This 400 page guide, created by PHI’s Center for Climate Change and Health and the American Public Health Association (APHA), with support from the California Department of Public Health helps local health departments prepare for and mitigate climate change effects—from drought and heat to flood...ing and food security—with concrete, implementable suggestions.
The guide: Provides a basic summary of climate change and climate impacts on health; Prioritizes health equity, explains the disproportionate impacts of climate change on vulnerable communities, and targets solutions first to the communities where they are most needed, including low-income, elderly and people of color communities; Connects what we know about climate impacts and climate solutions with the work of local health departments; and Offers specific examples of how local health departments can address and ameliorate the impacts of climate change in every area of public health practice.
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Primary health care offers a cost–effective route to achieving universal health coverage (UHC). However, primary health-care systems are weak in many low- and middle-income countries and often fail to provide comprehensive, people-centred, integrated care. We analysed the primar...y health-care systems in 20 low- and middle-income countries using a semi-grounded approach. Options for strengthening primary health-care systems were identified by thematic content analysis. We found that: (i)despite the growing burden of noncommunicable disease, many low- and middle-income countries lacked funds for preventive services; (ii)community health workers were often under-resourced, poorly supported and lacked training; (iii)out-of-pocket expenditure exceeded 40% of total health expenditure in half the countries studied, which affected equity; and (iv)health insurance schemes were hampered by the fragmentation of public and private systems, underfunding, corruption and poor engagement of informal workers. In 14 countries, the private sector was largely unregulated. Moreover, community engagement in primary health care was weak in countries where services were largely privatized. In some countries, decentralization led to the fragmentation of primary health care. Performance improved when financial incentives were linked to regulation and quality improvement, and community involvement was strong. Policy-making should be supported by adequate resources for primary health-care implementation and government spending on primary health care should be increased by at least 1% of gross domestic product. Devising equity-enhancing financing schemes and improving the accountability of primary health-care management is also needed. Support from primary health-care systems is critical for progress towards UHC in the decade to 2030.
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Frontline health workers (FHWs) provide services directly to communities where they are most needed, especially in remote and rural areas. Many are community health workers and midwives, though they can also include local emergency responders/parame...dics, pharmacists, nurses, and doctors who serve in community clinics.
The growing burden of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) on low- and middle-income countries threatens many health systems that are already weakened. In many countries, health systems—and health workers—are not prepared to address the complex nature of NCDs. Health systems are often fragmented, and designed to respond to single episodes of care or long-term prevention and control of infectious diseases.1 Many countries also continue to face shortages and distribution challenges of trained and supported health workers. As most NCDs are multifactorial in origin and are detected later in their evolution, health systems face significant challenges to provide early detection as well as affordable, effective, and timely treatment, particularly in underserved communities.
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This document outlines why and how nurses and midwives are important, not only for individual health optimization but also to achieve the thematic priorities of For the Future. More specifically, it provides case studies to showcase the amazing work that nurses and midwives across the Region are doi...ng to improve health. The document also provides future policy directions to strengthen the scope and leadership of the nursing and midwifery workforce, alongside actions to accelerate investment in their education, skills and employment.
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This National Health Policy has 5 objectives, namely
i. To strengthen the healthcare delivery system to be resilient
ii. To encourage the adoption of healthy lifestyles
iii. To improve the physical environment
iv. To improve the socio-economic status of the population
v. To ensure sustainable f...inancing for health
These objectives shall collectively ensure that there will be improved alignment, complementarity and synergies within and across all public sector ministries as well as with other stakeholders, towards achieving the national health goal.
The policy shall therefore ensure that MDAs and other identifiable organizations work within the principles of the Health-in-All Policy and the One-Health Policy frameworks (WHO), to achieve the desired healthy life status of people living in Ghana.
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This editorial will consider the often heralded and sometimes belittled Surgical Safety Checklist (SSCL) for its general benefits, potential utility, and range of evidence attesting to its value in quality and safety improvement.
PlosOne Published: July 14, 2021
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0254339
This manual summarizes key issues related to the safety of NTD medicines and their administration, with a focus on essential medicines used in mass drug administration (MDA), also called preventive chemotherapy. It can be used as a standalone reference manual, but is intended to be used in conjuncti...on with the accompanying training modules, which provide practical instruction, and the aide-mémoires. Versions of the aide-mémoires and training modules are available respectively for both (i) programme managers and district-level health officials and (ii) community drug distributors and community health workers
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The toolkit provides practical guidance and tools that can support efforts, including planning and implementation activities, to create dementia-inclusive societies.
The toolkit is divided into two parts. Part I contains background information and a conceptual framework for creating dementia-incl...usive societies. Part II includes four practical modules, each featuring a series of practical steps and exercises. The four modules focus on: starting a new dementia-friendly initiative (DFI), integrating dementia into an existing initiative, monitoring and evaluation a DFI, and scaling a DFI. The modules can be used together or separately and offer guidance that can be adapted to suit local needs and settings.
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Front. Med., 27 November 2020 | https://doi.org/10.3389/fmed.2020.594728. The Checklist included eight actions for implementing rural pathways in LMICs: establishing community needs; policies and partners; exploring existing workers and scope; selecting health workers; education and training; workin...g conditions for recruitment and retention; accreditation and recognition of workers; professional support/up-skilling and; monitoring and evaluation. For each action, a summary of LMICs-specific evidence and prompts was developed to stimulate reflection and learning. To support implementation, rural pathways exemplars from different WHO regions were also compiled. Field-testing showed the Checklist is fit for purpose to guide holistic planning and benchmarking of rural pathways, irrespective of LMICs, stakeholder, or health worker type.
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The portable diagnostic imaging technology covered by this document will serve not only the pressing demands for tuberculosis screening and triage but also other diseases. Therefore, the requirements, accessories, hardware and software packages listed in the following specifications are described in... detail in order to serve also other pathologies and conditions, like trauma and pneumonia.
Through the definition of "minimum technical requirements", this document is recommended to support decision-making regarding the selection, incorporation, allocation and use of portable X-ray systems and is intended for health care providers, managers of imaging departments, procurement and regulatory agencies, policymakers and planning officers in ministries of health, as well as biomedical engineering professionals, medical physicists, the private health sector, medical device industry and intergovernmental and international agencies.
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Nature Medicine, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41591-021-01283-z
In the last quarter of 2019 Southern African Regional Interagency Standing Committee Africa (RIASCO) reported that more than 11 million people were experiencing crisis or emergency levels of food insecurity in nine Southern African countries1 due to deepening drought and climate related crisis. The ...Southern African Development Community (SADC) urged for urgent humanitarian action, and at the beginning of November 2019 Angola, Botswana, Lesotho and Namibia had declared states of drought emergencies, requiring international assistance to address the worsening food insecurity situation.
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In many conflicts around the world, more children die from diseases linked to unsafe water than from direct violence. UNICEF is releasing Water Under Fire volume 3, a report that highlights the issues children face in accessing water in times of war. The report demonstrates the humanitarian impact o...n children through case studies from Iraq, State of Palestine, Syria, Yemen, and Ukraine. Attacks on water, sanitation services and staff must stop.
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Issue Brief no.15, September 2021, updated 19 October 2021
In 2020, the Kazakhstan Red Crescent Society developed a chatbot based on community preferences to receive information. The chatbot provides information from a trusted source in a forum that people had identified as a place they go for information on COVID-19. This case study looks at the current su...ccesses, challenges and reflection areas that the bot has generated and how the National Society is responding to them.
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SARS-CoV-2 infections among children and adolescents cause less severe illness and fewer deaths compared to adults. While a less severe course of infection is a positive outcome, there are concerns that mild symptoms may have led to less testing, resulting in fewer identified cases of COVID-19 in ch...ildren. If children with mild or no symptoms transmit the disease, they may act as drivers of transmission within their communities. Understanding symptoms, infectivity and patterns of SARS-CoV-2 transmission in children and adolescents is essential for developing, adapting and improving control measures for COVID-19 across all ages. This is a summary of the current knowledge around SARS-CoV-2 infection acquisition and transmission and COVID-19 disease symptoms in children and adolescents. It aims to inform decisions, based on local contexts, on how to best keep schools, kindergarten and day-care facilities open and what advice to apply to intergenerational mixing.
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The state of the Guinean health workforce is one of the country’s bottlenecks in advancing health outcomes. The impact of the 2014–2015 Ebola virus disease outbreak and resulting international attention has provided a policy window to invest in the workforce and reform the health system. This re...search constitutes a baseline study on the health workforce situation, professional education, and retention policies in Guinea. The study was conducted to inform capacity development as part of a scientific collaboration between Belgian and Guinean health institutes aiming to strengthen public health systems and health workforce development. It provides initial recommendations to the Guinean government and key actors.
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