The aim of this guidance is to enhance the capacity of health care facilities to protect and improve the health
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of their target communities in an unstable and changing climate; and to empower health care facilities to be environmentally sustainable, by optimizing the use of resources and minimizing the release of waste into the environment. Climate resilient and environmentally sustainable health care facilities contribute to high quality of care and accessibility of services, and by helping reduce facility costs also ensure better affordability. They are, therefore, an important component of universal health coverage (UHC).
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The Guidance Notes seek to help operationalize, simplify and standardize the collection and reporting of data through the application of common language and methods. They provide information on the
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key issues to take into account in the collection of health data and the types of data that should be collated, and potential stakeholders to engage with. They adapt and complement the UNDRR/UNISDR Technical guidance for monitoring and reporting on progress in achieving the global targets of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction, which has a multisectoral target audience.
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A Formative Evaluation of UNICEF’s Child Protection System Building Approach in Indonesia
Guidance for General Medical and Specialised Mental Health Care Settings
One of the many gender inequities in the health and care workforce that COVID-19 has exposed is around the fit and design of Personal Protective Eq
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uipment (PPE). The rapid onset and scale of COVID-19 led to shortages of PPE in most countries, causing preventable infection and mortality among healthcare workers and others on the front lines. Even though most health workers are women, manufacturing specifications for medical PPE are usually drawn up based on the male body and there have been many reports of PPE not designed for women's bodies.
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A recent survey of the literature and experience identified five broad actions that development institutions and governments, as well as their partners and stakeholders, can take to improve disability-inclusive
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disaster risk management. Those five actions are:
- Include persons with disabilities as valued stakeholders in disaster risk management activities
- Help remove barriers to the full participation of persons with disabilities
- Increase awareness among governments and their partners of the safety and security needs of persons with disabilities
- Collect data that is disaggregated by disability
- Ensure that new construction, rehabilitation and reconstruction are accessible to persons with disabilities
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WBCSD Vision 2050 sets out the goal to achieve the highest attainable standard of health and wellbeing for everyone by 2050, calling for a world in which: people live healthy lives; societies promote and protect health; everyone has access to robust
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, resilient and sustainable healthcare services; and all workplaces promote health and wellbeing. Business has a significant role to play in realizing this vision, thereby creating healthier and happier societies and building business resilience.
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The right to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health is enshrined in many international human rights treaties. However, studies have shown that people with men
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tal disabilities are often marginalized and discriminated against in the fulfillment of their right to health. The aim of this study is to identify and reach a broader understanding of barriers to the right to mental health in the Eastern Cape Province in South Africa. Eleven semi-structured interviews were carried out with health professionals and administrators.
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The brief concludes that sustaining the continuity of EHS requires policies that ensure a whole-society and systems strengthening approach. This involves increased health care investment, community
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engagement, disease control regulations, and multisector approaches to improve resilience, EHS quality, and equity.
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The Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030 outlines seven clear targets and four priorities for action to prevent new and reduce existing disaster risks: (i) Understanding
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disaster risk; (ii) Strengthening disaster risk governance to manage disaster risk; (iii) Investing in disaster reduction for resilience and; (iv) Enhancing disaster preparedness for effective response, and to "Build Back Better" in recovery, rehabilitation and reconstruction.
It aims to achieve the substantial reduction of disaster risk and losses in lives, livelihoods and health and in the economic, physical, social, cultural and environmental assets of persons, businesses, communities and countries over the next 15 years.
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Child friendly spaces (CFS) are safe spaces where
communities create nurturing environments in which
children can access free and structured play and
learning activities. CFS, also commonly referred to
as Child Centred Spaces or Safe Spaces for Children,
may provide educational and psychosocial
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support
and other activities that restore a sense of normality
and continuity for children whose lives have been
disrupted by war, natural disaster or other emergency
situations.
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Since the start of the pandemic, the region has been hit by multiple natural and biological disasters. At the same time, climate change has continued to warm the world, exacerbating the impacts of m
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any of these disasters. The *Asia-Pacific Disaster Report 2021, *also launched today, shows that the pandemic, combined with the persistent reality of climate change, has reshaped and expanded the disaster “riskscape” in Asia and the Pacific.
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Emergencies, in spite of their tragic nature and adverse effects on mental health, are unparalleled opportunities to build better mental health systems for all people in need. This WHO publication shows how this was done in 10 diverse emergency-affe
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cted areas
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Patient safety standards are critical for the establishment and assessment of patient safety programmes within hospitals. This third edition of the Patient safety assessment manual provides an updat
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ed set of standards and assessment criteria that reflect current best practice and WHO guidance. The manual will support the implementation of patient safety assessments and improvement programmes within hospitals as part of the Patient Safety Friendly Hospital Framework to ensure that patient safety is prioritized and facilities and staff implement best practices. The manual is a key tool for use by professional associations regulatory accrediting or oversight bodies and ministries of health to improve patient safety.
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Caring for burns patients from the incident scene to definitive treatment can be a complex, resource-consuming process with the potential to overwhelm health system capacity.This document provides practical guidance for building capacity and capabil
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ity for burns care from clinical, human resources and operational perspectives. It is therefore recommended that guidance in this document be applied to any contexts in which the local health system might struggle to cope and require surge support.
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Background Paper prepared for the 2015 Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction
The aim of this paper is to help bring voluntary standards into the toolbox
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of disaster risk reduction, including both by encouraging their use by business and by enhancing their role in legislation and regulatory practice.
- Authorities can build awareness for standards in Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR), by facilitating access to relevant standards, encouraging education on DRR-related standards and involving the standardization community.
- Standards need to be sustained by a powerful infrastructure that allows for reliable inspections, audits and precise measurements to be conducted by skilled professionals.
- Risk management best practice needs to embed, as emdodies in standards, more fully in regulatory frameworks in sectors that are relevant.
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his revision to the Disaster Management Team’s (DMT) multi-sector response plan for COVID-19 is meant to align the multi-sector plan with the Department of Health’s COVID-19 Emergency Response P
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lan issued on 24 April 2020. Additionally, at the time of this version, the Department of Education and Department for Community Development and Religion have also issued their own national COVID-19 response and recovery plans.
The Government’s plan maintains a health sector focus and plans for a ‘worst case’ scenario, articulating the process of progressing into containment and subsequently mitigation of community transmission and on to recovery. It presents an opportunity to improve the core capacities of the whole of government, to see where both health and non-health sectors fit in and respond in the immediate and medium terms, and to adapt to the ‘new normal’ that this coronavirus has inevitably presented
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Community health nurses have the potential to make significant contributions to meet the health care needs of various population groups in a variety of
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community settings. In order to assess the extent to which CHNs are achieving this potential, WHO conducted a study between 2010 and 2014 that examined the status of community health nursing in 22 countries, 13 of which were experiencing a critical shortage of health care workers. The study revealed that the countries surveyed had the basic and operational framework for optimizing CHN in their health systems as evidenced by the availability of PHC structures to guide interventions. However, challenges were identified related to the education, practice and management of CHNs in these countries. The major challenges identified were: Limited availability of career opportunities; poor worker retention; low recognition for CHNs; inadequate and unsupportive working conditions and environments; absence of educational standards; varying educational entry-level requirements for CHN programmes; and a lack of consensus on the scope of practice for CHNs.
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The Disaster Recovery Framework (DRF) Guide for the Health Sector provides guidance on how to implement a comprehensive, integrated, and structured approach to disaster recovery. Its overarching goa
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l is to minimize the impact of the disaster on communities and help countries to recover quickly and effectively from disasters, in coordination with key stakeholders.
The DRF Guide for the Health Sector is adapted from the generic DRF Guide, and draws on the Implementation Guide For Health Systems Recovery in Emergencies, the Health Emergency and Disaster Risk Management Framework as well as the Disaster Recovery Guidance Series. The guide also makes links with multi-sectoral, government-led recovery planning processes such as the Post-Disaster Needs Assessment (PDNA), and it supports the implementation of the HDPN.
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This analytical report reviews and discusses the potential role and influence of political commitment in implementing endorsements and conducting policy in the field of tuberculosis (TB) prevention
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and care. It promotes discussion by comparing and analysing the extent to which selected international commitments, set out in declarations and other committal documents between 2000 and 2018, may have translated into sustainable action. This reflection is relevant and timely, as the United Nations high-level meeting (UNHLM) on TB recently took place, offering countries the opportunity to take stock of progress made, refocus efforts, and step up global commitments to achieve the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal of eliminating TB by 2030
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