Under the theme Equity at the Heart of Health, this Plan seeks to catalyze efforts in Member States to reduce inequities in health within and betwe...en countries and territories in order to improve health outcomes. The Plan identifies specific actions to tackle health inequality, including those recommended by the Commission on Equity and Health Inequalities in the Americas, with guidance from the High-level Commission for Universal Health. Four cross-cutting themes are central to this Plan’s approach to addressing the determinants of health: equity, gender, ethnicity, and human rights
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This report presents an overview of the transition process in Azerbaijan, some sustainability aspects and challenges stemming from donor withdrawal from TB-related activities, along with recommenda...tions on how to overcome transition-related difficulties and ensure sustainability.
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Conflict, climate crisis and COVID-19 pose great threats to the health of women and children.
mnesty International’s annual report on the state of the world’s human rights in 2021, published in March 2022, shows that promises to “build back better” after the Covid-19 pandemic were li...ttle more than lip service. Hopes of global cooperation withered in the face of vaccine hoarding and corporate greed.
Governments suppressed independent and critical voices, with some even using the pandemic as a pretext to shrink further the civic space. New and unresolved conflicts erupted or persisted. Those forced to flee were subjected to a litany of abuses, including pushbacks by countries in the Global North. But hopes for a better post-pandemic world were kept alive by courageous individuals, social movements and civil society organizations.
The report is available in different languages
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It outlines key achievements, needs and opportunities for intervention in the field of rehabilitation in Ukraine. The content of this document is a snapshot in time – not an in-depth analysis ...n class="attribute-to-highlight medbox">of the entire rehabilitation sector. The analysis focuses on rehabilitation policy and governance, service provision, financing, information management and human resources, with the aim of improving access to high-quality rehabilitation services in Ukraine.
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This joint publication by UNAIDS and WHO emphasizes the importance of integrating HIV prevention, testing, treatment and care and mental health services for people living with HIV. It provides a com...pilation of tools, best practices, recommendations and guidelines that facilitate the integration of interventions and services to address the interlinked issues of mental health and HIV. This publication is intended for global, regional and national policy-makers; programme implementers including at subnational levels; organizations working in and providers of HIV and mental health services; civil society; and community-based and community-led organizations and advocates.
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The COVID-19 pandemic is having a major impact on the mental health of populations in the Americas. Studies
show high rates of depression and anxiety, among other psychological symptoms, particular...ly among women, young
people, those with pre-existing mental health conditions, health workers, and persons living in vulnerable condi-
tions. Mental health systems and services have also been severely disrupted. A lack of financial and human resource
investments in mental health services, limited implementation of the decentralized community-based care approach
and policies to address the mental health gap prior to the pandemic, have all contributed to the current crisis. Coun-
tries must urgently strengthen their mental health responses to COVID-19 by taking actions to scale up mental
health and psychosocial support services for all, reach marginalized and at-risk populations, and build back better
mental health systems and services for the future.
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The military offensive by the Russian Federation in Ukraine which began February 2022 has triggered one of the world’s fastest-growing displacement and humanitarian crisis, with geopolitical and e...conomic ripples felt across the globe. The ongoing war has caused large-scale disruptions to the delivery of health services and a near-collapse of the health system. But the crisis also saw an extraordinary mobilization and crisis response to a health emergency by WHO and its more than 100 partners.
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As Uganda builds back from the COVID-19 shock, the Ugandan government is strengthening its commitment to a more gender-inclusive and sustainable economy. This report supports these efforts by describing the gendered impacts ...-highlight medbox">of COVID-19 and provides recommendations for Ugandan policy makers and World Bank Group operations to ensure women’s participation in an inclusive and sustainable recovery. It presents gender-disaggregated data from three main sources: high-frequency phone surveys that track the impacts of the COVID-19 shock: one of Ugandan nationals conducted in June and one of refugees conducted in November 2020; interviews with 28 representatives of government institutions, development partners, and women’s organizations in Kampala and in rural areas; and a review of relevant policy and gray literature on climate change, the green economy, and women’s economic empowerment.
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Since the beginning of the Ukraine crisis on 24 February 2022, WHO has supported Government-led efforts and initiatives alongside key partners on the ground. Building on efforts to date, and working... alongside Bulgaria’s health authorities to bring added value to existing mechanisms, the WHO Country Office Bulgaria, the WHO Regional Office for Europe and the WHO Health and Migration Programme, in close collaboration with the Ministry of Health of Bulgaria and key partners, undertook a joint review mission to support Bulgaria, with a focus on addressing the health system needs of refugees, migrants, asylum seekers and vulnerable host populations in Bulgaria.
The assessment team developed this report on the key findings and a package of potential interventions based on the opportunities identified and the need for technical support and assistance. The report summarizes concrete areas of work for which collaborations can be further strengthened. The joint review team identified key recommendations for consideration across 8 priority areas. The report and the outcomes of the review mission serve as a basis for future technical collaboration in the area of refugee health, to address the health needs of refugees and third-country nationals fleeing from Ukraine.
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This training and guidance has been developed to provide an in-depth understanding on what it means to respect legal capacity in mental health and related areas as well as concrete strategies ...class="attribute-to-highlight medbox">to ensure that people are able to exercise their right to legal capacity in all areas of their life. In this context a wide range of scenarios are used to describe how different models of supported decision making can be applied in practice.
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2nd edition. This toolkit provides step-by-step guidance to NTD programme managers and partners on how to engage and work collaboratively with the ...WASH community to improve delivery of water, sanitation and hygiene services to underserved population affected by many neglected tropical diseases. The toolkit draws on tools and practices used in the delivery of coordinated and integrated programmes for control, elimination and eradication of NTDs. This second edition include revisions and new tools based on experiences of using the toolkit in more than 20 countries.
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This document accompanies the interim guidance on “Strengthening Preparedness for COVID-19 in cities and urban settings”. It provides local authorities, leaders and policy-makers in cities with a checklist tool ...t medbox">to ensure that key areas have been covered. An excel version that local authorities may wish to adapt to meet their needs is also available. It allows filtering by steps of action; suggested domains and responsible teams within local governments for each action; and phase(s) of the emergency management cycle.
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A study conducted by the World Health Organisation Regional Office for Africa. The COVID-19 pandemic has had a significant impact on older persons both globally and in the African region. Although overall the region’s population is younger relative to...pan> many other world regions, the WHO AFRO region has a population just over 62 million older people and is ageing rapidly, with the number of older people expected to triple in the next three decades (Aboderin et al., 2020).
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This document is based on currently available scientific evidence on treatment for drug use disorders and sets out a framework for the implementation of the Standards, in line with principles ...class="attribute-to-highlight medbox">of public health care. The Standards identify major components and features of effective systems for the treatment of drug use disorders. They describe treatment modalities and interventions to match the needs of people at different stages and severities of drug use disorders, in a manner consistent with the treatment of any chronic disease or health condition. The Standards are aspirational, and such, national or local treatment services or systems need not attempt to meet all the standards and recommendations made in this document all at once. However over time, progressive quality improvement, with ‘evidence-based and ethical practice’ as an objective, can and should be expected to achieve better organized, more effective and ethical systems and services for people with drug use disorders.
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A guidance document in simple language for health personnel, setting out their rights and responsibilities in conflict and other situations of violence. It explains how responsibilities and rights for health personnel can be derived from internation...al humanitarian law, human rights law and medical ethics.The document gives practical guidance on:
- The protection of health personnel, the sick and the wounded; - Standards of practice; - The health needs of particularly vulnerable people; - Health records and transmission of medical records; - "Imported" health care (including military health care);
- Data gathering and health personnel as witnesses to violations of international law; - Working with the media
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Covid-19 Social Policy Response Series / No.14
This report examines Ecuador’s social policy response to mitigate the Covid-19 pandemic’s effects and protect
vulnerable populations. It chronologically traces containment, closure policies, socia...l policies and programmes
put in place following the announcement of Covid-19 as a global pandemic. A combination of external con-
straints and domestic structures, i.e. informality and weak coordination, led to truncated efforts in the healthcare
response, while persistent inequalities in access to technology and high levels of informality led to fragmented
education, labour policies and social protection responses. The report zooms into the Family Protection Grant
(Bono de Protección Familiar or BPF), a new social protection programme that covers informal workers, which
captures the difficulties in reaching unregistered populations amid lockdown and containment measures.
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The magnitude and complexity of these mental health conditions caused by prolonged and extensive trauma requires a diagnosis fitting the unique context of the Syrian conflict. Over half a million pe...ople have been killed since the beginning of the conflict in 2011, and more than 6.4 million are internally displaced with over 5 million living as refugees. SAMS documents the multi-dimensional nature of mental health disorders afflicting Syrians, including accounts of refugee experiences from Eastern Ghouta, Idlib, and beyond. This qualitative report seeks to raise awareness about increasing mental health needs, while sharing personal stories of those who have been affected by the trauma of the conflict.
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Noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) such as cancer, cardiovascular disease, diabetes and chronic respiratory diseases and their risk factors are an increasing public health and development challenge in Kazakhstan. This report provides evidence through three analyses that NCDs reduce economic output and ...discusses potential options in response, outlining details of their relative returns on investment. An economic burden analysis shows that economic losses from NCDs (direct and indirect costs) comprise 2.3 trillion tenge, equivalent to 4.5% of gross domestic product in 2017. An intervention costing analysis provides an estimate of the funding required to implement a set of policy interventions for prevention and clinical interventions. A cost–benefit analysis compares these implementation costs with the estimated health gains and identifies which policy packages would give the greatest returns on investment. For example, the salt policy package achieved a benefit-to-cost ratio of 118.4 over 15 years, a return of more than 118 tenge for every 1 tenge invested.
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The Western Pacific Regional Action Plan for the Prevention and Control of Noncommunicable Diseases (2014–2020) was developed in response to a resolution adopted at the sixty-second ses...sion of the WHO Regional Committee for the Western Pacific. The regional plan is fully harmonized with the Global Action Plan for the Prevention and Control of Noncommunicable Diseases (2013–2020) while adding the value of actions that build on regional achievements, contexts, opportunities and perspective
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