November 3, 2009https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.1000176
PLoS Med 6(11): e1000176. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.1000176
Reduced healthy life expectancy due to the high burden of both mental ill health and noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) is a major public health concern in the European Region. The links between mental disorders and major NCDs are well established.
In clinical practice, however, mental disorders in pa...tients with NCDs as well as NCDs in patients with mental disorders are often overlooked. Premature mortality and disability could be reduced if there were a greater focus on comorbidity.
This report addresses the needs of adults of working age with mental health problems – those with common mental disorders such as depression and anxiety and those with more severe conditions such as schizophrenia and bi-polar affective disorder. It also addresses the needs of those with NCDs, specifically cardiovascular diseases, cancers, chronic respiratory diseases and diabetes mellitus.
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The seven essential features of practice for scaling up are described with great clarity. They are practical and universal, and encourage local innovation. They include policy, funding and local management structure, as well as working with all possible partners and developing local context adaptati...ons. The case studies give ideas and inspiration to develop new programmes and find ways around obstacles in existing programmes, especially through involving those with most at stake including users and their families and local community leaders
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Research Article
PLOS Medicine | DOI:10.1371/journal.pmed.1002253 April 4, 2017
In March 2020 the IASC Reference Group on Mental Health and Psychosocial Support uniting 57 humanitarian organizations as member issued the Interim Briefing Note Addressing Mental Health and Psychosocial Aspects of COVID-19 Outbreak. This document has proven to be very useful in the response and has... till now been translated in 24 languages. It covers a set of recommended activities as well as messages for different target groups.
The current document is an annex to the Interim Briefing Note and is meant to support the MHPSS operational response within the various sectors of humanitarian work. Approaches and interventions to MHPSS are not confined to one sector, but need to be integrated within many existing sectors and clusters.This document contains a wealth of operational information and practical approaches that can be used for humanitarian programming in health, SGBV, community-based protection, nutrition, camp management and camp coordination.
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Developing countries face disastrous healthcare setbacks, hunger and huge international debt as covid-19’s ‘final wave’
The consolidated guidelines are complemented by an operational handbook which is designed to assist with implementation of the WHO recommendations by Member States, technical partners and others who are involved in the management of patients with DR-TB. The WHO Operational Handbook on Tuberculosis, ...Module 4: Treatment - Drug-Resistant Tuberculosis Treatment provides practical guidance on how to put in place the recommendations at the scale needed to achieve national and global impact.
The operational handbook provides practical information and tools that complement the recommendations in the guidelines. The strategies described in the operational handbook are based on the latest WHO recommendations which were formulated by Guideline Development Groups using the GRADE approach. In many cases however, the recommendations in their current form lacked sufficient clinical and programmatic detail, which is important for implementation. This operational handbook complements the guidelines with practical advice based on best practices and knowledge from the fields such as pharmacokinetics, pharmacodynamics, microbiology, pharmacovigilance and clinical and programmatic management.
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This report is documenting the global incidence of attacks and threats against health workers, facilities, and transport around the world. The report cites 806 incidents of violence against or obstruction of health care in 43 countries and territories in ongoing wars and violent conflicts in 2020, r...anging from the bombing of hospitals in Yemen to the abduction of doctors in Nigeria. Attacks -- including killings, kidnappings, and sexual assaults, as well as destruction and damage of health facilities and transports -- compounded the threats to health in every country as health systems struggled to prepare for and respond to the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic.
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More than 700 000 people lose their life to suicide every year. The world is not on track to reach the 2030 suicide reduction targets. WHO advocates for countries to take action to prevent suicide, ideally through a comprehensive national suicide prevention strategy. Governments and communities can ...contribute to suicide prevention by implementing LIVE LIFE – WHO’s approach to starting suicide prevention so that countries can build on it further to develop a comprehensive national suicide prevention strategy. The guide is for all countries, with or without a national suicide prevention strategy; national or local focal points for suicide prevention, mental health, alcohol or NCDs; and community stakeholders with a vested interest or who may already be engaged in implementing suicide prevention activities.
Excecutive Summary available in English, French, Arabic, Chinese, Russian and Spanisch here:
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Investment in all the drivers and facilitators of hand hygiene action in health care to ensure that it occurs at the point of care and other critical moments requires a multidisciplinary, multifaceted approach. WHO describes such an approach as a “multimodal improvement strategy” (MMIS) which is... at the core of its implementation models for hand hygiene and infection prevention and control (IPC) programmes. The focus of this document is on the resource considerations for investing in hand hygiene improvement in health care (primary, secondary and tertiary) using the MMIS approach.
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A practioner's guide, based on lessons from Ebola.
This guide is a compilation of best practices and key lessons learned through Oxfam’s experience of community engagement during the 2014–15 Ebola response in Sierra Leone and Liberia. It aims to inform public health practitioners and programme ...teams about the design and implementation of community-centred approaches
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Nurses are key players in health promotion and disease prevention and the backbone of health care systems worldwide. Nurses work on the front lines of disease prevention, health promotion, and health management and are often the unsung heroes in health care facilities and emergency response. Despite... the critical role they play in health care, there is a nursing shortage across the world that will affect the delivery of competent nursing care. This document highlights key action points for targeted investment in the nursing workforce and calls on Member States to strengthen nursing within the context of their own country efforts.
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The document explains why vector control is important in national programmes and describes the preparation of a tailor-made vector control plan for national programmes. It outlines entomological procedures for regular and specific vector control and how data should be analysed for better overall und...erstanding of filarial transmission and vectors. The document will also be useful for teaching personnel in lymphatic filariasis programmes about the use and value
of entomological procedures in overall epidemiological appraisal in the context of
elimination
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Since 24 February 2022, the war in Ukraine has caused widespread suffering to its people and serious damage
to the country’s infrastructure. Attacks on the country’s health system and its power network threaten people, compromise the provision of health care, and complicate the distribution of ...essential medicines and equipment.
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Skin-related neglected tropical diseases, or “skin NTDs”, are historically neglected because active case detection, individual case management, significant resources and intensive effort are required to control, eliminate and eradicate them. Integrated control and management of skin NTDs offers ...a pathway to overcome some of these past challenges.
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