The COVID-19 pandemic has put significant pressure on health systems all around the world. The drastic measures established to contain its spread are creating serious impediments to economic activit
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y (including agrifood systems) and, consequently, to livelihoods and food security and nutrition.
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The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) showed
that global commitment and collective action
could significantly reduce the disease burdens of
three deadly communicable diseases: HIV/AIDS,
tuberculosis (TB) and malaria. The MDGs helped
focus efforts on these three deadly diseases
and leveraged
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disease-specific programmes and
financing, thus achieving significant progress.
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14 January 2021
This practical guide can be used to help countries monitor and analyse the impact of COVID-19 on essential health services to inform planning and decision-making. It provides practical recommendations on how to use key performance i
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ndicators to analyse changes in access to and delivery of essential health services within the context of the COVID-19 pandemic; how to visualize and interpret these data; and how to use the findings to guide modifications for safe delivery of services and transitioning towards restoration and recovery. The guide focuses on existing indicators and data that are captured in routine reporting systems and how they can be used by national and subnational authorities to understand specific contexts, challenges and bottlenecks. This guide supports Maintaining essential health services: operational guidance for the COVID-19 context, which provides an integrated framework to guide countries in their efforts to reorganize, adapt and maintain safe delivery of high-priority essential health services within the context of the pandemic.
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The report summarizes key global health expenditure patterns and trends, and illustrates the potential of the new database to inform thinking about financing reforms to progress towards UHC, and als
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o raises issues for further research. It analyses the following areas:
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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 sy
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stems, 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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Global HIV control funding falls short of need. To maximize health outcomes, it is critical that national governments sustain reasonable commitments, and that international donor assistance be distributed according to country needs and funding gaps.
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We develop a country classification framework in terms of actual versus expected national domestic funding, considering resource needs and donor financing. With UNAIDS and World Bank data, we examine domestic and donor HIV program funding in relation to need in 84 low- and middle-income countries. We estimate expected domestic contributions per person living with HIV (PLWH) as a function of per capita income, relative size of the health sector, and per capita foreign debt service.
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Development assistance for health (DAH) is an important part of financing healthcare in low- and middle-income countries. We estimated the gross disbursement of DAH of the 29 Development Assistance
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Committee (DAC) member countries of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) for 2011–2019; and clarified its flows, including aid type,
channel, target region, and target health focus area. Data from the OECD iLibrary were used. The DAH definition was based on the OECD sector classification. For core funding to non-healthspecific multilateral agencies, we estimated DAH and its flows based on the OECD methodology for
calculating imputed multilateral official development assistance (ODA).
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This document provides an overview of strategic purchasing of nutrition services within primary health care. It introduces key terms and payment methods for countries to use in preparing to transform their
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health financial systems to scale up nutrition services. It does so by introducing nutritional perspectives to strategic health purchasing core areas: What to buy, From whom to buy and How to buy.
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In many of Myanmar’s contested regions, healthcare services are provided through two parallel governance systems – by the government’s Ministry of Health, and by providers linked to ethnic arm
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ed organizations. Building upon efforts to build trust between these two actors following ceasefires signed in 2011 and 2012, the new National League for Democracy-led government offers an unprecedented opportunity to increase cooperation between these systems and to ensure health services reach Myanmar’s most vulnerable populations.
The report provides an overview of existing health service arrangements in these areas, from both the Ministry of Health and from ethnic and community-based health organizations. It then unpacks the concept of “convergence”, highlighting key opportunities and policy recommendations for both government and non-government actors.
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Self-care interventions are among the most promising and exciting new approaches to improve health and well-being, both from a health systems persp
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ective and for people who use these interventions. The World Health Organization (WHO) uses the following working definition of self-care: Self-care is the ability of individuals, families and communities to promote health, prevent disease, maintain health, and cope with illness and disability with or without the support of a health- care provider
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No Public Health without Refugee and Migrant health.
This report, the first of its kind, creates an evidence base with the aim of catalysing progress towards developing and promoting migrant-sensit
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ive health systems in the 53 Member States of the WHO European Region and beyond. This report seeks to illuminate the causes, conse-quences and responses to the health needs and challenges faced by refugees and migrants in the Region, while also providing a snapshot of the progress being made across the Region. Additionally, the report seeks to identify gaps that require further action through collaboration, to improve the collection and availability of high-quality data and to stimulate policy initiatives
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Childhood obesity is a major public health problem globally, which could undermine progress towards achieving the Sustainable Development Goals. Prevention is recognized as the most efficient means of curbing the epidemic; however, given the scale o
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f the problem and the many children who need professional support due to the severity of the disease and/or obesity-related complications, health systems all over Europe must take steps to develop obesity management systems. The aim of this project was to assess the response of health care delivery systems in 19 countries in the WHO European Region to the childhood obesity epidemic.
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Self-care interventions are among the most promising and exciting new approaches to improve health and well-being, both from a health systems persp
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ective and for people who use these interventions.
The World Health Organization (WHO) uses the following working definition of self-care: Self-care is the ability of individuals, families and communities to promote health, prevent disease, maintain health, and cope with illness and disability with or without the support of a health worker. The scope of self-care as described in this definition includes health promotion; disease prevention and control; self-medication; providing care to dependent persons; seeking hospital/specialist/primary care if necessary; and rehabilitation, including palliative care. It includes a range of self-care modes and approaches. While this is a broad definition that includes many activities, it is important for health policy to recognize the importance of self-care, especially where it intersects with health systems and health professionals.
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The GHS Index is intended to be a key resource in the face of increasing risks of high-consequence and globally catastrophic biological events and in light of major gaps in international financing for preparedness. These risks are magnified by a rap
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idly changing and interconnected world; increasing political instability; urbanization; climate change; and rapid technology advances that make it easier, cheaper, and faster to create and engineer pathogens.
Key findings from the study of 195 countries:
• Out of a possible 100 points, the average GHS Index score across 195 countries was 40.2.
• The majority of high- and middle-income countries do not score above 50.
• Action is urgently needed to improve countries’ readiness for high-consequence infectious disease outbreaks.
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Benchmarking is a strategic process often used by businesses and institutes to standardize performance in relation to the best practices of their sector. The World Health Organization (WHO) and partners have developed a tool with a list of benchmark
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s and corresponding suggested actions that can be applied to implement the International Health Regulations 2005 (IHR) and strengthen health emergency prevention, preparedness, response and resilience capacities.
The first edition of the benchmarks was published in 2019 to support countries in developing, implementing and documenting progress of national IHR or health security plans (e.g. national action plan for health security (NAPHS), national action plan for emerging infectious diseases, public health emergencies and health security and other country level plans for health emergencies). The tool has been updated to incorporate lessons from COVID-19 and other health emergencies, to align with the updated IHR monitoring & evaluation framework (IHR MEF) tools and the health systems for health security framework, and to support strengthening health emergency prevention, preparedness, response and resilience (HEPR) capacities and the Preparedness and Resilience for Emerging Threats (PRET) initiative.
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A Systematic Review, Country Case Studies, and Recommendations for Integration into National Health Systems
Alliance Report
Participation of community
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health workers (CHWs) in the provision of primary health care has been experienced all over the world for several decades, and there is an amount of evidence showing that they can add significantly to the efforts of improving the health of the population, particularly in those settings with the highest shortage of motivated and capable health professionals.
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Third edition.
The main changes within the third edition of the JEE tool include the split of the technical area National legislation, policy, and financing into two technical areas (Legal instruments and
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Financing); the drop of the technical area previously titled Reporting and the move of indicators to the technical area IHR coordination, National IHR Focal Point and advocacy; and the merging of two previous technical areas (Emergency preparedness and Emergency operations centre) into a single one named Health emergency management.
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2018 monitoring report: current status and strategic priorities
The report sets out the status of women’s, children’s and adolescents’ health, and on health
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systems and social and environmental determinants. Regional dashboards on 16 key indicators highlight where progress is being made or lagging. There is progress overall, but not at the level required to achieve the 2030 goals. There are some areas where progress has stalled or is reversing, namely neonatal mortality, gender inequalities and health in humanitarian settings.
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For the Fiscal Year 2014-2015, the Health Sector continued to implement interventions and strategies meant to improve the availability, accessibility and utilization of quality healthcare services across public and private
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health facilities; and to ensure the reduction of the burden of communicable and non-communicable diseases in Rwanda. This annual report highlights key achievements registered by the health sector during the Fiscal Year 2014-2015. Achievements are highlighted under three big components: Health Programs, Health Systems Support and Budget Execution.
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A nationwide survey of a representative sample of health facilities across public health services in all states and regions of Myanmar has been undertaken since 2014 to track Reproductive
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Health Commodity Security (RHCS) indicators, such as the availability of reproductive health (RH) commodities; the supply chain (including cold chain systems); staff training and supervision; availability of guidelines and protocols; information and communication technologies; methods of waste disposal; and user fees. The surveys have also obtained the views of clients about the quality and cost of services through exit interviews. This is the third report for Myanmar, which is an assessment of the situation in 2016.
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