The chapter Fostering Health Systems’ Monitoring to Better Serve Older Populations is part of the publication series entitled Decade of Healthy Aging: Situation and Challenges. The publications ar...e designed to favor the prioritization of effective actions at the local level as well as the monitoring of data and public health policies, and providing evidence-based information. Along with the objective of presenting the available updated knowledge about the situation of health and aging at the beginning of the Decade of Healthy Aging in the Americas, this publication gives information about health systems’ monitoring to better serve the needs of older adults and emphasizes the need for societies and health systems to better adapt to an aging population. It introduces the 360-tool as a guide to adapt health systems through monitoring tracers/indicators and highlighting the data and information that is readily available, disaggregated by age. This information can aid in decision-making and resource allocation to support older adults’ needs. Concerning the 360-tool development, a consensus has been reached on seven tracer indicators with high relevance to informing policy, and case studies in selected countries have assessed the feasibility of this approach. The list of indicators and the process related to the development of the tool are presented in this publication. The Decade of Healthy Aging 2021-2030 is a period to guide action towards the transformation of societies by fostering the inclusion of older people in every decision. This publication intends to contribute to this strategy and highlight the upcoming challenges and opportunities on healthy aging.
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A key purpose of the Recovery Toolkit is to support countries in the reactivation of health services which may have suffered as a result of the eme...rgency. These services include ongoing programmes such as immunization and vaccinations, maternal and child health services, and noncommunicable diseases.
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The CB MHPSS operational guidelines were developed in response to emerging evidence on the determinants of children’s resilience, lessons learned from the evaluation of existing approaches, and th...e unique challenges that today’s crises pose for children’s safety, wellbeing and optimal development.
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Diabetes is a significant public health issue that affects approximately one in 10 adults globally, with type 2 diabetes accounting for 90–95% of cases. This chronic condition causes considerable morbidity and mortality and is growing in impact, w...ith cases projected to rise from 537 million in 2021 to 784 million by 2045.1 As cases rise, it is imperative to ensure the healthcare workforce is prepared to care for affected individuals. However, there is a growing global shortage of healthcare workers, which was estimated, pre pandemic, to reach 15 million by 2030.2 Therefore, all of the healthcare workforce will need to be utilised to their fullest potential in order to address the growing global burden of diabetes. Pharmacists will continue to be essential in this endeavour.
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The new five-year agenda of WHO in Africa, The Africa Health Transformation Programme, 2015–2020: a vision for universal health coverage, is the strategic framework that will guide WHO’s contribution to the emerging sustainable development platf...orm in Africa. It articulates a vision for health and development that aims to address the unacceptable inequalities and inequities that have kept our region lagging far behind others in terms of health indices and enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of life.
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The Global Campaign Against Epilepsy “Out of the Shadows”
This publication aims to provide examples of better palliative care practices for older people to help those involved in planning and supporting care-oriented services most appropriately and effectively. Examples have been identifi ed from... literature searches and from an international call for examples through various organizations, including the European Association of Palliative Care and the European Union Geriatric Medicine Society. Some examples consider how to improve aspects within the whole health system; specifi c smaller examples consider how to improve palliative care education, support in the community, in hospitals or for specifi c groups of people, such as people in nursing homes and people with dementia and their families. Some examples await rigorous evaluation of effectiveness, and more research is needed in this fi eld, especially the cost–effectiveness and generalizability of these initiatives.
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Curricular Modules for Lecturers and Teachers.
The 2nd edition of the Global Public Health Curriculum has been published in the South Eastern European Journal of Public Health, end ...ribute-to-highlight medbox">of 2016 as a special volume . The curriculum targets the postgraduate education and training of public health professionals including their continued professional development (CPD). However, specific competences for the curricular modules remained to be identified in a more systematic approach
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Areas for action include: increasing prioritisation and awareness of dementia; reducing the risk of dementia; diagnosis, treatment and care; support for dementia carers; strengthening information sy...stems for dementia; and research and innovation.
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Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse
This study complements the growing amount of research on the psychosocial impact of war on chil-dren in Sierra Leone by examining local perceptions of...an> child mental health, formal and informal care systems, help-seeking behaviour and stigma
Yoder et al. Int J Ment Health Syst (2016) 10:48 DOI 10.1186/s13033-016-0080-8
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Health facilities in the Region of the Americas frequently suffer the effects of health emergencies and disasters, which jeopardize their ability to provide services to the population. The STAR-H me...thodology helps staff responsible for health emergency and disaster risk management to identify and assess risks as part of strategic planning to improve facility preparedness. It is intended to help them develop, with a multi-hazard approach, a response framework with operating procedures to deal with hazards of any type, scale, or frequency; determine roles and responsibilities; facilitate the effective use of resources; undertake strategic planning exercises, and improve the preparedness of facilities to effectively respond to and recover from impacts. This methodology is designed for use in health facilities of any size and capacity, and makes it possible to generate historical reports and national or subnational risk profiles. This information can be used to develop an effective health emergency and disaster risk management program.
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The document "Global Report on Diabetes" by the World Health Organization (WHO) provides an in-depth analysis of diabetes as a global health challenge. It covers the rising prevalence of the disease..., the associated risk factors, and the increasing burden on healthcare systems, particularly in low- and middle-income countries. The report discusses strategies for preventing Type 2 diabetes, managing diabetes effectively, and reducing complications through integrated healthcare approaches. It emphasizes the need for global action, national policies, and collaboration across sectors to address diabetes and improve health outcomes worldwide.
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This is an update (third edition) of the BACPR Standards & Core Components and represents current evidence-based best practice and a pragmatic overview of the structure and function ...ribute-to-highlight medbox">of Cardiovascular Prevention and Rehabilitation Programmes (CPRPs) in the UK. The previously described seven standards have now been reduced to six but without sacrificing any of the key elements and with a greater emphasis placed on measurable clinical outcomes, audit and certification. Similarly, the second edition provided an overview of seven core components felt to be essential for the delivery of quality prevention and rehabilitation, and this too has been reduced to six. The interplay between cardio-protective therapies and medical risk factors is almost impossible to disentangle for the vast majority of patients and even if specific drug therapies are deployed exclusively for risk factor modulation, the indirect effect will also be cardio-protective. Thus, these have been combined into a single core component – medical risk management.
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The 2023 meeting of the WHO Clinical Consortium on Healthy Ageing (CCHA) was the group’s ninth gathering and took place in Geneva 5–7 December 2023. The meeting was structured around seven panels, with a series ...t medbox">of technical presentations, plenary discussions and group work, and a final session outlining the work programme for 2024.
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This report provides an overview of the operations and activities of the WHO Country Office in Ukraine in 2023. Despite the acute health impacts of... the war in Ukraine, the Country Office continued its work according to its core mandate. WHO supported the Government of Ukraine in managing the health emergency and pursued existing priorities set out in WHO’s Thirteenth General Programme of Work 2019–2023, the European Programme of Work 2020–2025, and the Biennial Collaborative Agreement 2022–2023 signed with the Government of Ukraine. The report presents the achievements of the WHO Country Office in Ukraine in 2023 in the context of the war’s impact on the lives, health, and well-being of Ukrainians.
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WHO guidelines on the pharmacological treatment of persisting pain in children with medical illnesses
Inequality of access to palliative care and symptom relief is one of the greatest disparities in global health care (1). Currently, there is avoidable suffering on a massive scale due to lack ...class="attribute-to-highlight medbox">of access to palliative care and symptom relief in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) (1). Yet basic palliative care that can prevent or relieve most suffering due to serious or life-threatening health conditions can be taught easily to generalist clinicians, can be provided in the community and requires only simple, inexpensive medicines and equipment. For these reasons, the World Health Assembly (WHA) resolved that palliative care is "an ethical responsibility of health systems"(2). Further, most patients who need palliative care are at home and prefer to remain there. Thus, it is imperative that palliative care be provided in the community as part of primary care. This document was written to assist ministries of health and health care planners, implementers and managers to integrate palliative care and symptom control into primary health care (PHC).
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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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Review over the work and challenges of the Nigerian National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) in combatting counterfeiting of medicines in Nigeria.