Measuring progress towards universal health coverage.
This sixth edition of Health at a Glance Asia/Pacific presents a set of key indicators of health status, the determinants of health, health care resources and utilisation, health care expenditure and financing and quality of care across 27 Asia-...Pacific countries and territories. It also provides a series of dashboards to compare performance across countries and territories, and a thematic analysis on the impact of the COVID-19 outbreak on Asia/Pacific health systems.
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Every year, an estimated 15 million babies are born preterm – before 37 weeks of pregnancy. That is more than 1 in 10 live births. Approximately 1 million children die each year worldwide due to complications from their early birth. Those that survive often face a lifetime of ill-health including ...disability, learning difficulties, and visual and hearing problems.
Half of the babies born at or below 32 weeks (2 months early) die in low-income settings, due to a lack of feasible, cost-effective care, such as warmth, breastfeeding support, and basic care for infections and breathing difficulties. In high-income countries, almost all these babies survive.
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The information contained in this document, be it guidelines, recommendations, diagnostic algorithms or treatment regimens, are offered in this document in the public interest. To the best of the knowledge of the guideline writing team, the information contained in these guidelines is correct. Imple...mentation of any aspect of these guidelines remains the responsibility of the implementing agency in so far as public health liability resides, or the responsibility of the individual clinician in the case of diagnosis or treatment.
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Indiscriminate attacks on health care have contributed to an epic humanitarian catastrophe in Yemen. A new report tracks these attacks in the hope of holding perpetrators on all sides accountable.
It details how both Houthi forces—with their use of wide-area impact weapons—and the Saudi-Emir...ati coalition—with their aerial attacks—have flagrantly disregarded the special status of health facilities and personnel in conflict zones.
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The WHO Quality Health Services: a planning guide focuses on actions required at the national, district and facility levels to enhance quality of health services, providing guidance on implementing key activities at each of these three levels. It highlights the need for a health systems approach to ...enhance quality of care, with a common understanding on the activities needed by all stakeholders. The guide articulates the key actions required to improve the quality of health services for the entire population. It recognizes that the path varies for each country, district and facility – stimulating the reader to consider multiple factors and entry points for action. This planning guide is for staff working at all levels of the health system (i.e. national, district and facility) who have a role in enhancing the quality of health services. It is also relevant to all stakeholders initiating and supporting action at facility, district and/or national levels both in the public and private sectors.
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Current Environmental Health Reports volume 7, pages 363–370 (2020)
Climate change has direct impacts on human health, but those impacts vary widely by location. Local health impacts depend on a large number of factors including specific regional climate impacts, demographics and human vulnerabil...ities, and existing local adaptation capacity. There is a need to incorporate local data and concerns into climate adaptation plans and evaluate different approaches.
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The DHS report itself explains the purpose was, “to obtain and provide information on basic indicators of social progress including fertility, childhood mortality, reproductive and child health, nutritional status of children, and awareness of HIV/AIDS and other health-related issues” in PNG. Th...is is important because a DHS then provides the evidence base for PNG officials themselves to track progress in PNG over time, compare trends with other comparable countries, and then allocate financial and human resources to where they are needed most.
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The new WHO Guidelines on Sanitation and Health summarize the evidence on the effectiveness of a range of sanitation interventions and provide a comprehensive framework for health-protecting sanitation, covering policy and governance measures, implementation of sanitation technologies, systems and b...ehavioural interventions, risk-based management, and monitoring approaches. Critically, the guidelines articulate the role of the health sector in maximizing the health impact of sanitation interventions.
The guidelines also identify gaps in the evidence-base to guide future research efforts to improve the effectiveness of sanitation interventions.
(French, Spanish, Russian, Arabic in production)
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It provides insight into WHO’s work that aims to improve the health of the people of the United Republic of Tanzania in collaboration with key stakeholders.
Global actions to reduce antimicrobial resistance (AMR) include optimising the use of antimicrobial medicines in human and animal health. In countries with weak healthcare regulation, this requires a greater understanding of the drivers of antibiotic use from the perspective of providers and consume...rs. In Bangladesh, there is limited research on household decision-making and healthcare seeking in relation to antibiotic use and consumption for humans and livestock. Knowledge is similarly lacking on factors influencing the supply and demand for antibiotics among qualified and unqualified healthcare providers. The aim of this study is to conduct integrated research on household decision-making for healthcare and antibiotic use, as well as the awareness, behaviours and priorities of healthcare providers and sellers of antibiotics to translate into policy development and implementation
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Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2018, 15(12), 2626; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph15122626
Climate change is increasing risks to human health and to the health systems that seek to protect the safety and well-being of populations. Health authorities require information about current associatio...ns between health outcomes and weather or climate, vulnerable populations, projections of future risks and adaptation opportunities in order to reduce exposures, empower individuals to take needed protective actions and build climate-resilient health systems. An increasing number of health authorities from local to national levels seek this information by conducting climate change and health vulnerability and adaptation assessments. While assessments can provide valuable information to plan for climate change impacts, the results of many studies are not helping to build the global evidence-base of knowledge in this area. They are also often not integrated into adaptation decision making, sometimes because the health sector is not involved in climate change policy making processes at the national level. Significant barriers related to data accessibility, a limited number of climate and health models, uncertainty in climate projections, and a lack of funding and expertise, particularly in developing countries, challenge health authority efforts to conduct rigorous assessments and apply the findings. This paper examines the evolution of climate change and health vulnerability and adaptation assessments, including guidance developed for such projects, the number of assessments that have been conducted globally and implementation of the findings to support health adaptation action. Greater capacity building that facilitates assessments from local to national scales will support collaborative efforts to protect health from current climate hazards and future climate change. Health sector officials will benefit from additional resources and partnership opportunities to ensure that evidence about climate change impacts on health is effectively translated into needed actions to build health resilience.
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A Toolkit for Implementation. Module 1: An Overview of Implementation at National, Province and District Levels
A Toolkit for Implementation. Module 4: Training guide for facilitators of the participatory community assessment in maternal and newborn health
The study analyses the current situation of children with disabilities in relation to realizing their rights and accessing basic services, as well as their life experiences in their communities. It also focuses on identifying the barriers created by society that prevent children with disabilities fr...om enjoying their human rights. This includes identifying negative attitudes; environmental and communication barriers; gaps in policies or their effective implementation.
The report reveals that children with disabilities in Myanmar are less likely to access services in health or education; rarely have their voices heard in society; and face daily discrimination as objects of pity. It also highlights how inadequate policies and legislation contribute to the challenges these children face.
The information available in this publication should be useful for policy makers, development partners and Disabled Persons Organisations to promote the realization of the rights of all children with disabilities.
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This special issue on Newborn Health in Global Health Action is being launched to share the experience of how to scale up a cost-effective package of newborn care that involves families, community health workers and health facilities. The results of this community randomized trial, the Uganda Newbor...n Study (UNEST), show that home visits in pregnancy and soon after delivery resulted in improved breastfeeding practices, skin-to-skin care immediately after birth, delaying a baby’s first bath, and hygienic care of the baby’s umbilical cord among the poorest households with lowest access to care.
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The BBV/STI Glossary is a resource for interpreters, translators and others who work in a health setting. It offers an extensive list of English terms related to sexual health and blood-borne viruses (such as hepatitis), with easy to understand definitions.
Accessed 13th of November 2015.
Bioethics 519 (online) doi:10.1111/bioe.12145 Volume 29 Number 8 2015 pp. 488–596;
Pandemic plans recommend phases of response to an emergent infectious disease (EID) outbreak, and are primarily aimed at preventing and mitigating human-to-human transmission. These plans carry presumptive weight ...and are increasingly being operationalized at the national, regional and international level with the support of the World Health Organization (WHO). The conventional focus of pandemic preparedness for EIDs of zoonotic origin has been on public health and human welfare. However, thisfocus on human populations has resulted in strategically important disciplinary silos. As the risks of zoonotic diseases have implications that reach across many domains outside traditional public health, including anthropological, environmental, and veterinary fora, a more inclusive ecological perspective is paramount for an effective response to future outbreaks.
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This guide is intended to assist
state, local, and tribal public health
professionals in the initiation of
response activities during the
first 24 hours of an emergency
or disaster. It should be used in
conjunction with existin...g emergency
operations plans, procedures,
guidelines, resources, assets, and
incident management systems. It
is not a substitute for public health
emergency preparedness and
planning activities. The response to
any emergency or disaster must be
a coordinated community effort.
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Global Health. 2011 Apr 18;7:8. doi: 10.1186/1744-8603-7-8
Results: Currently, ‘new’health challenges and educational needs as a result of the globalisation process are discussed and linked to the evolving term‘global health’. The lack of a common definition of this termcomplicates attempts... to analyse global health in the field of education. The proposed GHE framework addresses these problems and presents a set of key characteristics of education in this field. The framework builds on the models of‘social determinants of health’and‘globalisation and health’and is oriented towards‘health for all’and‘health equity’. It provides an action-oriented construct for a bottom-up engagement with global health by the health workforce. Ten indicators are deduced for use in monitoring and evaluation.
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This casebook collects 64 case studies, each of which raises an important and difficult ethical issue connected with planning, reviewing, or conducting health-related research. The book’s purpose is to contribute to thoughtful analysis of these issues by researchers and members of research ethics ...committees (RECs, known in some places as ethical review committees or institutional review boards), particularly those involved with studies that are conducted or sponsored internationally.
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