This document provides an overview of sexual and reproductive health and rights issues that may be important for the human rights, health and well-being of adolescents (aged 10–19 years) and the relevant World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines on how to address them in an easilyaccessible, user
...
-friendly format. The document serves as a gateway to the rich body of WHO guidelines, and as a handy resource to inform advocacy, policy and programme/project design and research. It aims to support the implementation of the Global Strategy for Women’s, Children’s and Adolescents’ Health 2016–2030 (1), and is aligned with the WHO Global Accelerated Action for the Health of Adolescents (AA-HA!) as well as the WHO Operational Framework on Sexual Health and Its Linkages to Reproductive Health (2,3).
more
The checklist is aligned with, and builds upon, existing COVID-19-related WHO guidelines and is structured around protective measures related to: 1) hand hygiene and respiratory etiquette; 2) physical distancing; 3) use of masks in schools; 4) environmental cleaning and ventilation; and 5) respectin
...
g procedures for isolation of all people with symptoms. The checklist is designed to support policy-makers, staff and officials from the education and health sectors, local authorities, school principals/leaders and administrators, teachers’ unions, community leaders, school staff, teachers, parents and caregivers.
more
Nutrition training of health and agriculture workers can help to reduce child undernutrition. Specifically, trained health extension workers cancontribute through frequent nutrition counselling of caregivers. Evidence from systematic reviews has showed that providing nutrition training targeting hea
...
lth workers can improve feeding frequency, energy intake, and dietary diversity of children aged six months to two years. Scaling up of nutrition training for health and agriculture workers presents a potential entry point to improve nutrition status among childrenFood insecurity and nutrition deficiency are a common phenomenon in Ethiopia.
more
Validation of elimination of mother-to-child transmission, or vertical transmission, of HIV, syphilis and hepatitis B virus (HBV), is an attestation that a country has successfully met standard criteria for elimination, or for being at 1 of the 3 levels of achievement on the ‘Path to Elimination
...
while delivering quality services for women, girls and their children, through the life-course, respecting human rights and ensuring gender equality and community engagement.
This document, the third version, adds on EMTCT of hepatitis B virus (HBV), bringing together a package of interventions and metrics to support integrated management and monitoring of vertical transmission across a wide range of epidemiological and programmatic contexts.
This document, the third version, adds on EMTCT of hepatitis B virus (HBV), bringing together a package of interventions and metrics to support integrated management and monitoring of vertical transmission across a wide range of epidemiological and programmatic contexts.
more
The Covid-19 pandemic has so far infected more than 30 million people in the world, having major impact on global health with collateral damage. In Mozambique, a public state of emergency was declared at the end of March 2020. This has limited people's movements and reduced public services, leading
...
to a decrease in the number of people accessing health care facilities. An implementation research project, The Alert Community for a Prepared Hospital, has been promoting access to maternal and child health care, in Natikiri, Nampula, for the last four years. Nampula has the second highest incidence of Covid-19. The purpose of this study is to assess the impact of Covid-19 pandemic Government restrictions on access to maternal and child healthcare services. We compared health centres in Nampula city with healthcare centres in our research catchment area. We wanted to see if our previous research interventions have led to a more resilient response from the community.
METHODS: Mixed-methods research, descriptive, cross-sectional, retrospective, using a review of patient visit documentation. We compared maternal and child health care unit statistical indicators from March-May 2019 to the same time-period in 2020. We tested for significant changes in access to maternal and child health services, using KrushKall Wallis, One-way Anova and mean and standard deviation tests. We compared interviews with health professionals, traditional birth attendants and patients in the two areas. We gathered data from a comparable city health centre and the main city referral hospital. The Marrere health centre and Marrere General Hospital were the two Alert Community for a Prepared Hospital intervention sites.
RESULTS: Comparing 2019 quantitative maternal health services access indicators with those from 2020, showed decreases in most important indicators: family planning visits and elective C-sections dropped 28%; first antenatal visit occurring in the first trimester dropped 26%; hospital deliveries dropped a statistically significant 4% (p = 0.046), while home deliveries rose 74%; children vaccinated down 20%.
CONCLUSION: Our results demonstrated the negative collateral effects of Covid-19 pandemic Government restrictions, on access to maternal and child healthcare services, and highlighted the need to improve the health information system in Mozambique.
more
INTRODUCTION: Health service use among the public can decline during outbreaks and had been predicted among low and middle-income countries during the COVID-19 pandemic. In March 2020, the government of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) started implementing public health measures across Kin
...
shasa, including strict lock-down measures in the Gombe health zone.
METHODS: Using monthly time series data from the DRC Health Management Information System (January 2018 to December 2020) and interrupted time series with mixed effects segmented Poisson regression models, we evaluated the impact of the pandemic on the use of essential health services (outpatient visits, maternal health, vaccinations, visits for common infectious diseases and non-communicable diseases) during the first wave of the pandemic in Kinshasa. Analyses were stratified by age, sex, health facility and lockdown policy (i.e, Gombe vs other health zones).
RESULTS: Health service use dropped rapidly following the start of the pandemic and ranged from 16% for visits for hypertension to 39% for visits for diabetes. However, reductions were highly concentrated in Gombe (81% decline in outpatient visits) relative to other health zones. When the lock-down was lifted, total visits and visits for infectious diseases and non-communicable diseases increased approximately twofold. Hospitals were more affected than health centres. Overall, the use of maternal health services and vaccinations was not significantly affected.
CONCLUSION: The COVID-19 pandemic resulted in important reductions in health service utilizsation in Kinshasa, particularly Gombe. Lifting of lock-down led to a rebound in the level of health service use but it remained lower than pre-pandemic levels.
more
The escalation of the war in Ukraine began on 24 February 2022, causing thousands of civilian
casualties; destroying civilian infrastructure, including hospitals, and triggering the fastest-
growing displacement crisis in Europe since World War II. The demographic profile of Ukraine,
combined wit
...
h the implementation of martial law and conscription policies, led to an awareness
of gender- and age-related factors within the regional humanitarian response that recognised
the pre-crisis situation of persons of all genders and diversities and how the war and subsequent
regional crisis were compounding the risks that they face.
more
States have committed and assumed obligations to address multiple and intersecting forms of discrimination against refugees, internally displaced persons, asylum seekers, returnees and stateless persons. The Global Compact on Refugees places ending discrimination of any kind based on the grounds of
...
race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth, disability, age, or other status at the centre of action to prevent displacement and to ensure peaceful coexistence between refugee and host communities. Narratives about cultural diversity and inclusion are important, but there is also a pressing need in many societies for conversations and action to address racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance.
more
Noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) – chief among them, cardiovascular diseases (heart disease and stroke), cancer, diabetes and chronic respiratory diseases – along with mental health, cause nearly three quarters of deaths in the world. Their drivers are social, environmental, commercial and geneti
...
c, and their presence is global. Every year 17 million people under the age of 70 die of NCDs, and 86% of them live in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs).
more
Noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) – chief among them, cardiovascular diseases (heart disease and stroke), cancer, diabetes and chronic respiratory diseases – along with mental health, cause nearly three quarters of deaths in the world. Their drivers are social, environmental, commercial and geneti
...
c, and their presence is global. Every year 17 million people under the age of 70 die of NCDs, and 86% of them live in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs).
more
This report is not a country scorecard. Rather, its purpose is to act as a compass to guide progress towards health in the SDGs.
There has been a significant improvement in the state of health in the region with healthy life expectancy - time spent in full health - in the region increasing from 50
...
.9 years to 53.8 between 2012 and 2015 - the most marked increase of any region in the world.
What is making Africans sick is changing. The top killers are still lower respiratory infections, HIV and diarrhoeal disease and countries have routinely focused on preventing and treating this trio, often through specialized programmes. The payoff has been significant declines in deaths due to these diseases. There has been a 50% reduction in the burden of disease caused by what have been the top 10 killers since 2000 and death rates have dropped from 87.7 to 51.1 deaths per 100,000 persons between 2000 and 2015...
Chronic diseases like heart disease and cancer are now claiming more lives with a person aged 30 to 70 in the region having a one in five chance of dying from a noncommunicable disease (NCDs).
Countries are specifically failing to provide essential services to two critical age groups – adolescents and the elderly...
more
As countries aim to progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and achieving universal health coverage, health inequities driven by racial discrimination and intersecting factors remain pervasive. Inequities experienced by indigenous peoples as well as people of African descent, Roma
...
and other ethnic minorities are of concern globally; they are unjust, preventable and remediable.
Health systems themselves are important determinants of health and health equity. They can perpetuate health inequities by reflecting structural racism and discriminatory practices of wider society. For instance, systemic racism, implicit bias, misinformed clinical practice, or discrimination by health professionals contributes to health inequities. However, health systems can also be a leading force for tackling the inequities faced by populations experiencing racial discrimination.
Primary health care (PHC) is the essential strategy for reorientating health systems and societies to become healthier, equitable, effective and sustainable. In 2018, on the 40th anniversary of the Declaration of Alma-Ata, the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) renewed the emphasis on PHC with their strategy,
WHO outlines 14 strategic and operational levers for policy-makers to strengthen PHC. Within each lever, there are multiple potential entry points for targeted actions to address racial discrimination, foster intercultural care, and reduce health inequities experienced by indigenous peoples as well as people of African descent, Roma and other ethnic minorities.
more
Background: Understanding the natural course of child and adolescent posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) has significant implications for the identification of, and intervention for, at-risk youth. We used a meta-analytic approach to examine longitudinal changes in youth PTSD prevalence and symptom
...
s over the first 12 months posttrauma.
Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry57:8 (2016), pp 884–898
more
Background paper for the Oslo Summit on Education for Development
OECD Family database www.oecd.org/social/family/database
OECD - Social Policy Division - Directorate of Employment, Labour and Social Affairs
UNICEF’s support for data collection: the Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys (MICS)