The report focuses on several key areas where health outcomes are falling short, and provides insight into ways in which countries can improve the situation for their children and adolescents. Areas in focus include mental health, overweight/obesity and adolescent risk-taking behaviour.
The report ...shows, for example, that:
- mental health remains a neglected subject – only one quarter of countries are collecting data on the number of children treated by a mental health professional;
- half of countries do not regulate the marketing of food to children, despite the fact that childhood obesity rates are high across the Region and physical activity rates are low;
- almost half of countries have no policy that affects the availability of unhealthy foods at school;
- 2 in 5 girls and 1 in 3 boys who are having sex do not protect themselves; and
one third of countries do not offer legal access to contraception without parental consent for those under 18 years of age.
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As a public good, antimicrobial medicines require rational use if their effectiveness is to be preserved. However, up to 50% of antibiotic use is inappropriate, adding considerable costs to patient care, and increasing morbidity and mortality. In addition, there is compelling evidence that antimicro...bial resistance is driven by the volume of antimicrobial agents used. High rates of antimicrobial resistance to common treatments are currently reported all over the world, both in health care settings and in the community. For over two decades, the Region of the Americas has been a pioneer in confronting antimicrobial resistance from a public health perspective. However, those efforts need to be stepped up if we are to have an impact on antimicrobial resistance and want to quantify said impact.
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Community-based interventions are vital for facilitating poststroke recovery, increasing community participation, and raising awareness about stroke survivors. To optimize recovery and community reintegration, there is a need to understand research findings on community-based interventions that focu...s on stroke survivors and their caregivers. Although nurses and community health workers (CHWs) are commonly involved in community-based interventions, less is known about their roles relative to other poststroke rehabilitation professionals (physical therapists, occupational therapists, and speech-language pathologists). Thus, the purpose of this review is to explore research focused on improving community-based stroke recovery for adult stroke survivors, caregivers, or both when delivered by nurses or CHWs.
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The Mapping Antimicrobial Resistance and Antimicrobial Use Partnership (MAAP) project has conducted a multi-year, multi-country study that provides stark insights on the under-reported depth of the antimicrobial resistance (AMR) crisis across Africa and lays out urgent policy recommendations to addr...ess the emergency.
MAAP reviewed 819,584 AMR records from 2016-2019, from 205 laboratories across Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Eswatini, Gabon, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. MAAP also reviewed data from 327 hospital and community pharmacies and 16 national-level AMC datasets.
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This document is written for local and international staff running nutrition programmes in emergencies, and for local, regional and national authorities and donors involved in such programmes.
The note explains why nutrition programmes need to include early childhood development (ECD) activities t...o maximize the child’s development.
It provides practical suggestions as to what simple steps are necessary to create integrated programmes in situations of famine or food insecurity and it gives examples of how such integrated programmes have been established in other situations.
This document is also available in Arabic: http://www.who.int/mental_health/emergencies/ecd_why_what_how_arabic.pdf?ua=1
;and in French: http://www.who.int/mental_health/emergencies/ecd_why_what_how_french.pdf?ua=1
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Rabies is a devastating and societally important zoonotic disease, which is transmitted principally to humans through the bite of infected dogs. This acute, progressive viral encephalitis has the highest case fatality of any infectious disease and kills tens of thousands of people annually, with chi...ldren and impoverished communities being affected disproportionately.
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Common Threads, Common Practice provides a concise, easy to use reference guide for best practice when working with immigrant and refugee women in sexual and reproductive health.
Violence against women and girls is widespread in the Region of the Americas, resulting in enormous consequences for the health and wellbeing of women and girls, their families and communities. These costs are unacceptable and they can be prevented through evidence-based action, including the health... sector through its policies and protocols, as well as in collaboration with other sectors. This report remains the first of its kind and is a major milestone for the Region. It is specifically informed by the commitments of Member States in the regional Strategy and Plan of Action on Strengthening the Health System to Address Violence against Women. The report provides an analysis of efforts to advance the prevention of violence against women through health policies, clinical protocols, multisectoral plans and related approaches across the Americas. Attention to this topic is timely, as the COVID-19 pandemic has created new visibility for this area of work. This report offers critical information on efforts in the Region that can be learned from and used to build upon in the future to prevent and respond to violence against all women and girls everywhere.
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mhGAP is based on evidence-based technical guidelines (4) and provides a set of tools and
training packages to extend service provision. The mhGAP Intervention Guide (mhGAP-IG)
for MNS disorders in non-specialized health settings (8) is a clinical decision-making tool
for assessing and managing p...riority MNS conditions (depression, psychoses, epilepsy, child
and adolescent mental and behavioural disorders, dementia, disorders due to substance
use, self-harm and suicide).
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For children orphaned or made vulnerable by HIV (OVC)
A guide to protocol development for low-income countries
Nepal is on target to meet the Millennium Development Goals for maternal and child health despite high levels of poverty, poor infrastructure, difficult terrain and recent conflict. Each year, nearly 35000 Nepali children die before their fifth birthday, with almost two-thirds of these deaths occurr...ing in the first month of life, the neonatal period. As part of a multi-country analysis, we examined changes for newborn survival between 2000 and 2010 in terms of mortality, coverage and health system indicators as well as national and donor funding.
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Investigación original / Original research
Rev Panam Salud Publica 35(1), 2014