Mental health problems are common and cause great suffering to individuals and communities around the world. They have a significant impact not only on the physical and mental health of those affect...ed but also on their families and the communities they live in. At the same time, all communities have their own traditional mechanisms for support and contain a range wide of resources that can be helpful in preventing mental health conditions from developing, promoting positive mental health and supporting the recovery of people that are struggling with a mental health condition.
In the wider context, people living with a mental health condition are often excluded from their communities and experience various violations to their basic human rights (discrimination, violence, exclusion from employment opportunities). The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that the mean prevalence of global mental health disorders is 10.8% while the prevalence in emergency settings is 22.1% in any conflict-affected population.
During emergencies and crisis, the stigma, exclusion and discrimination towards people living with mental health conditions is often higher, which can cause isolation and protection issues. Communities can play a crucial role in promoting mental health as well as enhancing primary care and access. Their role is to help reduce mental health inequalities by providing community resources that connect people to community-based resources and by providing mental health education. This also helps to reduce the massive mental health treatment gap.
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The burden of diabetes is enormous, positioning it as one of the main challenges facing public health today. Currently, it is estimated that 62 million people are living with diabetes in the Region of the Americas and projections show its prevalence... will continue rising over the following years. The Region shows the highest number of years of healthy life lost (through either disability or premature death) due to diabetes worldwide. The high costs associated with its treatment produce a heavy economic burden. Its complications can seriously affect the quality of life of people living with diabetes, their families, and society and overload health systems. This report shows the latest internationally comparable data on diabetes and its main risk factors by year, country, and sex. It also includes a summary of the countries health systems’ response to diabetes, including national plans, targets, surveillance, guidelines, and access to essential drugs and technologies, and synthesizes information about diabetes-related complications and the close relationship between diabetes and other pathologies, such as cardiovascular diseases, tuberculosis, and COVID-19. The data presented here reveal that, despite advances in national responses, diabetes continues to expand, and our response remains insufficient. This report aims to draw attention to the urgent need to strengthen efforts to prevent, diagnose, and control diabetes in the Region of the Americas.
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The guide aims to provide health and DRM practitioners, planners and policymakers across sectors with targeted information to help them strengthen national health systems and integrate the risks of ...disease outbreaks in national DRR strategies
The following are some of the principles and approaches that have been based on lessons learned to date and may be considered to ensure effective all-hazards health EDRM, including prevention and preparedness for disease outbreaks, are addressed as part of the multihazard, multisectoral approach to developing or updating DRR strategies
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This Teacher’s Guide accompanies the WHO publication Management of wastes from health-care activities . It provides teaching materials and recommendations for a three day training course, designed mainly for managers of ...ighlight medbox">health-care establishments, public health professionals and policy makers
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In 2005, the World Health Organization (WHO) Member States adopted the revised International
Health Regulations (IHR) (2005). The Regulations provide a unique public ...s="attribute-to-highlight medbox">health framework in the
form of obligations and recommendations that enable countries to better prevent, prepare for and
respond to public health events and emergencies of potential international concern, including chemical events.
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28 Dec 2020. The main objective of these guidelines is to provide tools for staff working in the field of immunization to support effective communication between health personnel and the general population, with the aim of strengthening, maintaining... or recovering trust in vaccines and the immunization programs in the Region of the Americas.
Available in English, Spanish and Portuguese
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BMC Public Health (2021) 21:299 https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-021-10296-9
An interdisciplinary approach to address global health challenges such as the Covid-19 pandemic, climate change, loss of biodiversity, human migration has been framed by the One Health approach. Thi...s approach is promoted at global level by the Tripartite of the World Health Organisation, the World Animal Health Organisation, the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations, recently joint by the United National Environment Program to form the Quadripartite. The German government through its Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development supports this approach with its One Health strategy and investment in several technical cooperation projects.
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The message contained in this publication is clear: countries need a
public health system that can respond to the deliberate release of
chemical and biological agents. Regrettable though this message may
be, the use of poison gas in the war betwe...en Iraq and the Islamic
Republic of Iran in the 1980s, the recent anthrax incidents in the United
States, and the attack with sarin nerve agent, six years earlier, on the
Tokyo underground, illustrate why it is necessary to prepare.
Russian and Japanese version available:
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WSTP-I is the second part of the WHO wheelchair service training package series and focusses more on addressing the needs of people who have severe difficulties in walking and moving around and also having poor postural control .
Following the release of the Wheelchair Service Training Package – Basic level (WSTP-B), WHO in partnership with United States Agency for International Development (USAID) has developed the Wheelchair S...ervice Training Package – Intermediate Level (WSTP-I). WSTP-I is the second part of the WHO wheelchair service training package series and focusses more on addressing the needs of people who have severe difficulties in walking and moving around and also having poor postural control . While developing this training package, special attention was given on the provision of appropriate wheelchairs for children who have poor postural control and are unable to sit upright independently.
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Following the release of the Wheelchair Service Training Package – Basic level (WSTP-B), WHO in partnership with United States Agency for International Development (USAID) has developed the Wheelchair S...ervice Training Package – Intermediate Level (WSTP-I). WSTP-I is the second part of the WHO wheelchair service training package series and focusses more on addressing the needs of people who have severe difficulties in walking and moving around and also having poor postural control . While developing this training package, special attention was given on the provision of appropriate wheelchairs for children who have poor postural control and are unable to sit upright independently.
Purpose of the training
The need for wheelchair personnel is universal. WSTP-I is designed to support the training of personnel or volunteers to provide an appropriate manual wheelchair and cushion for children and adults who need additional postural support to sit upright. The main purpose of this training package is to:
increase the number of wheelchair users who receive a wheelchair which meets their needs;
increase the number of personnel trained in intermediate level wheelchair service delivery;
improve the competencies of wheelchair service delivery personnel;
increase the quality of wheelchair service delivery for people who need a comparatively higher level of intervention than basic level;
include this training package in regular paramedical/rehabilitation training programmes;
achieve greater integration of wheelchair service delivery within rehabilitation services.
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This report aims to outline the current available knowledge on the health and wellbeing of older persons in the Region of the Americas during the United Nations Decade of Healthy Ageing (2021-2030).... It also seeks to guide political actions towards ensuring the human rights of older persons, and describes the negotiation and drafting process behind the Inter-American Convention on Protecting the Human Rights of Older Persons. It reports on the doctrinal and legal developments that led the Region of the Americas to draft the Convention and describes its action areas and guaranteed rights, as well as the obligations assumed by the States Parties. The Convention is an essential tool to advance the strategies of the Decade of Healthy Ageing. This publication reflects on the importance of having a major legal instrument for this purpose at the international level. The demographic transition in Latin America and the Caribbean will continue to shape the ability of countries and health systems to respond to the needs of the population. Given this reality, international instruments will be needed to guarantee the full enjoyment of the human rights of older persons. In order to design inclusive and sustainable systems, accurate, updated, and effective information is required. The Decade of Healthy Ageing––the initiative that constitutes the framework for this document––is a strategic period in which to focus on data generation and monitoring.
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This Toolkit is intended to guide humanitarian programme managers and healthcare providers to ensure that sexual and reproductive health interventions put into place both during and after a crisis are responsive to the unique needs of adolescents.
The purpose of this pocketbook is to provide clear guidance on current best management practices for VHF across health-care facilities