Access to health workers who are fit for purpose, motivated and protected is a fundamental force of health service delivery and the achievement of ...universal health coverage and the health and health-related Sustainable Development Goals. Data and knowledge of the distribution, skill mix and future development needs of the health workforce can mean the difference between enabling or impeding health systems performance, inclusive economic growth and global health security preparedness and response
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The WHO Regional Office for Europe, the WHO Collaborating Centre on Culture and Health at the University of Exeter (United Kingdom) and the National Institute of Mental ...hlight medbox">Health (Czechia) convened a workshop on culture and reform of mental health care in central and eastern Europe on 2–3 October 2017 in Klecany, Czechia. The aim of this workshop was to improve understanding of the key cultural aspects that impact and drive mental health-care reform in the central and eastern European region. This report outlines the key points and recommendations made by participants in relation to this objective.
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A stated objective of WHO’s European Mental Health Action Plan 2013–2020 is to ensure better information and knowledge for service planning, development, monitoring and evaluation, including... requesting Member States to report on the indicators in the Plan.
Progress towards achieving the internationally agreed mental health objectives and targets is monitored in the periodic WHO Mental Health Atlas, which collates global information on mental health policies, resources and services.
This booklet provides a snapshot of the situation in countries in the WHO European region with regard to a number of core mental health targets and indicators, derived from the WHO’s Mental Health Atlas 2017.
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For the 24th consecutive year, PAHO has published the report Health Situation in the Americas: Core Indicators featuring the latest information on key indicators for the Region of the Americas. This 2018 edition includes data on the 82 core indicato...rs for the countries, territories, and sub regions of the Americas, grouped into the following categories: demographic-socioeconomic, health status, risk factors, service coverage, and health systems. Information is also presented on 22 indicators of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
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A new frontier for integrated care.
Until now, most efforts to promote integrated care have focused on bridging the gaps between health and social care or between primary and secondary care. But the NHS five year forward view has highlighted a thir...d dimension – bringing together physical and mental health. This report makes a compelling case for this ‘new frontier’ for integration. It gives service users’ perspectives on what integrated care would look like and highlights ten areas that offer some of the biggest opportunities for improving quality and controlling costs.
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The main objective of this guidance is to provide scientific advice, based on an evidence-based assessment of targeted public health interventions, to facilitate effective screening and vaccination for priority infectious diseases among newly arrive...d migrant populations to the EU/EEA. It is intended to support EU/EEA Member States to develop national strategies to strengthen infectious disease prevention and control among migrants and meet the health needs of these populations.
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The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) is the lead UN agency working to further gender equality and women’s empowerment in Sri Lanka. We are pleased to be a part of the joint effort with the Ministry of Health to develop the first ‘Standard ...Operating Procedures on sexual and gender-based violence for first-contact-point healthcare providers’.
These operating procedures were developed alongside the ‘National guidelines on sexual and gender-based violence’, which aims to strengthen Sri Lanka’s health systems response to survivors of violence. We are grateful to the British High Commission in Colombo for their support in developing these guidelines and procedures as they mark an important milestone in creating a safer Sri Lanka for all women and girls. UNFPA is proud to be a part of this journey, and we stand ready to provide continued assistance to the Government of Sri Lanka and all key stakeholders to ensure women and girls receive essential services that support their safety, well-being and access to justice and to create a violence-free Sri Lanka.
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The Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health recognises that climate change
is an existential threat to the health and wellbeing of children and young people.
In October 2020, we joined ...an class="attribute-to-highlight medbox">national health and academic alliances to declare
climate change an emergency requiring accelerated collaborative actions. This
position statement summarises our recommendations and activity about
mitigation and adaptation against the impact of climate change on children and
young people around the world.
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This resource is the third in a series of online guides for promoting positive mental health across the lifespan. This resource provides health and social ...>service providers (“practitioners”) with current evidence-based approaches in the application of mental health promotion concepts and principles for refugees. It is intended to support practitioners, caregivers and others in incorporating best practice approaches to mental health promotion initiatives or programs directed toward refugees.
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The Guidelines on promotive and preventive mental health interventions for adolescents - Helping Adolescents thrive (HAT), provide evidence-informed recommendations on psychosocial interventions to promote mental ...medbox">health, prevent mental disorders, and reduce self-harm and other risk behaviours among adolescents.
The HAT Guidelines aims to inform policy development, service planning and the strengthening of health and education systems, and facilitate mainstreaming of adolescent mental health promotion and prevention strategies across sectors and delivery platforms.
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The Compendium brings together for the first time key consensus-based policy recommendations and guidance to improve the delivery of proven interventions to women and children. The user-friendly format incorporates icons and tabs to present key health...n>-related policies that support the delivery of essential RMNCH interventions. It also includes multisectoral policies on the economic, social, technological and environmental factors that influence health outcomes and service delivery. The Policy Compendium is a companion document to the Essential Interventions, Commodities and Guidelines for RMNCH.
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This report presents, for the first time, a global assessment of the extent to which health care facilities provide essential water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) services. Drawing on data from 54 low- and middle-income countries, the report conclud...es that 38% lack access to even rudimentary levels of water, 19% lack sanitation and 35% do not have water and soap for handwashing. When a higher level of service is factored in, the situation deteriorates significantly. A number of areas require urgent action and WHO will work with UNICEF, Governments and other partners to develop a global plan to address the most pressing needs and ensure that all health care facilities have WASH services.
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A two-week mission was conducted by WASH and quality UHC technical experts from WHO headquarters and supported by the WHO Ethiopia Country Office (WASH and health systems teams) in July 2016, to understand how change in WASH services and quality imp...rovements have been implemented in Ethiopia at national, sub-national and facility levels; to document existing activities; and through the “joint lens” of quality UHC and WASH, to identify and seek to address key bottlenecks in specific areas including leadership, policy/financing, monitoring and evaluation, evidence application and facility improvements. Ethiopia has implemented a number of innovative and successful interventions.
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This report presents further analysis of the 2015 Nepal Health Facility Survey. Data analysis is based on the Donabedian framework for assessing quality of care in health services, which divides the... indicators into three groups: structure, process, and outcome. The World Health Organization Service Availability and Readiness Assessment (SARA) indicator guideline was used to assess facility service readiness, service quality and client satisfaction with maternal health services. The study performed both bivariate and multivariate regression analysis to examine the association of maternal health service readiness and quality indicators with client satisfaction.
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A wide range of potential enablers and barriers were identified for influencing progress for the scale-up of severe wasting services within national health systems. Findings were categorised accordi...ng to the six pillars of WHO’s health system strengthening framework.
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The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has shown that public financial management (PFM) should be an integral part of the response. Effectiveness in financing the health response depends not only on the level of funding but also on the way public funds are a...llocated and spent, this is determined by the PFM rules, and how money flows to health service providers. So far, early assessments have shown that PFM systems ranged from being a fundamental enabler to acting as a roadblock in the COVID-19 health response. While service delivery mechanisms have been extensively documented throughout the pandemic, the underlying PFM mechanisms of the response also merit attention. To highlight the importance of PFM in health emergency contexts, this rapid review analyses various country PFM experiences and identifies early lessons emerging from the financing of the health response to COVID-19. The assessment is done by stages of the budget cycle: budget allocation, budget execution, and budget oversight. Identifying lessons from the varying PFM modalities used to finance the response to COVID-19 is fundamental both for health policy-makers and for finance authorities to prepare for future health emergencies.
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The report “Dementia: a public health priority” has been jointly developed by WHO and Alzheimer's Disease International. The purpose of this report is to raise awareness of dementia as a public health... priority, to articulate a public health approach and to advocate for action at international and national levels.
Dementia is a syndrome that affects memory, thinking, behaviour and ability to perform everyday activities. The number of people living with dementia worldwide is currently estimated at 35.6 million. This number will double by 2030 and more than triple by 2050. Dementia is overwhelming not only for the people who have it, but also for their caregivers and families. There is lack of awareness and understanding of dementia in most countries, resulting in stigmatization, barriers to diagnosis and care, and impacting caregivers, families and societies physically, psychologically and economically.
Available Languages: Chinese, English, Japanese, Russian and Spanish
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World Psychiatry. 2010 Jun;9(2):67-77.
The main recommendations are presented in relation to: the need for coordinated policies, plans and programmes, the requirement to scale up services for whole populations, the importance of promoting community awareness about mental illness to increase levels ...of help-seeking, the need to establish effective financial and budgetary provisions to directly support services provided in the community. The paper concludes by setting out a series of lessons learned from the accumulated practice of community mental health care to date worldwide, with a particular focus on the social and governmental measures that are required at the national level, the key steps to take in the organization of the local mental health system, lessons learned by professionals and practitioners, and how to most effectively harness the experience of users, families, and other advocates
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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 serv...ices 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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This integrated operational framework provides an overview of the connections between mental health, neurological and substance use (MNS) conditions, and their links to health, well-being and the br...oader public health and sustainable development agenda. The need for integrated approaches is increasingly recognized as critical to address the complex interactions between mental health, brain health, substance use, and physical health, particularly in light of global threats such as the COVID-19 pandemic. The framework also provides a series of actions for governments and health service planners and advisors to achieve integration across four domains: leadership and governance; care services; promotion and prevention; and health information systems, evidence generation and research.
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