Promoting People's Health to Enhance Social-economic Development
VADEMECUM | This Vademecum is intended to provide a benchmark for aid workers—whether working in the field or at a strategic level—in particular concerning the formulation and implementation of programmes of prevention or response to humanitarian crises. It is not solely a theoretical document b...ecause, in addition to guiding principles, it also provides concrete examples of how to ensure protection of the rights of people with disabilities, including in terms of humanitarian aid. This Vademecum has been drafted in adherence to the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, which has been in force since 2006 and which reaffirms the importance of protecting the safety of people with disabilities in dangerous situations.
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UNICEF analysis indicates that:
- Investments that increase access to high-impact health and nutrition interventions by poor groups have saved almost twice as many lives as equivalent investments in non-poor groups.
- Access to high-impact health and nutrition interventions has improved ra...pidly among poor groups in recent years, leading to substantial improvements in equity.
- During the period studied, absolute reductions in under-five mortality rates associated with improvements in intervention coverage were three times faster among poor groups than non-poor groups.
- Because birth rates were higher among the poor, the reduction in the under-five mortality rate translated into 4.2 times more lives saved for every 1 million people. Indeed, of the 1.1 million lives saved across the 51 countries during the final year studied for each country, nearly 85 per cent were among the poor.
- Intensified focus on equity-enhancing policies and investments can help countries achieve the Sustainable Development Goal newborn and child mortality targets (SDG3.2).
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Advances have been made through expanded interventions delivered through five public health approaches: innovative and intensified disease management; preventive chemotherapy; vector ecology and management; veterinary public health services; and the provision of safe water, sanitation and hygiene. I...n 2015 alone nearly one billion people were treated for at least one disease and significant gains were achieved in relieving the symptoms and consequences of diseases for which effective tools are scarce; important reductions were achieved in the number of new cases of sleeping sickness, of visceral leishmaniasis in South-East Asia and also of Buruli ulcer.
The report also considers vector control strategies and discusses the importance of the draft WHO Global Vector Control Response 2017–2030.
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The ICF Practical Manual provides information on how to use ICF. Anyone interested in learning more about use of the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF, WHO 2001) may benefit from reading this Practical Manual. The ICF is presently used in many different contexts... and for many different purposes around the world. It can be used as a tool for statistical, research, clinical, social policy, or educational purposes and applied, not only in the health sector, but also in sectors such as insurance, social security, labour, education, economics, policy or legislation development, and the environment. People interested in functioning and disability and seeking ways to apply the ICF should find the contents of this Practical Manual helpful. The Practical Manual provides a range of information on how to apply ICF in various situations. It is built on the acquired expertise, knowledge and judgement of users in their respective areas of work, and is designed to be used alongside the ICF itself, which remains the primary reference.
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DHS Further Analysis Reports No. 107 - This report, based largely on the 2014-15 national survey in Rwanda, focuses on changes and trends in reproductive behavior since 2010. In the 4-5 years after the 2010 survey, fertility continued its decline to 4.2 births per woman as contraceptive prevalence i...ncreased slightly. However, the earlier downward trend in number of children desired appears stalled. This is clearly evident from an increase in the proportions of married women and men who say they want more children. Child mortality has significantly declined and remains strongly related to fertility; while age at marriage has continued to increase. The demographic goals specified in the 1998-99 plan for development, Rwanda Vision 2020, appear on track, but the annual rate of population growth remains high, currently 2.5%, because fertility is high. Furthermore, large numbers of young people are now entering their child-bearing years. Although most trends seem encouraging, especially compared with other countries in sub-Saharan Africa, significant population growth is expected in Rwanda, from 12 to 16 million people by 2030, and to 22 million people by mid-century, even with assumed reductions of fertility.
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Since independence (1961) the Government through the Department of Social welfare has been providing services to people with disabilities without a comprehensive policy. The adoption of the National Policy on Disability (NPD) is the outcome of many years of consultations among disability stakeholder...s.
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This guide is designed to support mid-level rehabilitation workers on work with children with cerebral palsy and their families. The manual includes information on early detection and assessment of the level of development of the child, equipment to support their needs and suggestions to promote mob...ility and improved communication. You can download this guide in Arabic and Italian, too
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This survey is part of a series of eight country surveys conducted in the context of the People that Deliver Initiative (peoplethatdeliver.org). This global initiative, which brings together the world’s largest organizations, aims to improve health services performance through the professionalizat...ion of logistics managers.
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- Module 1: Understanding modelling approaches for sexual, reproductive, maternal, newborn, child and adolescent health, and nutrition
Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has a wide range of documented effects. It directly causes death and disability for some people infected. However, disruption to... essential health services, resources allocated to mitigation and therefore away from essential health service delivery, and the overall impact on the economy and society must also be considered within the response to COVID-19. Understanding the magnitude of all of these effects is an essential part of developing mitigation polices.
Several epidemiological models have been created to assess the potential impact of disruptions to essential health services caused by COVID-19 on morbidity and mortality from conditions other than COVID-19 illness. This guide presents models that have been used to assess these indirect impacts. The effects have been studied in various settings, using a variety of models.
The guide is intended for people who need to understand what the models say, their construction and their underlying assumptions, or need to use models and their outcomes for planning and programme development and to support policy decisions for a country or region.
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PNAS 119 (8) e2113947119 | https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2113947119
Environmental exposure to active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) can have negative effects on the health of ecosystems and humans. While numerous studies have monitored APIs in rivers, these employ different analytical methods, m...easure different APIs, and have ignored many of the countries of the world. This makes it difficult to quantify the scale of the problem from a global perspective. Furthermore, comparison of the existing data, generated for different studies/regions/continents, is challenging due to the vast differences between the analytical methodologies employed. Here, we present a global-scale study of API pollution in 258 of the world’s rivers, representing the environmental influence of 471.4 million people across 137 geographic regions. Samples were obtained from 1,052 locations in 104 countries (representing all continents and 36 countries not previously studied for API contamination) and analyzed for 61 APIs. Highest cumulative API concentrations were observed in sub-Saharan Africa, south Asia, and South America. The most contaminated sites were in low- to middle-income countries and were associated with areas with poor wastewater and waste management infrastructure and pharmaceutical manufacturing. The most frequently detected APIs were carbamazepine, metformin, and caffeine (a compound also arising from lifestyle use), which were detected at over half of the sites monitored. Concentrations of at least one API at 25.7% of the sampling sites were greater than concentrations considered safe for aquatic organisms, or which are of concern in terms of selection for antimicrobial resistance. Therefore, pharmaceutical pollution poses a global threat to environmental and human health, as well as to delivery of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.
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Objectives: This paper reviews the mental health policies that have been implemented in Chile in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and the international context of countries' responses. Even before the start of the pandemic, there were significant barriers to access mental health services in Chile, ...coupled with a scenario of nationwide social unrest and protests that questioned the legitimacy of public institutions; now the rapidly worsening outbreaks of COVID-19 are exacerbating the pre-existing mental health crisis.
Methods: We conducted a bibliometric and content analysis of the Chilean mental health public policies implemented during the COVID-19 pandemic and then compared these policies with international experiences and emerging scientific evidence on the mental health impact of pandemics.
Results: Our analysis of the policies identifies five crucial points of action developed in Chile: (i) an established framework to address mental health in emergency and disaster situations; (ii) a timely COVID-19 Mental Health Action Plan; (iii) inclusion of mental health in the public health agenda; (iv) development of a presidential strategy during the pandemic for comprehensive mental health and well-being; and (v) emerging research assessing the mental health implications of COVID-19.
Conclusions: In Chile, the public policy responses to address the mental health consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic has been characterized by the coordinated implementation of mental health plans, ranging from a health sectoral initiative to inter-agency and intersectoral efforts. However, it is imperative that increased funding is allocated to mental health, and efforts should be made to promote the participation of people with lived experiences and communities in the design and implementation of the proposed actions. This aspect could be of key importance to social peace and community recovery after the pandemic.
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Investing to overcome the global impact of neglected tropical diseases charts new ground in tackling the 17 neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) that aff ect more than a billion people in 149 countries worldwide. It makes the case for domestic investment to reach the targets of WHO’s Roadmap on NTDs... by 2020 and sustain enhanced, equitable access to high-quality coverage against these diseases to 2030.
Th is third WHO report anticipates the investments needed as countries graduate from
low-income to middle-income status and as the world’s focus expands from the Millennium Development Goals to the Sustainable Development Goals.
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This report includes analysis from informal regional consultations in the African Region, the Caribbean and North America, Latin America, South-East Asia Region, European Region, Eastern Mediterranean Region, alongside three forums in the Western Pacific Region. It analyses the overarching similarit...ies, regional nuances and priorities raised across the six WHO regions for the meaningful engagement of individuals with lived experience.
It is the second publication in the WHO Intention to action series, which aims to enhance the limited evidence base on the impact of meaningful engagement and address the lack of standardized approaches on how to operationalise meaningful engagement. The Intention to action series aims to do this by providing a platform from which individuals with lived experience, and organizational and institutional champions, can share solutions, challenges and promising practices related to this cross-cutting agenda. The Intention to action series also aims to provide powerful narratives, inspiration and evidence towards the Fourth United Nations High Level Meeting on NCDs in 2025 and achieving the 2030 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
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