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 indicato
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rs 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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The framework responds to the demand from Member States and partners for guidance on how the health sector and its operational basis in health systems can systematically and effectively address the
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challenges increasingly presented by climate variability and change. This framework has been designed in light of the increasing evidence of climate change and its associated health risks (1); global, regional and national policy mandates to protect population health (2); and a rapidly emerging body of practical experience in building health resilience to climate change (3).
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8 January 2021
Sequencing enabled the world to rapidly identify SARS-CoV-2 and develop diagnostic tests and other tools for outbreak management. Continued genome sequencing supports the monitoring of the disease’s spread and evolution of the virus. Accelerated integration of genome sequencing int
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o the practices of the global health community is required if we want to be better prepared for the future threats. This document provides guidance for laboratories on maximizing the impact of SARS-CoV-2 sequencing now and other emerging pathogens in the future.
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An estimated 1.3 billion people globally experience significant disability. This figure has grown over the last decade and will continue to rise due to demographic and epidemiological changes. In 2022, the World Health Organization launched the
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Global report on health equity for persons with disabilities. This report demonstrated that many persons with disabilities are still being left behind. Experiencing persistent health inequities, persons with disabilities die earlier, they have poorer health and functioning, and they are more affected by health emergencies than the general population. These differences are largely associated with unjust factors both inside and beyond the health sector and are avoidable. The Global Report called upon Member States to take actions to make health sector more inclusive for persons with disabilities through the primary health care approach. This will be essential for countries to make health coverage truly universal and to progress towards other health-related targets in the sustainable development goals.
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This version of Field Trials of Health Interventions includes seven new chapters on conducting systematic literature reviews, trial
governance, preliminary studies and pilot testing, budgeting and
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accounting, intervention costing and economic analysis, and Phase IV studies. Before new interventions are released into disease control programmes, it is essential that they are carefully evaluated in ‘field trials’. These may be complex and expensive undertakings, requiring the follow-up of hundreds, or thousands, of individuals, often for long periods. This manual was designed to provide guidance on the practical issues in great detail
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Ending Cholera—A Global Roadmap to 2030 operationalises the new global strategy for cholera control at the country level and provides a concrete path toward a world in which cholera is no longer a
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threat to public health
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The report reviews progress with the task of planning and implementing measures necessary to secure a completely polio-free world. It also examines actions aimed at ensuring successful transfer of polio assets, innovations developed and lessons learned to countries’ public
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health programmes and other global health priorities
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Findings on maternal and child health in Nepal, Mozambique and
Rwanda, and neglected tropical diseases in Cambodia and Sierra Leone | This report synthesises findings from five country case studies from the
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health dimension of this project, which focus on maternal and child health (MCH) (Mozambique,Nepal, Rwanda) and neglected tropical diseases (NTDs)(Cambodia, Sierra Leone). MCH was selected given its centrality in two of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and its ability to act as a proxy for strengthened health systems. NTDs, while until recently relatively neglected in global policy debates, are now attracting more interest, not least because they are viewed as diseases of the poor whose treatment could positively impact on most of the other MDGs.
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The new WHO Guidelines on Sanitation and Health summarize the evidence on the effectiveness of a range of sanitation interventions and provide a comprehensive framework for health-protecting sanitat
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ion, covering policy and governance measures, implementation of sanitation technologies, systems and behavioural interventions, risk-based management, and monitoring approaches. Critically, the guidelines articulate the role of the health sector in maximizing the health impact of sanitation interventions.
The guidelines also identify gaps in the evidence-base to guide future research efforts to improve the effectiveness of sanitation interventions.
(French, Spanish, Russian, Arabic in production)
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In Climate Change 2014: Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability. Part A: Global and Sectoral Aspects. Contribution of Working Group II to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
By almost any measure, human health is better now than at any time in history. Life expectancy has soared from 47 years in 1950–1955, to 69 years in 2005–2010, and death rates in children younger than 5 years of age have decreased substantially,
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from 214 per thousand live births in 1950–1955, to 59 in 2005–2010. But these gains in human health have come at a high price: the degradation of nature’s ecological systems on a scale never seen in human history. A growing body of evidence shows that the health of humanity is intrinsically linked to the health of the environment, but by its actions humanity now threatens to destabilise the Earth’s key life-support systems.
As a Commission, we conclude that the continuing degradation of natural systems threatens to reverse the health gains seen over the last century. In short, we have mortgaged the health of future generations to realise economic and development gains in the present.
Despite present limitations, the Sustainable Development Goals provide a great opportunity to integrate health and sustainability through the judicious selection of relevant indicators relevant to human wellbeing, the enabling infrastructure for development, and the supporting natural systems, together with the need for strong governance.
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The Planetary Health Education Framework is a project of the Planetary Health Alliance (planetaryhealthalliance.org). The Planetary Health Alliance
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is a consortium of over 250 partners from around the world committed to understanding and addressing the human health impacts of global environmental change
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The Quadripartite Organizations – the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), the World Organisation for Animal Health (WOAH, founded as OIE), and the World
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Health Organization (WHO) – collaborate to drive the change and transformation required to mitigate the impact of current and future health challenges at the human–animal– plant–environment interface at global, regional and country level.
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The desired impact of the OH JPA is a world better able to prevent, predict, detect and
respond to health threats and improve the health of humans, animals, plants and the
environment while contri
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buting to sustainable development. The OH JPA aims to work
towards this vision in the following way:
• Provide a framework for action and propose a set of activities the four organizations
can offer together to advance and sustainably scale up One Health.
• Provide upstream policy and legislative advice and technical assistance, to help
set national targets and priorities across the sectors for the development and
implementation of One Health legislation, initiatives and programmes.
• Take stock of existing cross-sectoral global and regional initiatives around One
Health, identify and advise on synergies and overlaps, and support coordination.
• Mobilize and make better use of resources across sectors, disciplines and
stakeholders.
• The OH JPA is guided by a theory of change and makes use of One Health principles
to strengthen collaboration, communication, capacity building and coordination
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The COVID-19 pandemic has had unprecedented public health, economic, and social impacts on the international community, and prompted an unprecedented range and size of policy actions globally. Collective efforts, at national, regional, and
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global levels, were called for to contain and mitigate such impacts. The public health response measures alone proved to be insufficient, calling for additional socio-economic policy interventions such as ring-fencing economic activities to contain the spread of the virus. Faced with devastating socio-economic costs, all possible sources of financing, both public and private, have been explored.
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Health system resilience is not an inevitable byproduct of any investment in health but must be intentionally programmed and developed with necessary input, investment and contextualization. This te
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chnical product aims to guide national, subnational, and global health actors to operationalize the concept of health system resilience for advancement of universal health coverage, health security and ultimately better health for all. It supports the translation of relevant conceptual guidance and high-level recommendations into practical actions.
The specific objectives are to:
present a concise overview of the concept of health system resilience;
provide a roadmap outlining practical and foundational steps for building health system resilience to be adapted to different contexts;
share examples of actions and tools, including stakeholder roles, to support country application of the roadmap.
The target audience for this work is the various stakeholders involved in strengthening health systems and public health including management of emergencies (from prevention and preparedness to response and recovery) and other public health challenges in countries. This ranges from the donors, policy-makers and decision-makers at global, national and subnational levels to the implementing institutions and line managers of health system functions and services across the health system building blocks.
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This publication presents a comprehensive methodology to support the Member States of the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) in preparing for and responding to heat-health risks in the Region o
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f the Americas. It builds on World Health Organization and the World Meteorological Organization global documents, as well as on the disaster preparedness methodologies employed throughout the countries of the Region. This publication is part of an effort coordinated by PAHO to support Member States in multihazard preparedness, and includes: early warning system strengthening; threat characterization; activation and deactivation procedure definition; and institutional coordination. It engages different disciplines and recognizes the importance of intersectoral collaboration to respond to heat-health risks. It aims to bring awareness of the impacts of heat on the health of people of the Americas to public health decisionmakers, and thereby strengthen health service provision.
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The Disability inclusion guide for action supports ministries of health and their partners in both advancing health equity for persons with disabilities by identifying entry points, and planning app
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ropriate actions that strengthen the health system through disability inclusion. It focuses on addressing the contributing factors which relate to the health system – namely, the attitudinal,
institutional, and physical barriers faced by persons with disabilities across all health system building blocks. Such factors include the exclusion of persons with disabilities in governance and decision-making processes in the health sector; gaps in knowledge, negative attitudes, and discriminatory practices among the health and care workforce; inaccessible physical infrastructure, health
information and communication; and a lack of information or data collection and analysis on disability in monitoring and evaluation in the health system.
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The MHPSS MSP is an easy-to-follow intersectoral package, which spells out the activities and actions that all humanitarian actors should put in place in all emergencies for an effective MHPSS response. It speaks to different actors at the global, r
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egional, national, and local levels to plan, coordinate and implement an effective MHPSS response.
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There is an expanding market of no- and low-alcohol beverages (NoLos). However, their effects on global ethanol consumption and public health are still questioned. Policies and regulations about NoL
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os’ availability, acceptability and affordability are lacking and evidence about their benefits is limited. Concerns have been raised about the impact of NoLos in reducing alcohol consumption and its associated harm and the possible drawbacks and implications, such as misleading minors, pregnant women, abstainers or those seeking to stop drinking about their actual ethanol content. Further, there are concerns about the implications of NoLo branded products being displayed close to the brand’s main alcoholic beverages and their potential to subtly lead to new occasions of drinking. There is a need to monitor their consumption and impact on aggregated alcohol consumption to understand the public health implications of NoLos. The alcohol by volume content of NoLos must be defined, harmonised and clearly labelled. NoLo marketing needs to be regulated to protect children, pregnant women and those seeking to stop drinking. Fiscal and pricing policies to reduce the affordability of products with higher strengths of ethanol may favour a shift towards lower alcohol strength beverages.
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