Primary health care, as outlined in the 1978 Declaration of Alma-Ata and again 40 years later in the 2018 WHO/UNICEF document A vision for primary health care in the 21st century: towards universal
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health coverage and the Sustainable Development Goals, is a whole-of-government and whole-of-society approach to health that combines the following three components: multisectoral policy and action; empowered people and communities; and primary care and essential public health functions as the core of integrated health services.(1) Primary health care-oriented health systems are health systems organized and operated so as to make the right to the highest attainable level of health the main goal, while maximizing equity and solidarity. They are composed of a core set of structural and functional elements that support achieving universal coverage and access to services that are acceptable to the population and that are equity enhancing. The term “primary care” refers to a key process in the health system that supports first-contact, accessible, continued, comprehensive and coordinated patient-focused care.
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This updated Comprehensive Mental Health Action Plan 2013-2030 builds upon its predecessor and sets out clear actions for Member States, the WHO Secretariat and international, regional and national
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partners to promote mental health and well-being for all, to prevent mental health conditions for those at-risk and to achieve universal coverage for mental health services. While the updated action plan includes new and updated indicators and implementation options, the original four major objectives remain unchanged: more effective leadership and governance for mental health; the provision of comprehensive, integrated mental health and social care services in community-based settings; implementation of strategies for promotion and prevention; and strengthened information systems, evidence and research.
In English, French, Spanish, Arabic and Russian available
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An estimated 1.3 billion people globally experience significant disability. This figure has grown over the last decade and will continue to rise due to demographic and epidemiological changes. In 2022, the World Health Organization launched the Glob
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al report on health equity for persons with disabilities. This report demonstrated that many persons with disabilities are still being left behind. Experiencing persistent health inequities, persons with disabilities die earlier, they have poorer health and functioning, and they are more affected by health emergencies than the general population. These differences are largely associated with unjust factors both inside and beyond the health sector and are avoidable. The Global Report called upon Member States to take actions to make health sector more inclusive for persons with disabilities through the primary health care approach. This will be essential for countries to make health coverage truly universal and to progress towards other health-related targets in the sustainable development goals.
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The overall objective of the Global Action Plan is to enhance collaboration among 12 global organizations engaged in health, development and humanitarian responses to accelerate country progress on
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the health-related SDG targets. The Plan presents a new approach to strengthening collaboration among and joint action by the organizations, building on an initial joint commitment made in October 2018. The Plan is primarily intended to be strategic but provides some operational detail to guide implementation while also allowing flexibility for adjustment based on regular reviews of progress and learning from experience. Although the purpose of the Global Action Plan is not to provide or seek additional resources, the Plan will enable better use of existing resources as a result of improved collaboration, recognizing that each agency has its own unique mandate and area of expertise.
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Social Determinants of Health Discussion Paper 1 (Debates). This paper was prepared for the launch of the Commission on Social Determinants of Health (CSDH) by its secretariat based at WHO in Genev
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a. It was discussed by the Commissioners and then revised considering their input.
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Climate change (CC) impacts on health outcomes, both direct and indirect, are sufficient to jeopardize achieving the World Bank Group’s visions and agendas in poverty reduction, population resilience, and
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health, nutrition and population (HNP). In the last 5 years, the number of voices calling for stronger international action on climate change and health has increased, as have the scale and depth of activities. But current global efforts in climate and health are inadequately integrated. As a result, actions to address climate change, including World Bank Group (WBG) investment and lending, are missing opportunities to simultaneously promote better health outcomes and more resilient populations and health sectors. Accordingly, with the financial support of the Nordic Development Fund (NDF), the World Bank Group set out to develop an approach and a 4-year action plan, outlined in this paper, to integrate health-related climate considerations into selected WBG sector plans and investments.
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Public health emergencies, including pandemics, highlight the need for health systems and services that are prepared, resilient and ready to respond to he
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alth security threats. Endorsed by Member States in 2023, the Asia Pacific Health Security Action Framework (APHSAF) is designed to engage multisectoral actors in health security, and to reflect the complex nature of current and future public health emergencies. The Framework presents six interconnected, multisectoral domains of work that together form a comprehensive, multi-hazard health security system — emphasizing the One Health approach. The Framework also supports progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals and universal health coverage while meeting the responsibilities and obligations of the International Health Regulations (2005).
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The guide to implementing the One Health Joint Plan of Action (OH JPA) at national level provides practical guidance on how countries can adopt and adapt the OH JPA to strengthen and support nationa
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l One Health action.
Building on the OH JPA theory of change, this guide describes three pathways and five key steps to implement the OH JPA at national level:
Pathway 1 -- Governance, policy, legislation, financing and advocacy
Pathway 2 -- Organizational and institutional development, implementation and sectoral integration
Pathway 3 -- Data, evidence, information systems and knowledge exchange.
The stepwise approach comprises:
Situation analysis including stakeholder mapping and review of existing assessment results
Set-up/strengthening of a multisectoral, One Health coordination mechanism
Planning for implementation, including activity prioritization and leveraging of resources
Implementation of national One Health action plans
Review, sharing and incorporation of lessons learned.
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The vision of the new Strategic Action Plan for Strengthening HIS in Myanmar 2017- 2021 is “A strong health information system for a strong health
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system”. The mission statement of HIS in Myanmar also developed during the strategic planning exercise is “Generating and making accessible comprehensive, integrated and timely health information for decision making at different levels of health system”. The goal of the HIS in Myanmar formulated during the assessment is “ To provide complete, valid, reliable and timely health information for making right decisions at the right time to ensure an equitable, effective, efficient and responsive health system”.
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Adolescence is a critical stage in life for physical, cognitive and emotional development, shaping future health and well-being. Comprehensive measurement of adolescent health is essential to priori
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tize health issues, guide interventions and track progress. However, global, regional and national adolescent health measurement has historically been inconsistent and incomplete.
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The desired impact of the OH JPA is a world better able to prevent, predict, detect and
respond to health threats and improve the health of humans, animals, plants and the
environment while contri
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buting to sustainable development. The OH JPA aims to work
towards this vision in the following way:
• Provide a framework for action and propose a set of activities the four organizations
can offer together to advance and sustainably scale up One Health.
• Provide upstream policy and legislative advice and technical assistance, to help
set national targets and priorities across the sectors for the development and
implementation of One Health legislation, initiatives and programmes.
• Take stock of existing cross-sectoral global and regional initiatives around One
Health, identify and advise on synergies and overlaps, and support coordination.
• Mobilize and make better use of resources across sectors, disciplines and
stakeholders.
• The OH JPA is guided by a theory of change and makes use of One Health principles
to strengthen collaboration, communication, capacity building and coordination
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The Quadripartite Organizations – the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), the World Organisation for Animal Health (WOAH, founded as OIE), and the World
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Health Organization (WHO) – collaborate to drive the change and transformation required to mitigate the impact of current and future health challenges at the human–animal– plant–environment interface at global, regional and country level.
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The World Health Organization (WHO) is releasing the second edition of its Global Accelerated Action for the Health of Adolescents (AA-HA!) guidanc
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e. The document aims to equip governments to respond to the health and well-being challenges, opportunities and needs of adolescents.
The guidance provides the latest available data on adolescent health and well-being. It also outlines an updated list of core indicators that data should be collected on. Globally, road injury was the top cause of death for adolescent males in 2019. Among female adolescents, the leading causes of death were diarrhoeal diseases among the younger group (10-14 years) and tuberculosis (TB) in the older group (15-19 years).
Over the last 20 years, mortality rates have declined among adolescents globally, with the largest decline in older (15–19 years) adolescent girls. For non-fatal diseases, the burden has not improved over the past two decades, with the main causes of ill health in this category being: mental health conditions (depressive and anxiety disorders, childhood behavioural disorders), iron deficiency anaemia, skin diseases and migraine.
Adolescent well-being depends on a range of factors, including healthy food, education, life skills and employability, connectedness, feeling valued by society, safe and supportive environments, resilience, and the freedom to make choices. To take an appropriately holistic approach, the guidance outlines how to take crosscutting action to support adolescent health and well-being, with mutually reinforcing interventions across sectors, such as health, education, social protection, and telecommunications. Targeted efforts are also required to engage adolescents, as they trust health systems less than adults do and are especially vulnerable to modern-day trends, like online bullying and gaming.
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Mental disorders are one of the top public health challenges in the WHO European Region, affecting about 25% of the population every year. In all countries, mental health problems are much more prev
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alent among the people who are most deprived. The WHO European Region therefore faces diverse challenges affecting both the mental well-being of the population and the provision and quality of care for people with mental health problems.
The European Mental Health Action Plan focuses on seven interlinked objectives and proposes effective action to strengthen mental health and well-being. Investing in mental health is essential for the sustainability of health and socioeconomic policies in the European Region. The Action Plan corresponds to the four priority areas of the European policy framework for health and wellbeing, Health 2020, and will contribute directly to its implementation.
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This report presents a framework to link science, policy and practice for a comprehensive assessment of climate mitigation and adaptation investments and their impact on human health.The framework proposes to use weather and climate data to forecast
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health impacts over time, as well as biophysical and economic models to quantify the outcomes of investments in climate change adaptation and mitigation for relevant sectoral indicators and health co-benefits. It provides guidance on the economic valuation of health co-benefits of climate action, for inclusion in sector-specific cost–benefit analysis (CBA), including the spatial allocation of such costs and benefits.
The framework developed and presented in this study is comprehensive, and provides various entry points for different audiences, including decision-makers in the public and private sectors, researchers and scientists, working in the health sector as well as in other thematic areas and related sectors affected by climate action.
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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 disability worldwide. Most of this patient harm is avoidable. As countries strive to
achieve universal
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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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This Strategy and Plan of Action on Health Promotion within the Context of the Sustainable Development
Goals 2019-2030 seeks to renew health promo
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tion (HP) through social, political, and technical actions,
addressing the social determinants of health (SDH), he conditions in which people are born, grow, live,
work, and age (1). It seeks to improve health and reduce health inequities within the framework of
the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
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Disaster planning - organization and administration. 2.Emergency medical services - methods. 3.Emergency medical services - organization and administration. 4.Emergencies. 5.Health policy. 6.Health
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facilities.7.Guidelines.
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The Regional Action Framework for Noncommunicable Disease Prevention and Control provides a unified vision of objectives and recommended actions to combat the noncommunicable disease (NCD) epidemic in the Western Pacific Region. Implementation
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should be supported by cross-sectoral coordination, sustainable financing, evidence-based policy, and community engagement, tailored to each Member State’s unique context. In doing so, Member States are encouraged to transform a disease treatment-centered “sick system” into a “health system” in which a population’s health and well-being enable socioeconomic development.
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The framework sets out a response to current mental health challenges arising from the negative impact that the COVID-19 pandemic has had on population mental health and well-being. The EFAMH provid
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es a coherent basis for intensified efforts to mainstream, promote and safeguard mental well-being as an integral element of COVID-19 response and recovery; to counter the stigma and discrimination associated with mental health conditions;
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