Today, patient harm due to unsafe care is a large and growing global public health challenge and is one of the
leading causes of death and disability worldwide. Most of this patient harm is avoidable. As countries strive to
achieve universal health coverage and the Sustainable Development Goals, t...he beneficial effects of improved
access to health services can be undermined by unsafe care. Patient safety incidents can cause death and
disability, and suffering for victims and their families. The financial and economic costs of safety lapses are high.
There is often reduced public confidence and trust in local health systems when such incidents are publicized.
Health workers involved in serious incidents involving death or serious harm to a patient can also suffer lasting
psychological harm and deep-seated feelings of guilt and self-criticism.
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The scale of West Africa’s Ebola epidemic has been attributed to the weak health systems of affected countries,
their lack of resources, the mobility of communities and their inexperience in dealing with Ebola. This briefing for African Affairs argues that these explanations lack important contex...t. The briefing examines responses to the outbreak and offers a different set of explanations, rooted in the history of the region and the political economy of global health and development. To move past technical discussions of “weak” health systems, it highlights how structural violence has contributed to the epidemic. As part of this, local people – their beliefs, concerns and priorities – have been marginalised. Both the crisis response and post-Ebola ‘reconstruction’ will be strengthened by acknowledgment of its long term structural underpinnings and from a more collaborative inclusion of local people.
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An estimated 1.3 billion people globally experience significant disability. This figure has grown over the last decade and will continue to rise due to demographic and epidemiological changes. In 2022, the World Health Organization launched the Global report on health equity for persons with disabil...ities. This report demonstrated that many persons with disabilities are still being left behind. Experiencing persistent health inequities, persons with disabilities die earlier, they have poorer health and functioning, and they are more affected by health emergencies than the general population. These differences are largely associated with unjust factors both inside and beyond the health sector and are avoidable. The Global Report called upon Member States to take actions to make health sector more inclusive for persons with disabilities through the primary health care approach. This will be essential for countries to make health coverage truly universal and to progress towards other health-related targets in the sustainable development goals.
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This South-East Asia Regional Strategy for Primary Health Care: 2022-2030 aims to accelerate progress in all countries of the Region towards universal health coverage (UHC), health security and the health-related Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). It is intended to provide Member States with guid...ance on facilitating PHC-orientation through the identification of seven values and 12 strategic actions that collectively embody the philosophy and practice of PHC, enunciated in the 1978 Declaration of Alma-Ata and reaffirmed in the 2018 Declaration of Astana.
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22 Sept. 2021
The rapid development of effective Covid-19 vaccines in 2020 gave hope to the world in the darkest days of the deadly pandemic. However, the vaccine roll-out has been massively skewed towards wealthy nations. While rich states have hoarded vaccines, companies have also played a decisi...ve role in restricting fair access to a life-saving health product. This report focuses on six leading vaccine developers, AstraZeneca, BioNTech, Johnson & Johnson, Moderna, Novavax and Pfizer, assessing each company’s human rights policy, pricing structure, records on intellectual property, knowledge and technology sharing, allocation of available vaccine doses and transparency.
Available in Arabic, English, French, German and Spanish
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This Community Health Systems (CHS) Catalog country profile is the 2016 update of a landscape
assessment that was originally conducted by the Advancing Partners & Communities (APC) project
in 2014. The CHS Catalog focuses on 25 countries deemed priority by the United States Agency for
Internation...al Development’s (USAID) Office of Population and Reproductive Health, and includes
specific attention to family planning (FP), a core focus of the APC project.
The update comes as many countries are investing in efforts to support the Sustainable Development
Goals and to achieve universal health coverage while modifying policies and strategies to better align
and scale up their community health systems.
The purpose of the CHS Catalog is to provide the most up-to-date information available on community
health systems based on existing policies and related documentation in the 25 countries. Hence, it does
not necessarily capture the realities of policy implementation or service delivery on the ground. APC
has made efforts to standardize the information across country profiles, however, content between
countries may vary due to the availability and quality of the data obtained from policy documents.
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Public health emergencies, including pandemics, highlight the need for health systems and services that are prepared, resilient and ready to respond to health security threats. Endorsed by Member States in 2023, the Asia Pacific Health Security Action Framework (APHSAF) is designed to engage m...ultisectoral actors in health security, and to reflect the complex nature of current and future public health emergencies. The Framework presents six interconnected, multisectoral domains of work that together form a comprehensive, multi-hazard health security system — emphasizing the One Health approach. The Framework also supports progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals and universal health coverage while meeting the responsibilities and obligations of the International Health Regulations (2005).
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The WHO estimates that 19 million children aged 15 years or younger are visually impaired. Of these, 1.4 million are irreversibly blind and need visual rehabilitation interventions for full psychological and personal development. The remainder have visual problems that could be prevented or treated.... Identifying children with visual problems early in life so that they can benefit from medical and optical interventions remains a key challenge for most child eye health programmes. Reports from various low-and middle-income countries indicate that the age of children undergoing operation for cataract is frequently too high to achieve maximum benefit.
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Rwanda’s national health sector is focused on the equitable delivery of high-quality health services. The Government of Rwanda (GoR) recognizes that developing human resources in the health sector is a critical factor to the well-being of the population. Development of the health workforce has bee...n guided by the Human Resources for Health (HRH) Programme (2012-2019) and its successor, the National Strategy for Health Professions Development (NSHPD) (2020-2030). Rwanda has made significant progress in enhancing its skilled health workforce, with notable improvements in the health professional-to-population ratio over the past decade, attaining 13.4 doctors, nurses, midwives, pharmacists, and dentists per 10 000 people in 2022. Despite such progress, health workforce levels remain below national and global recommendations.
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The checklist and reference list has two parts: high-level cross-cutting content (Part A) and specific programme content (Part B). Part A applies to all countries and contains situation and response analysis, the NSP development process, the goal, targets and priority-setting of the NSP and the prin...ciples of human rights and gender equity and sustainability. Part B comprises the programme requirements of prevention, treatment and care, comorbidities and integration, social protection, health systems, community engagement, human rights and gender equity, efficiency and effectiveness, governance, management and accountability, HIV and the humanitarian response
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Background. Children and adolescents can develop post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) after exposure to a range of traumatic events, including domestic, political or community violence, violent crime, physical and sexual abuse, hijacking, witnessing a violent crime and motor vehicle accidents. This... is particularly critical given the substantial challenge that PTSD poses to the healthy physical, cognitive and emotional development of children and adolescents.
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The World Health Organization (WHO) has been present in Niger since 1960, and acts as the Government's principal advisor on public health and lead of the health cluster. WHO covers all eight regions of the country with 113 staff members in Niamey and in 7 sub-offices (Agadez, Diffa, Zinder, Maradi,... Tillabéri, Dosso, Tahoua).
To strengthen its cooperation with Niger, WHO has recently developed a new Country Cooperation Strategy (CCS) for 2023-2027 period in collaboration with the Ministry of Public Health, Popula-tion and Social Affairs. The CPS is based on the WHO's 13th General Programme of Work (GPA) 2019-2025 and national priorities. It enables WHO to support Niger in the implementation of its national health policy and the 2022-2026 Health and Social Development Plan (HSSP).
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Health Statistics in the Western Pacific Region 2023: Monitoring health for the SDGs is the third biennial report providing an overview of the progress of the World Health Organization (WHO) Western Pacific Region towards the health-related Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) targets. Thi...s edition also serves as a baseline assessment for the implementation of the global WHO Fourteenth General Programme of Work 2025–2028 (GPW14) within the Western Pacific Region and the for the Regional Vision “Weaving Health for Families, Communities, and Societies of the Western Pacific Region: Working Together to Improve Health, Well-Being and Save Lives”.
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Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is a growing threat to our health, causing at least 700,000 deaths globally every year. The death toll attributed to AMR is predicted to rise, with most lives lost in low and middle income countries (LMICs).
AMR is also a critical challenge for many other sectors, inc...luding animal health and welfare, aquaculture, agriculture, food safety and broader socioeconomic development. A coordinated, cross-sectoral and multi-pronged approach is needed at all levels of government to ensure an effective and targeted response to this mounting resistance.
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Medicina 2019, 55, 553; doi:10.3390/medicina55090553
Results: Twenty-one studies were analyzed, most of them demonstrating an association between the existence of burnout and the worsening of patient safety. High levels of burnout is more common among physicians and nurses, and it is associated wit...h external factors such as: high workload, long journeys, and ineffective interpersonal relationships. Good patient safety practices are influenced by organized workflows that generate autonomy for health professionals. Through meta-analysis, we found a relationship between the development of burnout and patient safety actions with a probability of superiority of 66.4%. Conclusion: There is a relationship between high levels of burnout and worsening patient safety.
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This training module is meant to strengthen the capacity of CHVs to prevent the Non Communicable Diseases at the community level . The Government of Kenya is committed to supporting community health initiatives and accelerating the achievement of the KHSS&IP goals, Millennium Development G...oals (MDGs) and providing support to Vision 203
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This toolkit is a "how to" guide for developing, implementing and evaluating a multisectoral action plan for prevention and control of NCDs. It is targeted at policy-makers, planners and programme managers, and is intended to help countries, provinces and cities meet the requirements for achieving g...lobal and national NCD targets and the Sustainable Development Goals. The toolkit takes the user through a series of actions related to the development of a multisectoral action plan ("MSAP development actions"), and provides forms and a template framework for users to complete as they undertake these actions. Developing a multisectoral action plan involves establishing health needs and engaging relevant stakeholders before determining the actions to take, identifying and prioritizing interventions, deciding on ways to address NCDs while establishing support and resources for prevention and control, and evaluating progress in implementing the plan.
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The Community Health Community of Practice (CH CoP) builds on the Institutionalisation Community Health Conference co-hosted by USAID and UNICEF in Johannesburg in March 2017. Conceived as an ‘open space’ in terms of both contribution and access to knowledge, it aims at gathering practitioners, ...policy makers, researchers, program implementers and other experts actively involved in the technical or policy development of community health programs in low- and middle-income countries. It offers a network to share your country experience with other countries facing similar challenges; access to global knowledge on community health and its institutionalisation; opportunities for learning, exchanging and debating; constant information on new theoretical, operational or empirical developments in this domain of knowledge. The CoP is facilitated by an international team based in Africa, Asia and Europe. The CH CoP is supported by UNICEF in collaboration with USAID.
accessed 23.07.2021
Collectivity Platform has more group networks to join. The Platform is also available in French.
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Corruption is embedded in health systems. Throughout my life—as a researcher, public health worker, and a Minister of Health—I have been able to see entrenched dishonesty and fraud. But despite being one of the most important barriers to implementing universal health coverage around the world, c...orruption is rarely openly discussed. In this Lecture, I outline the magnitude of the problem of corruption, how it started, and what is happening now. I also outline people's fears around the topic, what is needed to address corruption, and the responsibilities of the academic and research communities in all countries, irrespective of their level of economic development. Policy makers, researchers, and funders need to think about corruption as an important area of research in the same way we think about diseases. If we are really aiming to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals and ensure healthy lives for all, corruption in global health must no longer be an open secret.
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Key facts
- A healthy diet helps to protect against malnutrition in all its forms, as well as noncommunicable diseases (NCDs), including diabetes, heart disease, stroke and cancer.
- Unhealthy diet and lack of physical activity are leading global risks to health.
- Healthy dietary practices start... early in life – breastfeeding fosters healthy growth and improves cognitive development, and may have longer term health benefits such as reducing the risk of becoming overweight or obese and developing NCDs later in life.
- Energy intake (calories) should be in balance with energy expenditure. To avoid unhealthy weight gain, total fat should not exceed 30% of total energy intake (1, 2, 3). Intake of saturated fats should be less than 10% of total energy intake, and intake of trans-fats less than 1% of total energy intake, with a shift in fat consumption away from saturated fats and trans-fats to unsaturated fats (3), and towards the goal of eliminating industrially-produced trans-fats (4, 5, 6).
- Limiting intake of free sugars to less than 10% of total energy intake (2, 7) is part of a healthy diet. A further reduction to less than 5% of total energy intake is suggested for additional health benefits (7).
- Keeping salt intake to less than 5 g per day (equivalent to sodium intake of less than 2 g per day) helps to prevent hypertension, and reduces the risk of heart disease and stroke in the adult population (8).
- WHO Member States have agreed to reduce the global population’s intake of salt by 30% by 2025; they have also agreed to halt the rise in diabetes and obesity in adults and adolescents as well as in childhood overweight by 2025 (9, 10).
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