Early childhood matters. 
This document looks at specific issues regarding the development of young children, in particular from a psychosocial perspective. It is published twice per year by the Bernard van Leer Foundation. The views expressed in Early Childhood Matters are those of the authors and... do not necessarily reflect those of the Bernard van Leer Foundation.
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                                                                Mental health issues are usually given very low priority in health service policies. Although this is changing, African countries are still confronted with so many problems caused by communicable diseases and malnutrition that they have not woken up to the impact of mental disorders. Every country m...ust formulate a mental health policy based on its own social and cultural realities. Such policies must take into account the scope of mental health problems, provide proven and affordable interventions, safeguard patients’ rights, and ensure equity.
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                                                                Bulletin of the World Health Organization; Type: Perspectives
Article ID: BLT.19.24843
                                                            
                         
                     
                                                        
                        
                        
                            
                            
                                                                The Lancet Volume 5, Issue 10100972October 2024 Chagas Disease Serie 3
                                                            
                         
                     
                                                        
                        
                        
                            
                            
                                                                Available in Russian
A detailed overview is provided of the implementation of alcohol policies described in the 10 action areas of the European Action Plan to Reduce the Harmful Use of Alcohol 2012–2020 (EAPA), including the current status of implementation of the five action areas of the WHO-led... SAFER initiative:
    Strengthen restrictions on alcohol availability;
    Advance and enforce drink–driving countermeasures;
    Facilitate access to screening, brief interventions and treatment;
    Enforce bans or comprehensive restrictions on alcohol advertising, sponsorship and promotion; and
    Raise prices on alcohol through excise taxes and pricing policies.
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                                                                Le Infezioni in Medicina, n. 1, 3-10, 2019
                                                            
                         
                     
                                                        
                        
                        
                            
                            
                                                                This paper introduces a new dataset of official financing—including foreign aid and other forms of concessional and non-concessional state financing—from China to 138 countries between 2000 and 2014. We use these data to investigate whether and to what extent Chinese aid affects economic growth ...in recipient countries. To account for the endogeneity of aid, we employ an instrumental-variables strategy that relies on exogenous variation in the supply of Chinese aid over time resulting from changes in Chinese steel production. Variation across recipient countries results from a country’s probability of receiving aid. Controlling for year- and recipient-fixed effects that capture the levels of these variables, their interaction provides a powerful and excludable instrument. Our results show that Chinese official development assistance (ODA) boosts economic growth in recipient countries. For the average recipient country, we estimate that one additional Chinese ODA project produces a 0.7 percentage point increase in economic growth two years after the project is committed. We also benchmark the effectiveness of Chinese aid vis-á-vis the World Bank, the United States, and all members of the OECD’s Development Assistance Committee (DAC).
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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 evolve, but little is known about the distribution of spending across diseases. We developed improved e...stimates 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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                                                                A Systematic Review, Country Case Studies, and Recommendations for Integration into National Health Systems
Alliance Report
 Participation of community health workers (CHWs) in the provision of primary health care has been experienced all over the world for several decades, and there is an amount ...of evidence showing that they can add significantly to the efforts of improving the health of the population, particularly in those settings with the highest shortage of motivated and capable health professionals.
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                                                                Mental disorders impose an enormous burden on society, accounting for almost one in three years lived with disability globally. •In addition to their health impact, mental disorders cause a significant economic burden due to lost economic output and the link between mental disorders and costly, po...tentially fatal conditions including cancer, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, HIV, and obesity.•80% of the people likely to experience an episode of a mental disorder in their lifetime come from low- and middle-income countries.• Two of the most common forms of mental disorders, anxiety and depression, are prevalent, disabling, and respond to a range of treatments that are safe and effective. Yet, owing to stigma and inadequate funding, these disorders are not being treated in most primary care and community settings. 
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                                                                The  most  significant  finding  of  the  case  study  for  integrating antimicrobial  resistance  (AMR)into existing programs and mobilising resources for funding in Nigeria, is that most of the AMR activities  within  the Nigerian  National  Action  Plan  (NAP)canalready be incorporated within exi...sting  programs  of  the  Federal  Ministry  of  Health  (FMOH),  Federal  Ministry  of  Agriculture and  Rural  Development  (FMARD)  and  their  agencies  or  institutes. Certain  programs  and initiatives already have an AMR element incorporated or could,with little effort,include some additional AMR actions, however much is already being planned and has started with existing federal  funding  and  existing  staffing  and  other  resources  including  development  partner support  and  is  being  driven  by  significant  political  will  from  the  ministries  as  well  as implementation support from the Nigerian Centers for Disease Control as the focal point.
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                                                                This paper focuses on the Sustainable Development Goals related to poverty, economic growth, inequality, health, food production and the environment. It presents concrete examples of the underlying and complex aspects of antibiotic resistance and its impacts across different Sustainable Development ...Goals. The aim of this paper is to inform and stimulate discussions on how to further advance the implementation of 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the Global Action Plan on Antimicrobial Resistance, National Action plans on Antimicrobial Resistance, as well as work within all sectors that affect and are affected by antibiotic resistance
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                                                                Curr Psychiatry Rep. 2011 Dec;13(6):493-9. doi: 10.1007/s11920-011-0229-8.
                                                            
                         
                     
                                                        
                        
                        
                            
                            
                                                                Antimicrobial  resistance  (AMR)  is  a  serious  public  health  concern  with  economic,  social  and political implications that are global in scope, and cross all environmental and ethnic boundaries.  As  a  global  threat,  AMR  risks  the  achievements  of  modern  medicine,  and  has  the  po...tential  to  impact  overall  global  development.  It  is  important,  therefore,  to  elevate  AMR  beyond  health  as  part  of  a  larger  development  agenda  in  the  context  of  the  Sustainable  Development Goals (SDGs). This  report  provides  in-depth  technical  discussions  in  areas  that  have  direct  implications  to  the  containment  of  AMR  as  a  development  agenda.  The  report  is  organized  in  five  chapters  which  served as the technical background documents for the Biregional Technical Consultation on AMR in  Asia,  14-15  April  2016.  More  information  from  the  meeting  is  available  in  the  WHO  Meeting  Report: Biregional Technical Consultation on Antimicrobial Resistance in Asia. The meeting was the first time senior officials from the Ministry of Health and Ministry of Agriculture across Asia came together to tackle AMR
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                                                                The impact of maternal mental health problems on infants in high income countries has been identified mostly in terms of psychosocial and emotional development, thanks to the groundbreaking early work of Spitz (2) and of Bowlby (3), who studied the emotional needs of infants and mother-child attachm...ent. Subsequently, a large body of literature, also from HICs, documented the effects of maternal mental health on the child's psychological development (4), intellectual competence(5), psychosocial functioning (6) and rate of psychiatric morbidity (7, 8).  
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