The World Health Organization Assessment Instrument for Mental Health Systems (WHO-AIMS) was used to collect information on the mental health syste...m in Ghana for the year 2011. The goal of collecting this information is to improve the mental health system and to provide a baseline for monitoring the change. This will enable Ghana to develop information based mental health plans with clear base-line information and targets. It will also be useful to monitor progress in implementing reform policies, providing community services, and involving users, families and other stakeholders in mental health promotion, prevention and rehabilitation.
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This document presents an integrated strategy for mental health system development that will lead to enhanced service delivery, improved outcomes, and improved human rights for people with mental disorders.
By using the practical guidance provid...ed in this document, countries can ensure that their mental health systems are not haphazard, but rather, the products of careful consideration and planning.
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Mental health disorders remain widely under-reported — in our section on Data Quality & Definitions we discuss the challenges of dealing with this data. Figures presented in this entry should be taken as estimates of mental ...to-highlight medbox">health disorder prevalence — they do not strictly reflect diagnosis data (which would provide the global perspective on diagnosis, rather than actual prevalence differences), but are imputed from a combination of medical, epidemiological data, surveys and meta-regression modelling where raw data is unavailable. Further information can be found here.
Accessed April 15, 2019
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Assessment and Guidance for Strengthening Integration of Mental Health into Primary Health Care and Community-Based Service Platforms in Ukraine
This is the first global report on epilepsy summarizing the available evidence on the burden of epilepsy and the public health response required at global, regional and national levels.
The reports highlights major gaps in awareness, diagnosis, t...reatment, and health policies through a series of appalling numbers. With around 50 million people affected worldwide, epilepsy is one of the most common and serious brain disorders. Nearly 80% of people with epilepsy live in low-income and middle-income countries
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The mission of the Women’s Health Council is to inform and influence the development of health policy to ensure the maximum health and social gai...n for women in Ireland.
Its membership is representative of a wide range of expertise and interest in women’s health.
The Women’s Health Council has five functions detailed in its Statutory Instruments:
1. Advising the Minister for Health and Children on all aspects of women’s health.
2. Assisting the development of national and regional policies
and strategies designed to increase health gain and social gain for women.
3. Developing expertise on women’s health within the health services.
4. Liaising with other relevant international bodies which have similar functions as the Council.
5. Advising other Government Ministers at their request.
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This document adopts a health determinants framework for examining the evidence related to women’s poor mental health. From this perspective, public policy including economic policy, socio-cultura...l and environmental factors, community and social support, stressors and life events, personal behaviour and skills, and availability and access to health services, are all seen to exercise a role in determining women’s mental health status. Similarly, when considering the differences between women and men, a gender approach has been used. While this does not exclude biological or sex differences, it considers the critical roles that social and cultural factors and unequal power relations between men and women play in promoting or impeding mental health. Such inequalities create, maintain and exacerbate exposure to risk factors that endanger women’s mental health, and are most graphically illustrated in the significantly different rates of depression between men and women, poverty and its impact, and the phenomenal prevalence of violence against women.
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Vreeman RC et al. Journal of the International AIDS Society 2017, 20(Suppl 3):21497 http://www.jiasociety.org/index.php/jias/article/view/21497 | http://dx.doi.org/10.7448/IAS.20.4.21497
Editorial Review
AIDS 2019, 33:1411–1420
This guide has been written to provide information and practical advice on developing and delivering local plans an strategies to commission the most effective and efficient older people’s mental health services.Based upon clinical best practice g...uidance and drawing upon the range of available evidence, it describes what should be expected of an older people’s mental health service in terms of effectiveness, outcomes and value for money.
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Men are less likely than women to seek help for mental health issues and are much more likely to commit suicide. This scoping review examined recent evidence published in English and Russian on the role of socially constructed masculinity norms in m...en’s help-seeking behaviour for mental health issues. The key sociocultural barriers to men’s help-seeking pertaining to masculinity norms were identified as self-reliance, difficulty in expressing emotions and self-control.
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The WHO Guidance on community mental health services: Promoting person-centred and rights-based approaches document is part of the WHO Guidance and technical packages on community mental health serv...ices set of publications. It provides a detailed description of person-centred and human rights-based approaches in mental health, and summary examples of good practice services around the world. It describes the linkages needed with housing, education, employment and social protection sectors, and presents examples of integrated regional and national networks of community-based mental health services. Specific recommendations and action steps are presented for developing community mental health services that respect human rights and focus on recovery. This comprehensive document is accompanied by a set of seven technical packages focused on specific categories of mental health services and guidance for setting up new services.
The WHO Guidance on community mental health services: Promoting person-centred and rights-based approaches is a set of publications that provides information and support to all stakeholders who wish to develop or transform their mental health system and services to align with international human rights standards including the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.
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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 ...ribute-to-highlight medbox">Health helps local health departments prepare for and mitigate climate change effects—from drought and heat to flooding 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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scientific brief, 2 March 2022
This article provides an overview of the current and projected climate change risks and impacts to mental health and provides recommendations for priority actions to address the mental health conseq...uences of climate change.
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Compared with other health areas, the mental health impacts of climate change have received less research attention. The literature on climate change and mental ...edbox">health is growing rapidly but is characterised by several limitations and research gaps. In a field where the need for designing evidence-based adaptation strategies is urgent, and research gaps are vast, implementing a broad, all-encompassing research agenda will require some strategic focus.
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The objective of Health in the Americas: Overview of the Region of the Americas in the Context of the COVID-19 Pandemic is to respond to the need to address important public health issues in an incr...easingly timely manner, while serving as a platform with a close focus on specific issues of regional importance. This 2022 edition is the second in its new format, providing an overview of the analysis, as well as an in-depth description of the key issues related to COVID-19 in the Region of the Americas. This overview is supported by the Health in the Americas+ virtual platform, which offers interactive resources for data analysis and allows for the comparison of information disaggregated by subregions and countries.
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This Guide responds to requests from practitioners and country teams who have learned about the Nurturing care framework and want to understand how to adapt health and nutrition services to be supportive of nurturing care and strengthen caregivers... capacity.
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