A WHO Guideline for Emergency Risk Communication (ERC) policy and practice.
Recent public health emergencies, such as the Ebola virus disease outbreak in West Africa (2014–2015), the emergence of the Zika virus syndrome in 2015–2016 and multi-country yellow fever outbreaks in Africa in 2016, h...ave highlighted major challenges and gaps in how risk is communicated during epidemics and other health emergencies. The challenges include the rapid transformation in communications technology, including the near-universal penetration of mobile telephones, the widespread use and increasingly powerful influence of digital media which has had an impact on ‘traditional’ media (newspapers, radio and television), and major changes in how people access and trust health information. Important gaps include considerations of context – the social, economic, political and cultural factors influencing people’s perception of risk and their risk-reduction behaviours.
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This version of Field Trials of Health Interventions includes seven new chapters on conducting systematic literature reviews, trial
governance, preliminary studies and pilot testing, budgeting and accounting, intervention costing and economic analysis, and Phase IV studies. Before new interventions... are released into disease control programmes, it is essential that they are carefully evaluated in ‘field trials’. These may be complex and expensive undertakings, requiring the follow-up of hundreds, or thousands, of individuals, often for long periods. This manual was designed to provide guidance on the practical issues in great detail
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Nearly half the population of Sierra Leone is under the age of 18 years and the impact of the Ebola crisis on their lives now and on their future opportunities has been far-reaching: no school; loss of family members and friends to the virus; and changing roles and responsibilities in the home and t...he community.
While the priority now remains meeting the goal of zero cases, the Government of Sierra Leone (GoSL) is also developing a comprehensive strategy aimed at supporting communities to recover from this crisis, to put the country back on track to meet development targets. The Ebola Recovery Strategy – currently being finalised by the GoSL – represents a potentially transformative framework to support the immediate recovery of children from the crisis and to ensure their place in the future development of Sierra Leone.
To date, there has not been a formal process for children to outline their own priorities for recovery to decision-makers. In mid-March 2015, child-centred agencies conducted a Children’s Ebola Recovery Assessment (CERA) in nine districts across Sierra Leone to create a mechanism for more than 1,100 boys and girls, to discuss issues of concern; assess the impact of the crisis on their roles, responsibilities and future opportunities; and to formulate their recommendations for recovery.
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Risk Communication and Community Engagement (RCCE) is an essential part of any disease outbreak response. Risk communication in the context of an Ebola outbreak refers to real time exchange of information, opinion and advice between frontline responders and people who are faced with the threat of Eb...ola to their survival, health, economic or social wellbeing. Community engagement refers to mutual partnership between Ebola response teams and individuals or communities in affected areas, whereby community stakeholders have ownership in controlling the spread of the outbreak.
It is intended to be used to guide RCCE work which is central to stopping the outbreak and preventing its further amplification. Unlike other areas of response, RCCE draws heavily on volunteers, frontline personnel and on people without prior training in this area. As such, the document provides basic background information, scopes the socio-economic and cultural aspects (that are known at the time of publication), and provides the latest evidence-based advice and approaches
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The transformation of the humanitarian landscape has already made a significant impact on the operational security of INGOs and other humanitarian actors. This report serves to inform strategic policy priorities and approaches to security planning and coordination, and addresses three main questions...: 1. What are the emerging trends, developments and drivers of change that are likely to affect or change security issues and considerations in the humanitarian environment of the future? 2. How will the humanitarian sector need to adapt in order to continue to deliver programmes within this changing operational context? 3. How prepared are organisations for this future, and what might they need to do differently in order to be prepared?
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Haiti, one of the poorest countries in the world, was devastated by an earthquake in 2010. The disaster uncovered the realities of a non-existent mental health care system with only ten psychiatrists nationwide. Attempts were made to assess the increased prevalence of mental illness, likely due to t...he trauma to which many were exposed. Several interventions were carried out with aims to integrate mental health into primary health care services. The interplay between socio-cultural beliefs and health (both mental and physical) in Haiti has been widely commented upon by both foreign aid and local caregivers. Observations frequently highlight barriers to the willingness of patients to seek care and to their acceptance of biomedicine over traditional Vodou beliefs. The perception of Haitian beliefs as barriers to the availability and acceptance of mental health care has intensified the difficulty in providing effective recommendations and interventions both before and after the earthquake. Argued in this review is the importance of considering the interactions between socio-cultural beliefs and mental health when developing models for the prevention, screening, classification and management of mental illness in Haiti. These interactions, especially relevant in mental health care and post-disaster contexts, need to be acknowledged in any healthcare setting. The successes and failures of Haiti’s situation provide an example for global consideration.
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STGs are designed to assist health care professionals in making decisions about appropriate, effective patient care. However, health managers often have trouble setting and meeting the high standards required of modern, developed health care systems. With stakeholders expressing concern over issues ...such as strength of evidence, transparency, conflicts of interest, and effective implementation, it is clear that many health care professionals need further guidance in developing and making use of STGs.
This manual guides health professionals through the process of establishing and implementing STGs, placing special emphasis on the low- and middle-income country (LMIC) context. By including tools, templates, and success stories as well as hyperlinks to useful resources, the manual helps health practitioners understand not only important concepts of treatment guidelines, but also how they can best be used in practice.
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Background: Little is known about post-traumatic stress (PTSD) prevalence rates in community samples. This is especially true for the African continent where child-soldiers, HIV/AIDS affected and orphans have been the target for PTSD prevalence studies. Objectives: The aim of this study is to invest...igate the indirect and direct exposure to 20 potentially traumatic events and its relation with PTSD in a Ugandan sample of senior 3rd year students and to perform cross-cultural comparisons with previous studies examining this age group. Socio-economic status, coping styles, negative affect, and somatization are further examined.
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Kenya has great potential for enhancing education for individuals with intellectual disabilities. The fact that it has recognized the need to care for learners with special needs is commendable. In comparison to many African countries, Kenya and Nigeria are ahead in developing programs for special e...ducation in institutions of higher learning, and in starting schools and units for special education. However, a legal mandate is still required as it would seal many loopholes that currently exist. Without it, the assessment of individual with intellectual disabilities cannot be administered correctly and professionally. In this article, the authors present a coherent account on various aspects related to learners with intellectual disabilities in Kenya. No doubt, the issues and challenges identified call for attention by not only the government of Kenya but also those interested in improving the status of learners with intellectual disabilities.
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In the area of nutrition and HIV, children deserve special attention because of their additional needs to ensure growth and development and their dependency on adults for adequate care. It was therefore proposed to first develop guidelines for children and thereafter consider a similar approach for... other specific groups.
The content of these guidelines acknowledges that wasting and undernutrition in HIV-infected children reflect a series of failures within the health system, the home and community and not just a biological process related to virus and host interactions. In trying to protect the nutritional well-being or reverse the undernutrition experienced by infected children, issues of food insecurity, food quantity and quality as well as absorption and digestion of nutrients are considered. Interventions are proposed that are practical and feasible in resource-poor settings and offer a prospect for clinical improvement.
The guidelines do not cover the feeding of infants 0 to 6 months old, because the specialised care in this age group is already addressed in other WHO guidelines and documents.
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Capacity Project Gender Research Brief | In Lesotho, as in many other countries, the HIV and AIDS care burden falls on the shoulders of women and girls in unpaid, invisible household and community work. This gender inequity in HRH needs to be addressed to ensure fair and sustainable responses to the... need for home and community-based HIV/AIDS care and support. The Capacity Project addressed these issues through a study of men as providers of HIV/AIDS care and support.
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Good primary care may lead to fewer avoidable hospitalizations, but unsafe primary care can cause avoidable illness and injury, leading to unnecessary hospitalizations, and in some cases, disability and even death.Implementing system changes and practices are crucial to improve safety at all levels ...of health care. Recognizing the paucity of accessible information on primary care, World Health Organization (WHO) set up a Safer Primary Care Expert Working Group. The Working Group reviewed the literature, prioritized areas in need of further research and compiled a set of nine monographs which cover selected priority technical topics. WHO is publishing this technical series to make the work of these distinguished experts available to everyone with an interest in Safer Primary Care.The aim of this technical series is to provide a compendium of information on key issues that can impact safety in the provision of primary health care.
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Purpose: This research study aimed to investigate the effectiveness of the services provided by CBR programmes in Jordan.
Method: This was a mixed- methods investigation. A survey was carried out with 47 participants (stakeholders and volunteers) from four CBR centres in Jordan. It comprised 18 que...stions that collected both qualitative and quantitative data with both closed- and open-ended questions. The quantitative data were analysed using SPSS Version 22.0. Qualitative data were analysed through thematic content analysis and open coding to identify emergent themes.
Results: 40.4% of the participants evaluated the effectiveness of CBR services as low. This mainly stemmed from the lack of efforts to increase the local community’s knowledge about CBR, disability and the role of CBR programmes towards people with disabilities.
Conclusions: A proposal was offered concerning the priorities of CBR programmes in Jordan. Efforts need to be directed at promoting livelihood and empowerment components in order to actualise the principles of CBR, mainly by promoting multispectral collaboration as a way of operation.
Implications: This study was inclusive of all types of disability. Barriers to the effectiveness of services may stem from accessibility issues to the families of persons with disabilities (hard to reach) or from CBR services themselves (hard to access). The culturally specific evaluative tool in this study was of “good” specificity and sensitivity, this evaluative instrument can be transferrable to measure the impact of CBR programmes in other settings.
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This publication is intended for professionals training or practicing in mental health and not for the general public. The opinions
expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views of the Editor or IACAPAP. This publication seeks to
describe the best treatments and pra...ctices based on the scientific evidence available at the time of writing as evaluated by the authors and may change as a result of new research. Readers need to apply this knowledge to patients in accordance with the guidelines and laws of their country of practice. Some medications may not be available in some countries and readers should consult the specific drug information since not all dosages and unwanted effects are mentioned. Organizations, publications and websites are cited or linked to illustrate issues or as a source of further information. This does not mean that authors, the Editor or IACAPAP endorse their content or recommendations, which should be critically assessed by the reader. Websites may also change or cease to exist.
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- Build community resilience to coastal hazards by improving capacity of inclusive disaster management systems.
- Reduce the mortality rate of persons with disabilities in situations of risk.
- Raise awareness about inclusive policies, practices and disaster risk reduction strategies that ...address the accessibility of communication, shelter, transportation and early warning systems.
- Foster collaboration between disaster preparedness organizations, broadcasters and organizations of persons with disabilities to mainstreaming disability issues in disaster risk reduction strategies.
- Build the capacity of disaster management organizations, governments, broadcasters and built environment practitioners by providing technical specifications on accessible communications and the design of accessible shelters and the built environment.
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The GCF aims to support developing countries in achieving a paradigm shift to low-emission and climate-resilient pathways. This is achieved by funding innovative and transformative lowemission (mitigation) and climate-resilient (adaptation) projects and programmes developed by the public and private... sectors to contribute to the implementation of national climate change priorities in developing countries. While it is relatively easy to tell what a mitigation project or programme is (i.e. its contribution to the reduction of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, and/or whether it increases the capacity of an ecosystem to absorb them), the blurred line between a general development project and an adaptation project has been a contentious issue in the international climate finance debate. The relevant question is not whether a project is (also) a development project, but whether the project contributes to adaptation (i.e. what the adaptation/additionality argument is).
This toolkit helps governments and project developers understand how to fulfil the Green Climate Fund’s requirements when developing a fully-fledged funding proposal.
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The disaster and Red Cross Red Crescent response to date
9 March 2019: Tropical Cyclone Idai forms over Northern Mozambique Channel. CVM preparedness and early warning actions underway
13 March 2019: IFRC Surge Capacity is deployed to Maputo
14 March 2019: 342,562 Swiss francs allocated from th...e IFRC’s Disaster Relief Emergency Fund (DREF) to meet the immediate shelter, WASH and health needs of 1,500 households
15 March 2019: Tropical Cyclone Idai makes landfall in Beira,
Mozambique.
17 March 2019: IFRC Surge Capacity arrival in Beira with CVM to conduct preliminary assessments.
19 March 2019: IFRC issues an Emergency Appeal for 10 million Swiss francs for 75,000 people for 12 months.
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The purpose of the survey is to identify the level of preparedness required by a health-care facility to be able to continue operating during, or following a conflict-related security event.
The survey method provides a measure of the security and preparedness of a given health facility in it...s specific context. Such a measure offers evidence-based guidance to assess whether urgent action needs to be taken and, if so, in what form.
Decision-makers can prioritize the most effective actions to mitigate specific risks and, eventually, will be able to rank the importance of needs faced by multiple facilities.
The survey covers three modules: the hazards affecting the facility, the current management procedures in place and the state of the physical infrastructure. Each of these modules is further divided into categories, and each category contains the questions – or indicators ‒ that cover the actual issues addressed in the survey. A detailed description of each indicator is provided in this manual.
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This publication offers practical advice on implementing HIV and STI programmes for transgender people, with a focus on transgender women, aligned with the 2011 Recommendations and the 2014 Key Populations Consolidated Guidelines. It contains examples of good practice from around the world that may ...support efforts in planning programmes and services, and describes issues that should be considered and how to overcome challenges.
This tool describes how services can be designed and implemented to be acceptable and accessible to transgender women. To accomplish this, respectful and ongoing engagement with them is essential.
This tool gives particular attention to programmes run by transgender people themselves, in contexts where this is possible.
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Unprecedented humanitarian needs, the COVID-19 pandemic, a worsening economic crisis, and funding shortfalls converge to create life-threatening challenges for people in need throughout the region.
In March 2022, the Syria crisis entered its 12th year, marking another grim milestone for Syrians t...hroughout the region. For women and girls, the cumulative impact has been catastrophic, upending decades of progress on women’s issues and bringing unprecedented risks that have fundamentally altered their realities.
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