Global Health Science and Practice February 2022, https://doi.org/10.9745/GHSP-D-21-00237
Key Findings: Exposure to vaccination information from faith leaders and health facilities was associated with increased likelihood of vaccination uptake.... The significant association between exposure to a greater number of immunization information sources and increased likelihood of vaccination uptake reinforces the need for multiple sources to provide consistent and accurate immunization information to facilitate positive vaccination behavior.
Key Implications: Social and behavior change communication interventions may optimize the promotion of immunization services through multiple information sources such as health facilities and community-based assets including faith leaders and lay community health workers. Religion and faith play an important role in how people understand health and make health decisions. In Sierra Leone and other similar settings, interventions to improve uptake of immunization services may be enhanced by proactively engaging faith leaders.
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The CDAC Network commissioned a practice guide to draw both on their experiences and many others’ in order to document approaches, practices and tools to working with rumors. It is aimed primarily... at humanitarian programme managers and field staff to provide them with practical tips on how to work with rumors in their response programs in a way that is achievable amid competing demands.
Part One focuses on some of the theory behind rumors: the definition, nature and importance of rumors, and why we need to work with them.
Part Two explains the key steps and considerations to identifying and addressing rumous: listening, verifying and engaging.
Part Three examines different roles and responsibilities in working with rumous, and how anticipation, coordination and partnerships can enhance what you do.
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Interim emergency guidelines
The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated and added yet another layer of vulnerability to an already dire web of vulnerabilities of girls ...attribute-to-highlight medbox">in the African continent, which constitute about 49% of the total child population. Critically, gender equality and girls’ multidimensional vulnerability have been accentuated to an unprecedented level. The pandemic has triggered major concerns about the potential reversal of the strides achieved over the years towards gender equality and human development in Africa.
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The Road to Recovery. This synthesis report is based on three national studies on the evolution of the Ebola epidemic and its impact on Guinea, Liberia and Sierra ...t medbox">Leone
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Background: Comparable estimates of health spending are crucial for the assessment of health systems and to optimally deploy health resources. The methods used to track health spending continue to e...volve, but little is known about the distribution of spending across diseases. We developed improved estimates of health spending by source, including development assistance for health, and, for the first time, estimated HIV/AIDS spending on prevention and treatment and by source of funding, for 188 countries.
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Assessing the impact of the EVD outbreak on health systems in Sierra Leone. Survey concluded 6-1...7 October 2014
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To support countries in adapting their response to different COVID-19 scenarios, the World Health
Organization (WHO) Department of Maternal, Newborn, Child and Adolescent Health and Ageing commissi...oned this scoping review of published and grey literature. The objective was to identify interventions implemented to maintain the provision and use of essential services for MNCAAH during disruptive events and to summarize lessons learned during these interventions. The review included outbreaks of Ebola virus disease (EVD), severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), Zika virus disease (ZVD), the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, and natural disasters and humanitarian emergencies that caused disruption to services, transport and other activities.
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What school closures under COVID-19 mean for children and young people in
crisis-affected contexts
A practioner's guide, based on lessons from Ebola.
This guide is a compilation of best practices and key lessons learned through Oxfam’s experience of community engagement during the 2014–15 Eb...ola response in Sierra Leone and Liberia. It aims to inform public health practitioners and programme teams about the design and implementation of community-centred approaches
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While there has been real progress in addressing the burden of disease in the WHO African region, the COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the link be...tween health, economics and security, as the region saw decades of progress threatened, including positive trends in decreasing inequality. In the African Region the momentum towards achieving the 2030 SDG disease burden reduction targets (SDG targets 3.3, 3.4 and 3B) has stalled.
The COVID-19 pandemic was also a major threat to gains made, such as the eradication of polio in the region, declared in 2020; reduced numbers of new HIV infections in 2021 compared to 2010; and passing the 2020 milestone of the End TB Strategy, with a 22% reduction in new cases compared with 2015. However, the pandemic also disrupted essential health services in 92% of countries globally, 22.7 million children missed basic immunization, there was an increase in malaria and TB, and global deaths from TB rose for the first time since 2015.
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