The International Rescue Committee (IRC) is a leading humanitarian agency dedicated to helping people whose lives have been shattered by conflict and disaster to survive, recover, and gain control of their future. ... medbox">Health comprises nearly half of IRC’s program portfolio globally and encompasses three sectors: 1) Primary Health (including child health, sexual and reproductive health and rights, and mental health); 2) Nutrition; and 3) Environmental Health. IRC health programming across its portfolio, in terms of the size and breadth, responds to significant needs in crisis affected settings, improving health and wellbeing while reducing causes of ill-health.
This five-year Health Strategy sharpens our focus on where we can have the most impact. It guides our efforts in planning, technical assistance, business development, advocacy, and internal and external collaboration. Through this strategy, we will invest and grow in areas that will help us achieve high impact at scale for our clients. For the next five years these priorities will include: Nutrition; Immunization: Infectious Disease Prevention and Control; Last Mile Delivery of Primary Health Care: Clean Water.
Our strategy aligns with Strategy 100 (S100) and Strategy Action Plans (SAPs). It lays out how IRC, through health, nutrition, and Environmental Health (EH) programming, will advance the IRC’s S100 ambitions, respond to global trends, and capitalize on our value add. The strategy will be complemented by delivery plans that detail investments, actions, and roles and responsibilities to advance our priorities. At the end of FY24, we will take stock of the implementation of the strategy, measure progress towards achieving our goals, and review if it continues to be fit for purpose.
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The HEARTS technical package provides a strategic approach to improving cardiovascular health in countries. It comprises six modules and an implementation guide. This package supports Ministries of ...Health to strengthen CVD management in primary health care settings. The practical, step-by step modules are supported by an overarching technical document that provides a rationale and framework for this integrated approach to the management of NCDs.
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Every year, nearly 250 million people move across borders temporarily or permanently for a job opportunity, studying, to flee a crisis back home, or for other reasons. Another 750 million move for similar reasons within the borders of their countrie...s. With the understanding that human mobility affects public health, and health affects human mobility and migrants, for decades, IOM has been providing critical health services to women, children and men on the move, while standing by governments for technical and operational support as needed. In 2019, in lower-income settings and in complex emergencies, along the world’s most perilous migration routes, in the aftermath of natural disasters or in response to disease outbreaks, IOM’s health teams have provided hundreds of thousands with primary health-care consultations, mental health and psychosocial support, sexual and reproductive health care, pre-migration health services, and much more.
This year, more than ever before, as the world reels from the socioeconomic impact of COVID-19, we have experienced that health is a cross-cutting component of overall human development and well-being.
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Biodiversity and healthy natural ecosystems, including protected areas in and around cities, provide ecosystem benefits and services that support human health, including reducing flood risk, filtering air pollutants, and providing a reliable supply ...of clean drinking water. These services help to reduce the incidence of infectious diseases and respiratory disorders, and assist with adaptation to climate change. Access to nature offers many other direct health benefits, including opportunities for physical activity, reduction of developmental disorders and improved mental health.
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Today, patient harm due to unsafe care is a large and growing global public health challenge and is one of the
leading causes of death and disabil...ity worldwide. Most of this patient harm is avoidable. As countries strive to
achieve universal health coverage and the Sustainable Development Goals, the beneficial effects of improved
access to health services can be undermined by unsafe care. Patient safety incidents can cause death and
disability, and suffering for victims and their families. The financial and economic costs of safety lapses are high.
There is often reduced public confidence and trust in local health systems when such incidents are publicized.
Health workers involved in serious incidents involving death or serious harm to a patient can also suffer lasting
psychological harm and deep-seated feelings of guilt and self-criticism.
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Global cardiovascular disease (CVD) burden is high and rising, especially in low-income and middle-income countries (LMICs). Focussing on 45 LMICs, we aimed to determine (1) the adult population’s median 10-year predicted CVD risk, including its variation within countries by socio-demographic char...acteristics, and (2) the prevalence of self-reported blood pressure (BP) medication use among those with and without an indication for such medication as per World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines.
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This brief focuses specifically on the Grand Nord (Great North): the Beni and Lubero territories of northern North Kivu that are the epicentre of the outbreak. Further participatory enquiry should b...e undertaken with the affected populations, but given ongoing transmission, conveying key considerations and immediate recommendations have been prioritised.
This brief is based on a rapid review of existing published and grey literature, professional ethnographic research in DRC, personal communication with administrative and health officials and practitioners in the country, and experience of previous Ebola outbreaks.
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Over half a billion children are living in areas with extremely high levels of floods and nearly 160 million children live in areas of high or extremely high droughts. The World ...te-to-highlight medbox">Health Organisation (WHO) estimates that 26% of the annual 6.6 million deaths of children under five are linked to environment-related causes and conditions. Children are also disproportionately affected by pollution, not only in terms of death rates, but also in terms of cognitive and physical development. This report illustrates that environmental causes also have an impact on whether children are pushed to work and on the kind of work they engage in, the conditions of work, exposure to dangerous toxicants and the risk of exploitation. However, the report raises more questions than it answers as it is one of the first reports addressing the question, how environmental degradation and climate change affect the vulnerability of children towards exploitation.
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This literature review summarizes the link between psychological well-being and entrepreneurial outcomes for small and medium-size enterprises in fragile, conflict, and violence–affected contexts. It identifies potentially promising, scalable psychosocial training interventions, based on cognitive...-behavioral therapy approaches, that can be adapted and implemented to improve psychological health at the individual level, that could lead to better business performance at the firm level.
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Self-care interventions are among the most promising and exciting new approaches to improve health and well-being, both from a health systems perspective and for people who use these interventions. ...The World Health Organization (WHO) uses the following working definition of self-care: Self-care is the ability of individuals, families and communities to promote health, prevent disease, maintain health, and cope with illness and disability with or without the support of a health- care provider
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This brief document compiles existing material related to mental health and psychosocial support (MHPSS) for the COVID-19 crisis, as well as other resources that can be applicable to the context. Documents are divided into different sections, based ...on the ‘’spaces of new vulnerability” inherent to some IOM programmes although many of them are applicable to other areas. They cover both mainstreaming of MHPSS and specific actions.
MHPSS managers will also find guidance on how to address the less technical and more managerial and programmatic issues related with the pandemic, including programme redefinition, surge capacity and how to manage demands to provide staff support to colleagues in the same missions
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Self-care interventions are among the most promising and exciting new approaches to improve health and well-being, both from a health systems perspective and for people who use these interventions.
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The World Health Organization (WHO) uses the following working definition of self-care: Self-care is the ability of individuals, families and communities to promote health, prevent disease, maintain health, and cope with illness and disability with or without the support of a health worker. The scope of self-care as described in this definition includes health promotion; disease prevention and control; self-medication; providing care to dependent persons; seeking hospital/specialist/primary care if necessary; and rehabilitation, including palliative care. It includes a range of self-care modes and approaches. While this is a broad definition that includes many activities, it is important for health policy to recognize the importance of self-care, especially where it intersects with health systems and health professionals.
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The knowledge guide is the second publication in the Self-care competency framework to support health and care workers.
This describes how health and care workers can apply each ...ibute-to-highlight medbox">of the 10 competency standards in their work, detailing the necessary knowledge, skills and attitudes that underpin the required behaviours.
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Constituting the second part of the World Drug Report 2022, the present booklet contains an overview of the global demand for and supply of drugs.
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The first chapter of the booklet begins with the latest estimates of the number of people who use drugs, the distribution of those users by type of drugs, age and sex, and recent trends in the use of drugs. The chapter also reviews the impact of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic on drug use patterns and service provision. Other issues examined in the chapter are the health consequences of drug use, including the number of people in treatment for drug use disorders and the extent of drug injecting and of HIV and hepatitis C among people who inject drugs. The chapter concludes with a review of the extent to which strategies, policies and interventions are in place to respond to the drug use problem.
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The BRACED Myanmar Alliance was a three-year project aiming to ‘build the resilience of 350,000 people across Myanmar to climate extremes’. The project worked in 7 states, 8 townships and 155 communities. The main impact for project populations ...was intended to be ‘improved well-being and reduced loss and damage despite climate shocks’, and the project sought to do this by addressing immediate hazard-related needs at community level while encouraging longer-term solutions driven and delivered by communities and subnational and national government.
Community Resilience Assessments (CRAs) were the first activities delivered as part of the project, and the list of community-identified needs became the basis from which local-level project interventions were selected. The selection typically involved an infrastructure requirement (linked to addressing a natural hazard, and sometimes shared between communities); a package of livelihood support (assets and trainings); capacity-building on climate change/resilience topics; and village savings and loans association (VSLA) support. A particular emphasis was placed on women’s empowerment, and leadership trainings and support to women’s self-help groups were provided.
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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.
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The COVID-19 pandemic’s immediate costs, measured in lives lost and damaged, have been appalling and continue to rise. In addition, its effects on individuals’ livelihoods and economies around the world have been deep and are likely to be long lasting. While saving lives was the near-exclusive f...ocus during the first phase of the crisis, governments are now trying to strike a delicate balance between preventing further economic damage by reopening parts of their economies, while managing the obvious health risks of doing so.
In the international mobility and migration arenas—policy areas enormously affected by the health and economic effects of the pandemic—this reflection considers both how these fields have fared thus far and the challenges that lay ahead
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2018 Progress Report
PEPFAR Strategy for Accelerating HIV/AIDS Epidemic Control (2017-2020)