This guidance document includes background information on Ebola virus disease, Ebola emergency committee recommendations, risks for different groups, and information for travellers from and to affected countries.
This is a case-ascertained prospective investigation of all identified health care contacts working in a health care facility in which a laboratory confirmed 2019-nCoV infected patient (see 2.2 Study population) receives care. Note that this study can be done in health care facilities at all 3 level...s of a health system – not just in hospitals. It is intended to provide epidemiological and serologic information which will inform the identification of risk factors 2019-nCoV infection among health care workers.
There are three primary objectives of this investigation among health care workers in a health care setting where a 2019-nCoV infected patient is being cared for:
To better understand the extent of human-to-human transmission among health care workers, by estimating the secondary infection rate1 for health care worker contacts at an individual level.
To characterize the range of clinical presentation of infection and the risk factors for infection among health care workers.
To evaluate effectiveness of infection prevention and control measures among health care workers
To evaluate effectiveness of infection prevention and control programmes at health facility and national level
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Interim guidance 19 March 2020
Nested case-control study of health workers exposed to confirmed COVID-19 patients.
Similar objectives to the cohort study but case-control studies may be cheaper and provide robust evidence to characterize and assess the risk factors for SARS-CoV-2 infection in health workers exposed to COVID-19 p...atients.
Health workers with confirmed COVID-19 will be recruited as cases and other health workers in the same health care setting without infection will be recruited as controls (incidence density sampling).
Secondary objectives are similar to the cohort study.
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2nd edition. The purpose of the WHO human health risk assessment toolkit: chemical hazards is to provide its users with guidance to identify, acquire and use the information needed to assess chemical hazards, exposures and the corresponding health risks in their given health risk assessment contexts... at local and/or national levels.
The Toolkit provides road maps for conducting a human health risk assessment, identifies information that must be gathered to complete an assessment and provides electronic links to international resources from which the user can obtain information and methods essential for conducting the human health risk assessment
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The Strategic Tool for Assessing Risks (STAR) offers a comprehensive, easy-to-use toolkit and approach to enable national and subnational governments to rapidly conduct a strategic and evidence-based assessment of public health risks for planning and prioritization of health emergency preparedness a...nd disaster risk management activities. This guidance describes the principles and methodology of STAR to enhance its adaptation and use at the national or subnational levels.
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Accessed on 06.03.2022
AirQ+: software tool for health risk assessment of air pollution
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This article provides an overview of the current and projected climate change risks and impacts to mental health and provides recommendations for priority actions to address the mental health consequences of climate change.
The climate crisis has many consequences – among them widespread health impacts that will lead to immense societal, ecological, and economic harm.
Over the past two decades multiple large-scale reviews on climate change and health have made clear the need for a multi-sectoral approach to target t...he drivers and impacts of climate change, biodiversity loss, and ecosystem degradation. Despite this abundance of scientific evidence underscoring urgency of action, policy implementation responses lag behind. Even at COP26, itself delayed due to an ongoing pandemic, health continues to be considered by many countries a problem independent from climate and environment.
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Ukraine has four operational nuclear power plants (NPPs) containing 15 nuclear reactors, as well as two research nuclear reactors, radioactive waste disposal facilities, radioactive sources used in medicine and industry, and Chernobyl NPP that was decommissioned after the 1986 accident but still hos...ts two storages for an old spent nuclear fuel units.
Artillery shelling and fires may damage the safety systems and critical supply services of those installations. The State Nuclear Regulatory Inspectorate of Ukraine (SNRIU) has been providing daily updates to the IAEA and the global community on the situation related to the nuclear installations in Ukraine.
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The extensive use of natural resources threatens to exceed the carrying capacity of the Earth. The concept of a
circular economy offers an avenue to sustainable growth, good health and decent jobs, while saving the environment
and its natural resources. Further, the change from a linear economy (t...ake, make, dispose) to a circular economy (renew, remake, share) is expected to support significantly the attainment of the Sustainable Development Goals
(SDGs), particularly SDG 12 on responsible consumption and production.
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Over the ages, human societies have altered local ecosystems and modified regional climates. Today the human influence has attained a global scale. This reflects the recent rapid increase in population size, energy consumption, intensity of land use, international trade and travel, and other human a...ctivities. These global changes have heightened awareness that the long-term good health of populations depends on the continued stability of biosphere's ecological, physical and socioeconomic systems.
The world's climate system is an integral part of the complex of life-supporting processes. Like other large systems, the global climate system is coming under pressure from human activities.
This book seeks to describe the context and process of global climate change, its actual or likely impacts on health, and how human societies and their governments should respond with particular focus on the health sector.
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Development of cardiovascular disease (CVD) is influenced by risk factors such as:
tobacco use, an unhealthy diet, physical inactivity, obesity (which can result from
a combination of unhealthy diet, physical inactivity, and other factors), elevated
blood pressure (hypertension), abnormal blood l...ipids (dyslipidaemia) and elevated blood glucose (diabetes mellitus). Continuing exposure to these risk factors leads
to further progression of atherosclerosis, resulting in clinical manifestations of these diseases, including angina pectoris, myocardial infarction, heart failure and stroke. Total CVD risk depends on the individual’s overall risk-factor profile.
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This study investigated occupational risk factors and exposure–response relationships for airway disease among health workers (HWs) exposed to cleaning agents in two tertiary hospitals in South Africa and Tanzania.
Previous studies have demonstrated an association between asthma or respiratory... symptoms and exposure to broad categories of cleaning-related exposures in healthcare settings. However, few studies have identified the specific cleaning agents responsible for asthma and other health outcomes. Products used for medical instrument cleaning and disinfection such as glutaraldehyde, orthophthalaldehyde (OPA) and quaternary ammonium compounds (QACs) have been implicated in the causation and exacerbation of work-related asthma (WRA) and upper airway outcomes such as rhinitis.
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