 and 2020.
Five years on since the onset of a brutal civil war, over 2.2 million South Sudanese refugees have sought safety in six... neighboring countries Uganda, Sudan, Ethiopia, Kenya, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and Central African Republic (CAR). Another 1.9 million remain internally displaced inside South Sudan
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Food environments are usually defined as the settings with all the different types of
food made available and accessible to people as they go about their daily lives.
That is, the range of food in supermarkets, small retail outlets, wet markets, street
food stalls, coffee shops, tea houses, s...chool canteens, restaurants, and all the other
venues where people buy and eat food. These environments differ enormously depending on the context. They can be extensive and diverse, with a seemingly endless array of options and price ranges, or they can be sparse, with very few options on offer. Because they determine what food consumers can access at a given moment in time, at what price, and with what degree of convenience, food environments both constrain and prompt the consumer’s choice.Food environments are influenced by the food systems which supply them, and vice versa. Food systems encompass the entire range of activities, people and institutions involved in the production, processing,
marketing, consumption and disposal of food (FAO, 2013). They include but are not limited to food supply chains. Making food systems nutrition-sensitive can contribute to addressing all forms of malnutrition, as food systems determine whether the food needed for good nutrition are available, affordable, acceptable and of adequate
quantity and quality. How closely food systems and food environments are interrelated and interdependent, and the degree to which external factors affect nutrition outcomes, varies from setting to setting.Many of today’s food systems
and food environments are challenged in supporting consumer choices that are
consistent with healthy diets and good nutrition. Consumers are not making choices based on nutrition and health, and poor diet is now the number one risk factor for death and disability worldwide (GBD, 2015). Food systems that do not enable healthy diets are increasingly recognized as an underlying cause of malnutrition (GLOPAN, 2016), and malnutrition, irrespective of form, has a huge cost. Economic costs associated with undernutrition are estimated at $1-2 trillion per year, about 2-3% of global GDP (FAO, 2013); the global economic cost of obesity and associated diet-related non-communicable diseases is estimated at $2 trillion per year, about 2.8% of global GDP (McKinsey, 2014). Influencing food environments for promoting healthy diets is an emerging strategy to address today’s nutrition challenges.
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Since the 1970s, voluntary contributions have become an increasingly important component of WHO's budget. As voluntary contributions tend to be earmarked for donor-specified programmes and projects, there are concerns that this trend has diverted focus away from WHO's strategic priorities, made coor...dination and attaining coherence more difficult, undermined WHO's democratic structures and given undue power to a handful of wealthy donors. In the past few years, the WHO Secretariat has pushed for donors to increase the amount of flexible funding they provide.
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MMC Briefing Paper, February 2021
Os Informes Orçamentais visam ajudar a melhor compreensão pública dos instrumentos de planificação, orçamentação e alocação de recursos em Moçambique. A série tenta tornar essa informação mais acessível e amigável ao leitor em geral.
South Africa has faced many challenges over the past two decades, accomplishing profound positive changes in the social structure and government of the nation. This has not yet fully translated into better health for the population, however, particularly the poorest segment. In fact, the p...opulation has lost ground since the 1990s in virtually all important health indicators, leaving South Africa with a high burden of infectious disease.
August 2011, Vol. 101, No. 8 SAMJ
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