A Systematic Review, Country Case Studies, and Recommendations for Integration into National Health Systems
Alliance Report
Participation of community health workers (CHWs) in the provision of primary health care has been experienced all over the world for several decades, and there is an amount ...of evidence showing that they can add significantly to the efforts of improving the health of the population, particularly in those settings with the highest shortage of motivated and capable health professionals.
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Towards the Peoples Health Assembly Book - 5
The aim of this guidance is to enhance the capacity of health care facilities to protect and improve the health of their target communities in an unstable and changing climate; and to empower health care facilities to be environmentally sustainable, by optimizing the use of resources and minimizing ...the release of waste into the environment. Climate resilient and environmentally sustainable health care facilities contribute to high quality of care and accessibility of services, and by helping reduce facility costs also ensure better affordability. They are, therefore, an important component of universal health coverage (UHC).
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Towards the Peoples Health Assembly Book -5
Every year, an estimated 15 million babies are born preterm – before 37 weeks of pregnancy. That is more than 1 in 10 live births. Approximately 1 million children die each year worldwide due to complications from their early birth. Those that survive often face a lifetime of ill-health including ...disability, learning difficulties, and visual and hearing problems.
Half of the babies born at or below 32 weeks (2 months early) die in low-income settings, due to a lack of feasible, cost-effective care, such as warmth, breastfeeding support, and basic care for infections and breathing difficulties. In high-income countries, almost all these babies survive.
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The Global Burden of Disease (GBD) study, a collaborative endeavour of the World
Health Organization (WHO), the World Bank and the Harvard School of Public Health,
drew the attention of the international health community to the burden of neurological
disorders and many other chronic conditions. T...his study found that the burden of neurological
disorders was seriously underestimated by traditional epidemiological and health
statistical methods that take into account only mortality rates but not disability rates. The
GBD study showed that over the years the global health impact of neurological disorders
had been underestimated.
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The message contained in this publication is clear: countries need a
public health system that can respond to the deliberate release of
chemical and biological agents. Regrettable though this message may
be, the use of poison gas in the war between Iraq and the Islamic
Republic of Iran in the 19...80s, the recent anthrax incidents in the United
States, and the attack with sarin nerve agent, six years earlier, on the
Tokyo underground, illustrate why it is necessary to prepare.
Russian and Japanese version available:
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These guidelines promote the delivery of people-centred health services for STIs by providing evidence-based recommendations related to decentralization, integration, task sharing and digital health. These recommendations complement existing WHO guidelines for STI testing, treatment and management, ...and other service delivery interventions, such as self-care interventions. All the recommendations will be incorporated into the forthcoming WHO consolidated guidelines on STI prevention and care.
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Self-care interventions are among the most promising and exciting new approaches to improve health and well-being, both from a health systems perspective and for people who use these interventions.
The World Health Organization (WHO) uses the following working definition of self-care: Self-care i...s the ability of individuals, families and communities to promote health, prevent disease, maintain health, and cope with illness and disability with or without the support of a health worker. The scope of self-care as described in this definition includes health promotion; disease prevention and control; self-medication; providing care to dependent persons; seeking hospital/specialist/primary care if necessary; and rehabilitation, including palliative care. It includes a range of self-care modes and approaches. While this is a broad definition that includes many activities, it is important for health policy to recognize the importance of self-care, especially where it intersects with health systems and health professionals.
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March 2021. “A Decade of Destruction: Attacks on health care in Syria,” highlights with chilling detail how this 10-year war strategy has turned hospitals from safe havens into no-go zones where Syrian civilians now fear for their lives.
This report summarizes the latest scientific knowledge on the links between exposure to air pollution and adverse health effects in children. It is intended to inform and motivate individual and collective action by health care professionals to prevent damage to children’s health from exposure to ...air pollution.
Air pollution is a major environmental health threat. Exposure to fine particles in both the ambient environment and in the household causes about seven million premature deaths each year. Ambient air pollution alone imposes enormous costs on the global economy, amounting to more than US$ 5 trillion in total welfare losses in 2013.
This public health crisis is receiving more attention, but one critical aspect is often overlooked: how air pollution affects children in uniquely damaging ways. Recent data released by the World Health Organization (WHO) show that air pollution has a vast and terrible impact on child health and survival. Globally, 93% of all children live in environments with air pollution levels above the WHO guidelines (see the full report, Air pollution and child health: prescribing clean air. More than one in every four deaths of children under 5 years of age is directly or indirectly related to environmental risks. Both ambient air pollution and household air pollution contribute to respiratory tract infections that resulted in 543 000 deaths in children under the age of 5 years in 2016.
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One Health 5 (2018) 34–36
A global shortage of an estimated 18 million health workers is anticipated by 2030, a record 130 million people are in need of humanitarian assistance, and there is the global threat of pandemics such as COVID-19. At least 400 million people worldwide lack access to the most essential health service...s, and every year 100 million people are plunged into poverty because they have to pay for healthcare out of their own pockets. There is, therefore, an urgent need to find innovative strategies that go beyond the conventional health-sector response.
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At least half of the world’s population does not have full coverage of essential health services. Health expenses push more than 100 million people into extreme poverty each and every year, forcing them into terrible choices that no one should ever have to make: Buy medicine or food? Education or ...health care? These stark statistics make the case for universal health coverage compelling.
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Mental Health Policy and Service Guidance Package
Languages: Arabic, English, French, Chinese, Russian
WHO is launching a “Revised edition, 2021” for the Caring for women subjected to violence: A WHO training curriculum for health-care providers today. The revised edition includes 4 new modules three of which are for health managers to assess and strengthen health facility readiness and one modul...e, which is for managers and providers to support prevention of violence against women. The earlier content published in 2019 remains unchanged. The 2021 edition is aimed at creating an enabling health systems environment for health workers to provide quality care to women subjected to violence.
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