The threat climate change poses to health, equity, and development has been rigorously documented. However, in an era marked by economic crisis, regional conflicts, natural disasters and growing disparities between rich and poor, the joint global actions required to address climate change have been ...vigorously debated – and critical decisions postponed.
This document, part of WHO’s Health in the Green Economy series, describes how many climate change measures can be “win-wins” for people and the planet.
These policies yield large, immediate public health benefits while reducing the upward trajectory of greenhouse gas emissions. Many of these policies can improve the health and equity of people in poor countries and assist developing countries in adapting to climate change that is already occurring, as evidenced by more extreme storms, flooding, drought and heatwaves.
WHO’s Department of Public Health and Environment launched the Health in the Green Economy initiative in 2010 to review potential health and equity “co-benefits” of proposed climate change measures – as well as relevant risks.
This review examines mitigation strategies discussed in the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change which constitutes the most broad-based global review of mitigation options by scientific experts.
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Pharmaceutical regulators are at the forefront of ensuring that only safe and effective medicines are authorized and available in the market. This document builds on the recommendations in the above publication and has been prepared to specifically assist national medicines regulatory authorities to... understand the nature and extent of oxytocin quality issues and to provide key technical information and quality requirements for oxytocin products in dossier assessments. Furthermore, this document also presents recommendations on other regulatory actions needed to ensure that only quality-assured oxytocin products are authorized and made available to women.
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El resumen ejecutivo del Informe de la OMS sobre la situación mundial de la salud bucodental presenta una instantánea de los datos más recientes sobre las principales enfermedades bucodentales, los factores de riesgo, los retos para los sistemas de salud y las oportunidades de reforma. La clara c...onclusión del informe es que la situación de la salud bucodental a nivel mundial es alarmante y requiere una acción urgente. El informe servirá de referencia para los responsables de la formulación de políticas y permitirá a un amplio abanico de partes interesadas de diferentes sectores orientar su labor de promoción hacia una mejor priorización de la salud bucodental en los contextos mundial, regional y nacional. Además, el informe proporciona, como un recurso en línea separado, los primeros perfiles nacionales de salud bucodental para los 194 Estados Miembros de la OMS, lo que da una visión única de las áreas y los marcadores clave de la salud bucodental que son relevantes para los responsables de la adopción de decisiones.
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El objetivo general del marco es apoyar a la OMS y a los Estados Miembros en lo relativo a la participación significativa de las personas con enfermedades no transmisibles y afecciones de salud mental y neurológicas con vistas a la creación conjunta y la mejora de políticas, programas y servicio...s que les afectan. Este marco contribuirá a avanzar en la comprensión, el conocimiento y las medidas adoptadas sobre la participación significativa y los enfoques participativos conexos a partir de una base empírica en evolución. En él se ofrece orientación práctica y medidas para pasar de la intención a la acción y hacer realidad la participación significativa. El objetivo del marco es orientar a quienes trabajan en la OMS y en los Estados Miembros para hacer realidad la participación significativa de las personas con experiencia vivida. La OMS promoverá, brindará asistencia técnica y pondrá en marcha el marco en sus tres niveles (Sede, oficinas regionales y oficinas en los países) y apoyará a los Estados Miembros en la aplicación a nivel nacional mediante los procesos y procedimientos establecidos.
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The report aims to help policy-makers and programme managers identify the areas that need attention and to work towards effective implementation and enforcement of policies and legislations. The need for alcohol policy-specific infrastructures to support the alcohol policy process, including designa...ted responsible agency, policy and strategy, and law and regulation, is also required at the country level.
The report is presented in three sections. Section 1 gives an insight to the alcohol consumption situation in the WHO South-East Asia Region and cites the alcohol-related problems that the Region is facing. Section 2 illustrates the policy situation in the 10 areas of national action identified in the Global Strategy to Reduce the Harmful Use of Alcohol and gives specific recommendations pertaining to these areas. Section 3 provides overall recommendations.
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This report presents the most current data on four specific forms of violence – violent discipline and exposure to domestic abuse during early childhood; violence at school; violent deaths among adolescents; and sexual violence in childhood and adolescence. The statistics reveal that children expe...rience violence across all stages of childhood, in diverse settings, and often at the hands of the trusted individuals with whom they interact daily. The report concludes with specific national actions and strategies that UNICEF has embraced to prevent and respond to violence against children.
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High salt consumption is an important determinant of high blood pressure and reducing it would improve health outcomes by lowering cardiovascular disease and therefore death rates. Reducing salt intake has been identified as one of the most effective public health measures and is one of the leading ...targets at global, regional and national levels to reduce the burden of noncommunicable diseases. The purpose of the Dietary Salt Intake Survey in the Republic of Moldova was to establish current baseline average consumption of salt (sodium), potassium and iodine through 24-hour urinary excretion testing among a random sample of the adult population (aged 18–69 years), and to assess the knowledge, attitudes, practices and behaviour around dietary salt in order to enable more efficient planning and the implementation of an effective salt-reduction strategy in the Republic of Moldova.
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This document puts forward the joint position and vision of an expert, global, multistakeholder working group on implementing Kangaroo Mother Care (KMC) for all preterm or low birth weight (LBW) infants as the foundation for small and/or sick newborn care within maternal, newborn, and child health p...rogrammes, and spur collaborative global action. The document summarizes the background information, evidence, and rationale for making KMC available to every preterm or LBW newborn and seeks to galvanize the international maternal, newborn, and child health community and families to come together to support the implementation of KMC for all preterm or LBW infants to improve their and their mothers and families health and well-being.
This position paper is intended to be used by policy-makers (i.e. those responsible for national policy, guideline development and budget allocation), development partners, programme managers, health workforce leadership, practising clinicians, civil society leadership (e.g. parent and professional organizations) and researchers/research organizations involved in KMC implementation research.
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These guidelines present evidence-based recommendations and best practice statements on use of medically important antimicrobials in food-producing animals, based on the WHO list of critically important antimicrobials for human medicine (WHO CIA List). These guidelines aim primarily to help preserve... the effectiveness of medically important antimicrobials, particularly those antimicrobials judged to be critically important to human medicine and also help preserve the effectiveness of antimicrobials for veterinary medicine, in direct support of the WHO global action plan on antimicrobial resistance
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Countries around the world are facing the challenge of increased demand for care of people with COVID-19, compounded by fear, misinformation and limitations on movement that disrupt the delivery of health care for all conditions. Maintaining essential health services: operational guidance for the CO...VID-19 context recommends practical actions that countries can take at national, subregional and local levels to reorganize and safely maintain access to high-quality, essential health services in the pandemic context. It also outlines sample indicators for monitoring essential health services, and describes considerations on when to stop and restart services as COVID-19 transmission recedes and surges.
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The scale of international migration in the WHO European Region has increased substantially in the last decade. The dynamics of large-scale migration pose specific challenges and opportunities to health systems, and responses will differ from country to country. Strengthening health system responses... is one of the priority areas in the 2016 Strategy and action plan for refugee and migrant health in the WHO European Region. Its agreed actions include the identification and mapping of practices for developing and delivering health services that respond to the needs of refugees, asylum seekers and migrants. This compendium aims to collect and present some of these practices in the form of case studies. Selected in 2016, the case studies reflect experience from different levels of administration in a variety of European countries, and during the different phases of the migration journey.
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The International Rescue Committee (IRC) is a leading humanitarian agency dedicated to helping people whose lives have been shattered by conflict and disaster to survive, recover, and gain control of their future. Health comprises nearly half of IRC’s program portfolio globally and encompasses thr...ee sectors: 1) Primary Health (including child health, sexual and reproductive health and rights, and mental health); 2) Nutrition; and 3) Environmental Health. IRC health programming across its portfolio, in terms of the size and breadth, responds to significant needs in crisis affected settings, improving health and wellbeing while reducing causes of ill-health.
This five-year Health Strategy sharpens our focus on where we can have the most impact. It guides our efforts in planning, technical assistance, business development, advocacy, and internal and external collaboration. Through this strategy, we will invest and grow in areas that will help us achieve high impact at scale for our clients. For the next five years these priorities will include: Nutrition; Immunization: Infectious Disease Prevention and Control; Last Mile Delivery of Primary Health Care: Clean Water.
Our strategy aligns with Strategy 100 (S100) and Strategy Action Plans (SAPs). It lays out how IRC, through health, nutrition, and Environmental Health (EH) programming, will advance the IRC’s S100 ambitions, respond to global trends, and capitalize on our value add. The strategy will be complemented by delivery plans that detail investments, actions, and roles and responsibilities to advance our priorities. At the end of FY24, we will take stock of the implementation of the strategy, measure progress towards achieving our goals, and review if it continues to be fit for purpose.
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Climate change is a growing concern for Bangladesh because 90 percent of the country is approximately 10 feet above sea level. An evaluation was completed which discovered that high tides in Bangladesh were increasing 10 times more rapidly than the global average. This predicted rapid increase in se...a levels places Bangladesh four times higher than the global average. By 2050, approximately 20 percent of the inhabited land in Bangladesh will be inundated by the sea resulting in displacement for nearly 20 million people. The Government of Bangladesh has implemented policies and plans to focus on climate change concerns, but there is still much work to be completed.
Bangladesh is a nation which will continue to experience the devastating effects of climate change. These concerns for the nation are recognized and the Government of Bangladesh is working progressively to implement mitigation and preparedness measures along with making national economic and transportation improvements to better sever and protect the people of Bangladesh.
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The target audience of this document (and the associated online companion tool) includes WHO country offices
in Member States of the African Region; Member States’ ministries of health and their public health emergency
operation centres; relevant external assessment teams; and partners looking... to identify preparedness gaps and
support interventions that help address them. In the event of a suspected or confirmed VHF case, the document also serves to provide any intervening partner with a sense of what structures should be in place, in order to guide
scale-up activities in line with regional and national plans.
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More than 700 000 people lose their life to suicide every year. A core foundation of suicide prevention is the timely registration and regular monitoring of suicide and self-harm. Surveillance data can be used to show important progress towards reaching global targets, such as reducing the suicide r...ate by one third by 2030 as articulated in the UN SDGs and in the WHO Mental Health Action Plan 2013-2030. However, there are considerable discrepancies in the quality of data on suicide and self-harm globally. The aim of this training manual is to equip fieldworkers and supervisors with the skills to collect and manage data on suicide and self-harm in the community via key informants, health-care facilities and police records. In doing so, the value and overall goal is to strengthen the surveillance of suicide and self-harm in communities, particularly in LMICs and hard-to-reach communities where CRVS systems are weak or absent.
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A module from the suite of health service capacity assessments in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, Interim Guidance 20 October 2020.
This self-assessment tool is designed for acute health-care facilities (i.e. tertiary and secondary) but can be modified for the use in long-term care facilities..., to help identify, prioritize and address the gaps in infection prevention and control (IPC) capacity in managing their response to COVID-19. The tool should be used by IPC professionals and/or those responsible for disaster planning or outbreak management in the facility (such as the response to the COVID-19 outbreak) at the start of the improvement process. A sample workplan template is provided to address gaps identified and record required actions.
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To guide One Health capacity building efforts in the Republic of Guinea in the wake of the 2014–2016 Ebola virus disease (EVD) outbreak, we sought to identify and assess the existing systems and structures for zoonotic disease detection and control. We partnered with the government ministries resp...onsible for human, animal, and environmental health to identify a list of zoonotic diseases – rabies, anthrax, brucellosis, viral hemorrhagic fevers, trypanosomiasis and highly pathogenic avian influenza – as the country's top priorities. We used each priority disease as a case study to identify existing processes for prevention, surveillance, diagnosis, laboratory confirmation, reporting and response across the three ministries. Results were used to produce disease-specific systems “maps” emphasizing linkages across the systems, as well as opportunities for improvement. We identified brucellosis as a particularly neglected condition. Past efforts to build avian influenza capabilities, which had degraded substantially in less than a decade, highlighted the challenge of sustainability. We observed a keen interest across sectors to reinvigorate national rabies control, and given the regional and global support for One Health approaches to rabies elimination, rabies could serve as an ideal disease to test incipient One Health coordination mechanisms and procedures. Overall, we identified five major categories of gaps and challenges: (1) Coordination; (2) Training; (3) Infrastructure; (4) Public Awareness; and (5) Research. We developed and prioritized recommendations to address the gaps, estimated the level of resource investment needed, and estimated a timeline for implementation. These prioritized recommendations can be used by the Government of Guinea to plan strategically for future One Health efforts, ideally under the auspices of the national One Health Platform. This work demonstrates an effective methodology for mapping systems and structures for zoonotic diseases, and the benefit of conducting a baseline review of systemic capabilities prior to embarking on capacity building efforts.
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Policy brief, 24 July 2020
The COVID-19 pandemic has affected older people disproportionately, especially those living in long-term care facilities. In many countries, evidence shows that more than 40% of COVID-19 related deaths have been linked to long-term care facilities, with figures being as h...igh as 80% in some high-income countries. Concerted action is needed to mitigate the impact across all aspects of long-term care, including home- and community-based care, given that most users and providers of care are those who are vulnerable to severe COVID-19.
This policy brief provides 11 policy objectives and key action points to prevent and manage COVID-19 across long-term care. Its intended audience is policy makers and authorities (national, subnational and local) involved in the COVID-19 pandemic. The brief builds on currently available evidence on the measures taken to prevent, prepare for and respond to the COVID‑19 pandemic across long-term care services including care providers
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As the number of transboundary pest and animal and foodborne disease outbreaks rises, so does the number of people who are chronically hungry due to these and other factors. The correlation can be explained by the link between our health and that of the planet. We rely on land and sea for the produc...tion of safe and quality foods for our daily nourishment. Pests and disease epidemics negatively impact the quality, quantity and safety of our food sources, and cripple economic growth and efficiencies in production. Furthermore, the epidemic and endemic levels of the pathogens and disease vectors can be difficult to control. This is why FAO stresses and promotes the special efforts required for cost-effective preventive measures rather than the more expensive control, disinfestation, treatment and disposal measures. When preventive measures are late or difficult, preparedness and contingency plans must be in place to enable rapid response. Early warning systems, based on close monitoring, surveillance, and timely reporting are fundamental to warn and empower communities to safeguard their livelihoods and assets by enhancing disease and pest prevention measures and for government services to take immediate measures to protect communities and national economies.
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The WHO Guidance on community mental health services: Promoting person-centred and rights-based approaches document is part of the WHO Guidance and technical packages on community mental health services set of publications. It provides a detailed description of person-centred and human rights-based ...approaches in mental health, and summary examples of good practice services around the world. It describes the linkages needed with housing, education, employment and social protection sectors, and presents examples of integrated regional and national networks of community-based mental health services. Specific recommendations and action steps are presented for developing community mental health services that respect human rights and focus on recovery. This comprehensive document is accompanied by a set of seven technical packages focused on specific categories of mental health services and guidance for setting up new services.
The WHO Guidance on community mental health services: Promoting person-centred and rights-based approaches is a set of publications that provides information and support to all stakeholders who wish to develop or transform their mental health system and services to align with international human rights standards including the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.
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