Evidence-based psychological interventions are an important part of health, social, protection and education services and can help increase access to effective mental health treatments and progression towards universal health coverage.
This manual provides managers and others responsible for plan...ning and delivering services with practical guidance on how to implement manualized psychological interventions for adults, adolescents and children. It covers the five key implementation steps: make an implementation plan; adapt for context; prepare the workforce; identify, assess and support potential beneficiaries; and monitor and evaluate the service.
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The world is not on track to end the AIDS pandemic. New infections are rising and AIDS deaths are continuing in too many communities. This report reveals why: inequalities are holding us back. In frank terms, the report calls the world’s attention to the painful reality that dangerous inequalities... are undermining the AIDS response and jeopardising the health security of everyone. The report highlights three specific areas of inequality for which concrete action is immediately possible—gender
inequalities and harmful masculinities driving HIV; marginalisation and criminalisation of key populations, which our data show is resulting in starkly little progress for those populations and undermining the overall response; and
inequalities for children whose lives must matter more than their market share. But this is not a counsel of despair, it is a call to action. Through bold action to confront these inequalities, we can end AIDS.
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Supplement to: Guidance on vaccination and prevention of vaccine-preventable disease outbreaks for countries hosting refugees from Ukraine, April 2022 update
This document provides: • information on how to obtain vaccination documentation remotely (intended for refugees from Ukraine and intern...ally displaced persons (IDPs) in Ukraine who lack documentation of vaccination status for themselves or their children); • information on the types of vaccination documentation issued in Ukraine, and English translations of standard documents (intended for health care providers in refugee-host countries to facilitate assessment of vaccination status of refugees).
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From 2000 to 2010, Rwanda implemented comprehensive health sector reforms to strengthen the public health system, with the aim of reducing maternal and newborn deaths in line with Millennium Development Goal 5, among many other improvements in national health. Based on a systematic review of the lit...erature, national policy documents and three Demographic & Health Surveys (2000, 2005 and 2010), this paper describes the reforms and the policies they were based on, and provides data on the extent of Rwanda’s progress in expanding the coverage of four key women’s health services. Progress took place in 2000–2005 and became more rapid after 2006, mostly in rural areas, when the national facility-based childbirth policy, performance-based financing, and community-based health insurance were scaled up. Between 2006 and 2010, the following increases in coverage took place as compared to 2000–2005, particularly in rural areas, where most poor women live: births with skilled attendance (77% increase vs. 26%), institutional delivery (146% increase vs. 8%), and contraceptive prevalence (351% increase vs. 150%). The primary factors in these improvements were increases in the health workforce and their skills, performance-based financing, community-based health insurance, and better leadership and governance. Further research is needed to determine the impact of these changes on health outcomes in women and children.
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Impact of EU policies on accessing protection. The report highlights the tragedy hundreds of thousands of people face when seeking protection in Europe. Women, men and children escaping war, repression and violation of human rights often turn to Europe in the hope of finding a safe haven. But many a...re instead confronted with bureaucratic hurdles, denial of protection and inconsistent reception standards across Europe.
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This guideline covers identifying, assessing and managing the long-term effects of COVID-19, often described as ‘long COVID’. It makes recommendations about care in all healthcare settings for adults, children and young people who have new or ongoing symptoms 4 weeks or more after the start of a...cute COVID-19. It also includes advice on organising services for long COVID.
Updated 11 November 2021
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Rehabilitation in health systems provides recommendations for Member States and other relevant stakeholders to strengthen and expand the availability of quality rehabilitation services. Currently, there is a significant unmet need for rehabilitation services and it is frequently undervalued in the h...ealth system. As populations age and the prevalence of noncommunicable diseases and injuries increases, and the demand for rehabilitation grows, strengthening rehabilitation in health systems becomes ever more paramount.
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Following a long recovery from the economic crisis (2007–2013), young people in the EU proved to be more vulnerable to the effects of the restrictions put in place to slow the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic. Young people were more likely than older groups to experience job loss, financial insecur...ity and mental health problems. They reported reduced life satisfaction and mental well-being associated with the stay-at-home requirements and school closures. While governments responded quickly to the pandemic, most efforts to mitigate the effects of restrictions were temporary measures aimed at preventing job loss and keeping young people in education. This report explores the effects of the pandemic on young people, particularly in terms of their employment, well-being and trust in institutions, and assesses the various policy measures introduced to alleviate these effects.
Summary available in 22 languages
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Every day in 2020, approximately 800 women died from preventable causes related to pregnancy and childbirth - meaning that a woman dies around every two minutes.
Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) target 3.1 is to reduce maternal mortality to less than 70 maternal deaths per 100 000 live births by ...2030.
The United Nations Maternal Mortality Estimation Inter-Agency Group (MMEIG) – comprising WHO, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), the World Bank Group and the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division (UNDESA/Population Division) has collaborated with external technical experts on a new round of estimates covering 2000 to 2020. The estimates represent the most up to date, internationally-comparable MMEIG estimates of maternal mortality, using refined input data and methods from previous rounds.
The report presents internationally comparable global, regional and country-level estimates and trends for maternal mortality between 2000 and 2020.
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Every Newborn: an action plan to end preventable deaths is a roadmap for change. It takes forward the Global Strategy for Women’s and Children’s Health by focusing specific attention on newborn health and identifying actions for improving their survival, health and development.
ecancer has just published a comprehensive set of guidelines for paediatric cancer surgery, applicable to low and high resource settings across the world. You can read the guidelines online
The guidelines have been developed by the International Society of Paediatric Surgical Oncology (IPSO) with... authors from both High Income Countries and Lower and Middle Income Countries, and have been further validated by experts in the respective fields with the aim of providing evidence-based information for surgeons who care for children with cancer.
These guidelines include information on the care and treatment of children with malignancies, including making a diagnosis, obtaining adequate venous access, performing a surgical resection for solid tumours (with staging and reconstruction), performing procedures for cancer prevention and its late effects, and managing complications of treatment; all with the goal of improving survival and quality of life.
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This manual serves as a toolkit of useful PM&E techniques for improving the performance and impact of community-based interventions, such as those involving the most vulnerable children, home-based care and gender-based violence. The manual includes a five-step PM&E programme path and six community ...group tools.
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This guideline provides evidence-informed guidance on the use of non-sugar sweeteners to reduce the risk of unhealthy weight gain and diet-related noncommunicable diseases in adults and children. The guidance in this guideline is not based on toxicological assessments of the safety of individual no...n-sugar sweeteners and is therefore not intended to update or replace guidance on safe or maximal levels of intake established by the Joint Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)/WHO Expert Committee on Food Additives (JECFA) or other authoritative bodies.
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This manual was designed to support the GRN-UNICEF Youth Health and Development Programme with the aim of sustaining My Future is My Choice graduates and other young people’s peer education activities. It was written and reviewed in a three-day workshop in November 1999 and in the following weeks ...with assistance from participating organizations including AIDS Care Trust, Catholic AIDS Action, Ella Du Plessis High School AIDS Awareness Club, the Namibian Broadcasting Corporation, NACAMA, the National Youth Council of Namibia, PEDI/PECP, Polytechnic of Namibia, the University of Namibia and UNICEF. It was revised by Jennifer Lentfer of the Youth Health and Development Program of UNICEF Namibia in July of 2001.
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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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This publication presents guidance on good practice from the Ayeyarwaddy Delta in Myanmar, outlining the key factors which contributed to the successful implementation and outcome of a range of community-based Disaster Risk Reduction initiatives implemented by the Myanmar Consortium for Community Re...silience (MCCR).
The content was developed over a period of two months between November-December 2015, involving a desk review of MCCR project documents including impact studies, monitoring reports and newsletters. Field visits were undertaken to the Ayeyarwaddy Delta to document the perspectives of key stakeholders at community level, including a total of 93 adults (men and women) and 57 children (girls and boys) from eight communities targeted under the DIPECHO IX project.
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Report of the 23rd WHO Expert Committee on the selection and use of essential medicines
This executive summary reports the recommendations made by the Expert Committee for the 2021 update of the WHO Model List of Essential Medicines (EML) and the Model List of Essential Medicine for Children (EMLc)....
The 23rd meeting of the WHO Expert Committee on Selection and Use of Essential Medicines was coordinated from Geneva, Switzerland, and held virtually from 21 June to 2 July 2021. The Committee considered 88 applications proposing additions, changes and deletions of medicines, medicine classes and formulation on the Model Lists of Essential Medicines. The Committee evaluated the scientific evidence for comparative effectiveness, safety and cost-effectiveness of the medicines in question. The Committee also considered a review of the therapeutic alternatives for medicines on the Model Lists, and update to the AWaRe classification of antibiotics, and reviews and reports relevant to the selection and use of essential medicines.
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Paying for performance (P4P) provides financial incentives for providers to increase the use and quality of care. P4P can affect health care by providing incentives for providers to put more effort into specific activities, and by increasing the amount of resources available to finance the delivery ...of services. This paper evaluates the impact of P4P on the use and quality of prenatal, institutional delivery, and child preventive care using data produced from a prospective quasi-experimental evaluation nested into the national rollout of P4P in Rwanda. Treatment facilities were enrolled in the P4P scheme in 2006 and comparison facilities were enrolled two years later. The incentive effect is isolated from the resource effect by increasing comparison facilities’ input-based budgets by the average P4P payments to the treatment facilities. The data were collected from 166 facilities and a random sample of 2158 households. P4P had a large and significant positive impact on institutional deliveries and preventive care visits by young children, and improved quality of prenatal care. The authors find no effect on the number of prenatal care visits or on immunization rates. P4P had the greatest effect on those services that had the highest payment rates and needed the lowest provider effort. P4P financial performance incentives can improve both the use of and the quality of health services. Because the analysis isolates the incentive effect from the resource effect in P4P, the results indicate that an equal amount of financial resources without the incentives would not have achieved the same gain in outcomes.
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The study on single-dose cholera vaccine in Zambia evaluates the effectiveness of using a single dose of the oral cholera vaccine (OCV) during a 2016 outbreak in Lusaka. Due to limited vaccine supply, authorities opted for a one-dose emergency campaign instead of the usual two-dose regimen. A matche...d case-control study was conducted to assess vaccine effectiveness, showing 88.9% short-term protection against cholera. The findings suggest that a single-dose approach can be an effective strategy in outbreak settings, especially when vaccine supplies are constrained. However, further research is needed to determine long-term immunity and effectiveness in young children.
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The environment in which young people live, learn and play significantly affects their decisions about whether to consume alcohol. Environmental factors are the main risk factors driving alcohol consumption and related harm among young people. Environments that normalize alcohol consumption – term...ed alcogenic environments – include contexts with unregulated advertising and marketing of alcoholic beverages, higher alcohol outlet density, products designed to facilitate affordability and low prices of alcoholic beverages. A recent body of research evidence has emerged related to the measurement, functional significance and consequences of living in alcogenic environments. This includes findings on the complex and bidirectional interactions among alcohol acceptability, availability and affordability and how they create and perpetuate alcogenic environments. Comprehensive and enforced alcohol control policies are effective at delaying the age of onset and lowering alcohol prevalence and frequency among young people. Evidence consistently confirms the effectiveness of designing and implementing alcohol control policies that regulate upstream the drivers of alcogenic environment, including alcohol availability, acceptability and affordability. These policies need to be multipronged and address the complex interactions between these drivers and the local alcohol culture
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