The report focuses on several key areas where health outcomes are falling short, and provides insight into ways in which countries can improve the situation for their children and adolescents. Areas in focus include mental health, overweight/obesity and adolescent risk-taking behaviour.
The report ...shows, for example, that:
- mental health remains a neglected subject – only one quarter of countries are collecting data on the number of children treated by a mental health professional;
- half of countries do not regulate the marketing of food to children, despite the fact that childhood obesity rates are high across the Region and physical activity rates are low;
- almost half of countries have no policy that affects the availability of unhealthy foods at school;
- 2 in 5 girls and 1 in 3 boys who are having sex do not protect themselves; and
one third of countries do not offer legal access to contraception without parental consent for those under 18 years of age.
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Growing evidence indicates that large proportions of children around the world experience physical, sexual and emotional violence every year, with enormous implications for human rights, public health and economic and social development.1 Over the last five years, national governments and Together f...or Girls – a global public-private partnership comprising UNICEF,
other United Nations (UN) agencies, the United States (US) Government and various private sector agencies – have worked to mobilize and sustain a global movement to end violence against children, with a focus on sexual violence against girls.
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This document highlights landmarks and key milestones in the development and implementation of the global agenda for noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) over the last two decades. It summarizes where the world was in 2000, where it is in 2022, and where the world wants to be in terms of NCD prevention a...nd control by 2030. It recalls the commitments made by heads of state and governments, and outlines the technical guidance provided by the World Health Organization (WHO) in support of national efforts to achieve the internationally agreed NCD targets for 2025 and 2030.
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Background
Low- and middle-income countries now experience the highest prevalence and mortality rates of cardiovascular disease.
Main text
While improving the availability and delivery of proven, effective therapies will no doubt mitigate this burden, we posit that studies evaluating cardiovasc...ular disease risk factors, management strategies and service delivery, in diverse settings and diverse populations, are equally critical to improving outcomes in low- and middle-income countries. Focusing on examples drawn from four cardiovascular diseases — coronary artery disease, stroke, diabetes and kidney disease — we argue that ethnicity, culture and context matter in determining the risk factors for disease as well as the comparative effectiveness of medications and other interventions, particularly diet and lifestyle interventions.
Conclusion
We believe that a host of cohort studies and randomized control trials currently being conducted or planned in low- and middle-income countries, focusing on previously understudied race/ethnic groups, have the potential to increase knowledge about the cause(s) and management of cardiovascular diseases across the world.
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Progress in reducing tobacco use is a key indicator for measuring countries’ efforts to implement the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control – target 3.a under the Sustainable Development Goals agenda. Countries have adopted this indicator to report progress also towards the tobacco reducti...on target under the Global Action Plan for the Prevention and Control of Noncommunicable Diseases 2013–2020 and the WHO’s Global Programme of Work triple billions target.
Fourth edition.
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Against this background of nearly 20 years of experience of research, development and
improvement in patient safety, the role of incident and adverse event reporting, as well as the
benefits that derive from it, is still a work in progress.This document has two main purposes:
• to provide an up...-to-date perspective on patient safety incident reporting and
learning systems currently in place, including how to fill in existing gaps in these
systems;
• to provide practical guidance on the establishment and effective use of patient
safety incident reporting and learning systems.
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This document provides an overview of key considerations for the provision of the HIV continuum of care in the context of displaced people from Ukraine in the EU/EEA. This document has two aims: firstly, to outline what is known of the Ukrainian HIV epidemic, and secondly, to use the HIV continuum o...f care as a framework to set out suggestions based on published evidence and expert opinion on the management of the HIV continuum of care, with special consideration for people living with HIV from Ukraine. The document will also address the needs of those at risk of acquiring HIV. The main findings of this document were presented during an ECDC webinar, ‘Key considerations on the continuum of HIV care for refugees from Ukraine,’ hosted on 19 May 2022.
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This Summary for Policymakers (SPM) presents key findings of the Working Group I (WGI) contribution to the IPCC’s Sixth Assessment Report (AR6) on the physical science basis of climate change. The report builds upon the 2013 Working Group I contribution to the IPCC’s Fifth Assessment Report (AR5...) and the 2018–2019 IPCC Special Reports of the AR6 cycle and
incorporates subsequent new evidence from climate science
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The COVID-19 pandemic has been a formative experience for all humanity and a health emergency of global proportions, presenting a huge challenge to national leaders, health systems, and citizens. The findings of a new report by the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) sho...ws that it has also been a test to our democracies and the respect for human rights to which countries across the OSCE committed many years ago.
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This Interim Guidance outlines how key public health and social measures needed to reduce the risk of COVID-19 spread and the impact of the disease can be adapted for use in low capacity and humanitarian settings. The recommendations outlined here need to be adjusted to the scale of transmission, co...ntext and resources, in order to achieve the objective of managing COVID-19, namely to reduce transmission and facilitate the detection and management of infected and exposed individuals within the population. The Guidance is intended for humanitarian and development actors of all operational levels working with communities ocal authorities involved in COVID-19 preparedness and response operations in these settings, in support of national and local governments and plans. Additional considerations for support to residents of urban informal settlements and slums are available in Annex 1.
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Low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) experience a high disease burden for epilepsy, a chronic neurological condition.The authors evaluate the cost-effectiveness of community health workers (CHWs) to improve adherence to medication for epilepsy in South Africa. They found that utilizing CHWs to i...mprove medication adherence was cost-effective.
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A recent survey of the literature and experience identified five broad actions that development institutions and governments, as well as their partners and stakeholders, can take to improve disability-inclusive disaster risk management. Those five actions are:
- Include persons with disabilitie...s as valued stakeholders in disaster risk management activities
- Help remove barriers to the full participation of persons with disabilities
- Increase awareness among governments and their partners of the safety and security needs of persons with disabilities
- Collect data that is disaggregated by disability
- Ensure that new construction, rehabilitation and reconstruction are accessible to persons with disabilities
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Healthy Settings, a key component of Malawi’s Health Sector Strategic Plan (HSSP) 2011–2016, is the World Health Organization’s (WHO) holistic community-led approach to achieving health improvement by addressing social determinants of health, an approach which is central to the current WHO fra...mework on integrated people-centred health services. Healthy Settings projects by their construct have many different components which vary from one group and community to another depending on their priorities: from housing, hospital improvements and waste management to “softer” interventions like leadership skills training and health promotion. It can be challenging to find relevant indicators to monitor and assess the impact of such a complex holistic project, this paper explores if social capital data can provide useful impact assessment indicators at the start of such a project.
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This bulletin focuses on the situation in Ukraine and several key refugee-receiving countries (Bulgaria, Czechia, Hungary, Poland, Republic of Moldova, Romania, and Slovakia), with the understanding that other countries in the European Region are also receiving Ukrainian refugees and WHO is pr...oviding technical support to them.
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Notable progress has also been made on other key health indicators such as reducing maternal, infant and child deaths and malnutrition, increasing immunization coverage, eliminating infectious diseases such as polio and reducing the incidence of malaria, tuberculosis and diarrhoeal diseases.
But ...despite such substantial progress, the country now faces new and emerging new challenges such as the rising burden of noncommunicable diseases, increased risks associated with disasters, environmental threats and health emergencies during disease outbreaks including the COVID-19 pandemic that is a serious public health threat to Bangladesh. To establish a resilience system for future potential pandemics, the national capacity for emergency preparedness and early response to health emergencies needs to be bolstered considerably.
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An approach to emergency situations. Relief workers face rapidly changing and complex environments, new disease patterns, enormous humanitarian needs and relatively limited resources. The authors of this book use their experience in the area to produce an operational manual of the issues involved in... refugee health programs. This book is aimed at professionals involved in public health assistance to refugees and displaced persons. It deals with a variety of specific refugee health issues at the decisional level, and discusses the priorities of intervention during the different phases of a refugee crisis, from emergency to repatriation.
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This report - the largest of its kind to date - draws on the experiences of over 8,500 women and 300 health professionals across eight countries. It exposes the aggressive marketing practices used by the formula milk industry, and highlights impacts on families’ decisions about how to feed their b...abies and young children.
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This report makes the case for a major new initiative—to rapidly recruit, train and deploy 2 million community health workers in Africa. Drawing on a vast body of evidence and substantial regional experience, the report shows how community health workers save lives and improve quality of life and ...how investments in community health workers effectively harness the demographic dividend, reduce gender inequality and accelerate economic growth and development. Indeed, the benefits of community health workers stretch from one end of the Agenda for Sustainable Development to the other.
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This document provides training and guidance on the key standards related to the physical and social environment within mental health and related services that need to be met to promote good outcomes, independent living and community inclusion.
The creaNon of ‘friendly spaces’ for women and girls has been a key
strategy in the protecNon and empowerment of women 1 and girls in South
Sudan since conflict re-erupted in the country in December 2013. This
document provides guidance on the aims of these spaces, and how they
can best be e...stablished and managed in the South Sudan context.
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