Migration continues to be an essential ingredient of socioeconomic development everywhere.
Whether it is a case of people moving from the countryside to cities to find work, or people crossing seas... and borders to meet host country demands for new labour, migrants are an integral part of the modern world. They bring with them new skills and talents, and a willingness to take on jobs that host societies have difficulty filling. Despite this, migrants tend to be overlooked by many health and social service systems. They are also vulnerable to exclusion, stigma and discrimination, particularly if “undocumented” or irregular. Today, in the context of COVID-19, a neglect of migrants will make it impossible to stem the pandemic.
These Notes are designed to remind national and local authorities that the war against COVID-19 cannot be won if migrants are forgotten; unus pro omnibus, omnes pro uno”, or one for all, and all for one, must guide the fight against COVID-19.
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Non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPI) are public health measures that aim to prevent and/or control SARS-CoV-2 transmission in the community. As long as there is no effective and safe vaccine to protect those at risk ...ight medbox">of severe COVID-19, NPI are the most effective public health interventions against COVID-19. These ECDC guidelines detail available options for NPI in various epidemiologic scenarios, assess the evidence for their effectiveness and address implementation issues, including potential barriers and facilitators.
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The development of this target product profile (TPP) was led by the WHO Department of Control of Ne-
glected Tropical Diseases (NTD) following sta...ndard WHO guidance for TPP development. In order to
identify and prioritize diagnostic needs, a WHO NTD Diagnostics Technical Advisory Group (DTAG)
was formed, and different subgroups were created to advise on specific NTDs, including a subgroup
working on the human African trypanosomiasis (HAT) diagnostic innovation needs. This group of in-
dependent experts included leading scientists, public health officials and endemic-country end-user rep-
resentatives. Standard WHO Declaration of Interest procedures were followed. A landscape analysis of
the available products and of the development pipeline was conducted, and the salient areas with unmet
needs were identified
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Disasters and public health emergencies can stress health care systems to the breaking point and disrupt delivery ...ht medbox">of vital medical services. During such crises, hospitals and long-term care facilities may be without power; trained staff, ambulances, medical supplies and beds could be in short supply; and alternate care facilities may need to be used. Planning for these situations is necessary to provide the best possible health care during a crisis and, if needed, equitably allocate scarce resources
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The roundtable provided a forum that allowed communicators across a number of Federal agencies to share information, strategies, and challenges in developing and providing communication messages and materials to the public in prep...aration for, and in response to, a radiation emergency. Throughout the discussion , several “big picture” qestions were brought up that may be addressed in future interagency efforts.
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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 ...an class="attribute-to-highlight medbox">of health care for all conditions. Maintaining essential 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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It provides insight into WHO’s work that aims to improve the health of the people of the United Republic ...ox">of Tanzania in collaboration with key stakeholders.
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In March 2020 the IASC Reference Group on Mental Health and Psychosocial Support uniting 57 humanitarian organizations as member issued the Interim Briefing Note Addressing Mental Health and Psychos...ocial Aspects of COVID-19 Outbreak. This document has proven to be very useful in the response and has till now been translated in 24 languages. It covers a set of recommended activities as well as messages for different target groups.
The current document is an annex to the Interim Briefing Note and is meant to support the MHPSS operational response within the various sectors of humanitarian work. Approaches and interventions to MHPSS are not confined to one sector, but need to be integrated within many existing sectors and clusters.This document contains a wealth of operational information and practical approaches that can be used for humanitarian programming in health, SGBV, community-based protection, nutrition, camp management and camp coordination.
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I examine the effectiveness of donors in targeting the highest burden of malaria in the Democratic Republic of Congo when ...-highlight medbox">health information structure is fragmented. I exploit local variations in the burden of malaria induced by mining activities as well as financial and epidemiological data from health facilities to estimate how local aid is matching local health needs. Using a regression discontinuity design, I find significant but quantitatively small variations in aid to health facilities located within mining areas. Comparing local aid with the additional cost of treatment and prevention associated with the increased risk of malaria transmission, I find suggestive evidence that local populations with the highest burden of the disease receive a proportionately lower share of aid compared to neighbouring areas with reduced exposure to malaria infection. The evidence of disparities in the allocation of aid for malaria supports the view that donors may have inaccurate information about local population needs.
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This guide is an attempt to redress the deficit in understanding of implementation research and to encourage programme personnel and implementers to take a greater interest in the subject, recognizing that implementation research is in fact an integ...ral part of programme planning and execution, rather than something that happens once programmes are up and running. Intended for newcomers to the field, those already conducting implementation research, and those with responsibility for implementing programmes, the guide provides an introduction to basic implementation research concepts and language, briefly outlines what it involves, and describes the many exciting opportunities that it presents
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The ASEAN Mental Health Systems Report
catalogues the situation of mental health in ASEAN
Member States. This report provides comprehensive
info...rmation on the progress made so far by AMS in
integrating mental health into national health systems,
increasing access to care as well as challenges faced.
It also offers recommendations on how to improve the mental health system in
respective ASEAN Member States.
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The Health Systems in Transition (HiT) series consists of country-based reviews that provide a detailed description of a ...highlight medbox">health system and of reform and policy initiatives in progress or under development in a specific country.
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This publication presents a comprehensive methodology to support the Member States of the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) in preparing for and responding to heat-...ghlight medbox">health risks in the Region of the Americas. It builds on World Health Organization and the World Meteorological Organization global documents, as well as on the disaster preparedness methodologies employed throughout the countries of the Region. This publication is part of an effort coordinated by PAHO to support Member States in multihazard preparedness, and includes: early warning system strengthening; threat characterization; activation and deactivation procedure definition; and institutional coordination. It engages different disciplines and recognizes the importance of intersectoral collaboration to respond to heat-health risks. It aims to bring awareness of the impacts of heat on the health of people of the Americas to public health decisionmakers, and thereby strengthen health service provision.
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The toolkit aims to provide researchers with guidance for improving the quality of studies that use administrative data to better ascertain child maltreatment incidence, response and service delivery. However, these are complex studies to conduct, a...nd the toolkit is not meant to be comprehensive. Researchers using the toolkit should be prepared to follow up on the recommended resources contained within and to consult with other professionals, such as statisticians, to further improve the research design and execution
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This manual describes some of the strategic, managerial, financial, technical and scientific aspects to be considered in establishing a national EQA programme for clinical laboratories and other testing services at all ...light medbox">health care levels
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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).
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This document focus on the direct consequences of the virus (morbidity and mortality) in specific populations and on the results of measures aimed at mitigating the spread ...highlight medbox">of the virus, with indirect impacts on socio-economic conditions. In this complex scenario, the gender approach has not received due attention during the pandemic. Gender is one of the structural determinants of health, but it does not appear in analyses of the direct and indirect effects of the pandemic, despite being essential in the recognition and analysis of the differential impacts on men and women and their interaction with the different determinants of health.
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Violence against women and girls is widespread in the Region of the Americas, resulting in enormous consequences for the health and wellbeing of wo...men and girls, their families and communities. These costs are unacceptable and they can be prevented through evidence-based action, including the health sector through its policies and protocols, as well as in collaboration with other sectors. This report remains the first of its kind and is a major milestone for the Region. It is specifically informed by the commitments of Member States in the regional Strategy and Plan of Action on Strengthening the Health System to Address Violence against Women. The report provides an analysis of efforts to advance the prevention of violence against women through health policies, clinical protocols, multisectoral plans and related approaches across the Americas. Attention to this topic is timely, as the COVID-19 pandemic has created new visibility for this area of work. This report offers critical information on efforts in the Region that can be learned from and used to build upon in the future to prevent and respond to violence against all women and girls everywhere.
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DHS Methodological Report No. 20
This study used Service Provision Assessment (SPA) and Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) data from Haiti, Malawi, and Tanzania to compare traditionally used additive methods with a data reduction method—...principal component analysis (PCA).
We scored the quality of health facilities with three approaches (simple additive, weighted additive, and PCA) for two constructs: quality of services, with only facilities-level data, and quality of care, which incorporates observation and client data. We ranked facilities as high, medium, or low quality based on their scores. Our results indicated that the rankings change with the scoring methodology. There was more consistency in the rankings of facilities by the simple additive and PCA methods than the weighted additive and PCA-based rankings. This may be due to the low factor loadings and little variance explained by the first component in the PCA. We aggregated facility scores to their respective DHS clusters (Haiti, Malawi) or regions (Tanzania) and geographically linked them to women interviewed in DHS surveys to test associations between the use of family planning services and the quality environment, as measured with each index.
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Guide to national implementation of the Shanghai Declaration describes policy orientations and approaches that can unlock the transformative potential of ...health promotion for sustainable development. This guide was developed to support country level implementation of the commitments and recommendations in the Shanghai Declaration.
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