This third regional report discusses gaps and challenges in reducing the harmful use of alcohol and how countries can reverse current trends in a cost-effective and expedited way.
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 World Health Organization Disability Assessment Schedule (WHODAS 2.0) is a generic assessment instrument developed by WHO to provide a standardized method for measuring health and disability acr...oss cultures. It was developed from a comprehensive set of International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF) items that are sufficiently reliable and sensitive to measure the difference made by a given intervention.
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This manual summarizes the methodology used to develop WHODAS 2.0 and the findings obtained when the schedule was applied to certain areas of general health, including mental and neurological disorders.
The manual will be useful to any researcher o...r clinician wishing to use WHODAS 2.0 in their practice. It includes the seven versions of WHODAS 2.0, which differ in length and intended mode of administration. It also provides general population norms; these allow WHODAS 2.0 values for certain subpopulations to be compared with those for the general population.
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The Member States of the Pan American Health Organization/World Health Organization (PAHO/WHO)
that appear in the tables below have used the assessment instrument for mental ...to-highlight medbox">health systems (WHOAIMS)
(1), as have Anguilla, the British Virgin Islands, Montserrat, and Turks and Caicos, all British
Overseas Territories. For the purpose of this report, the countries and territories were grouped into three subregions, as follows:
Central America, Mexico, and the Latin Caribbean, the non-Latin Caribbean, and South America. The tables
also indicate the year each national WHO-AIMS report was published.
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This briefing note summarises key mental health and psychosocial support (MHPSS) considerations in relation to the 2019 novel coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak.
The waves of yellow fever transmission in the Region of the Americas in 2016–2018 involved the largest number of human and epizootic cases to be reported in several decades. Yellow fever is a serious viral hemorrhagic disease that poses a challenge for h...ealth professionals. It requires early recognition of signs and symptoms, which are often nonspecific, and it can mimic other acute febrile syndromes. Early detection of suspected or confirmed cases, monitoring of vital signs, life support measures, and treatment of acute kidney failure continue to be the recommended strategies for case management. This report is the result of discussions among experienced specialists in the Americas on the clinical management of yellow fever patients, especially during outbreaks and epidemics, in the context of current medical and scientific evidence and taking into account the technical guidelines already available in the countries of the Region. It includes flowcharts for initially addressing patients with clinical suspicion of yellow fever and proposes a minimum package of laboratory tests that may be useful in contexts where resources are limited. In addition, it considers aspects of health system organization for dealing with yellow fever outbreaks and epidemics.
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Countries around the world are facing the challenge of increased demand for care of people with COVID-19, compounded by fear, misinformation and limitations on movement that disrupt the delivery of health care for all conditions. Maintaining essenti...al health services: operational guidance for the COVID-19 context recommends practical actions that countries can take at national, subregional and local levels to reorganize and safely maintain access to high-quality, essential health services in the pandemic context. It also outlines sample indicators for monitoring essential health services, and describes considerations on when to stop and restart services as COVID-19 transmission recedes and surges.
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A training manual for safe motherhood action groups (MAMaZ)
The new five-year agenda of WHO in Africa, The Africa Health Transformation Programme, 2015–2020: a vision for universal health coverage, is the strategic framework that will guide WHO’s contrib...ution to the emerging sustainable development platform in Africa. It articulates a vision for health and development that aims to address the unacceptable inequalities and inequities that have kept our region lagging far behind others in terms of health indices and enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of life.
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