At least half of the world’s population does not have full coverage of essential health services. Health expenses push more than 100 million people into extreme poverty each and every year, forcing them into terrible choices that no one should ever have to make: Buy medicine or food? Education or ...health care? These stark statistics make the case for universal health coverage compelling.
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Technical guidance.
This technical guidance aims to inform policy and practice development specifically related to improving the health of older refugees and migrants within the European Union and the larger WHO European Region. Both ageing and migration are in themselves complex multidimensional p...rocesses shaped by a range of factors at the micro, meso and macro levels over the life-course of the individual, but also with intertwined trajectories. Relevant areas for policy-making include healthy ageing over the life-course, supportive environments, people-centred health and long-term care services, and strengthening the evidence base and research
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These ICRC guidelines outline the organization’s approach to mental health and psychosocial support (MHPSS) during and after armed conflict and other situations of violence. They provide a framework for harmonizing MHPSS programmes within the organization, and an insight into its strategic process...es and field practices.
This publication is not intended to serve as a training manual for specific MHPSS techniques. In sharing these guidelines with an external audience, the ICRC aims to raise awareness of its approach among professionals and other interested parties.
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This handbook follows a comprehensive approach to health system strengthening at borders in order to support IHR national focal points and other national agencies in developing and implementing evidence-based action plans for IHR capacity development at ground crossings. The approach includes the mo...vement of travellers and baggage, cargo, containers, conveyances, goods and postal parcels across ground crossings, as well as the interaction with adjacent border communities. Other factors can be considered, if needed, throughout the risk assessment.
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This guidance note identifies strategic action for policy-makers and managers at the national, subnational and facility level to address these different challenges.
The COVID-19 pandemic has created challenges for forcibly displaced persons and the humanitarian organizations working to support them. With restrictions on movement and limited access to refugees, asylum-seekers, internally displaced persons (IDPs) and stateless persons across the globe, UNHCR is s...upporting displaced communities to take the lead in the prevention of, and the response to, the existing and emerging protection needs of women, men, girls and boys of diverse backgrounds.
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Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, and Pakistan
Spetember 2020
The Quality Criteria for Health National Adaptation Plans (HNAPs) presents examples of good practice in HNAP development to assist countries in developing a comprehensive, feasible and implementable plan. The criteria are also intended to guide countries in setting the foundation for a long-term ite...rative HNAP process. The proposed criteria are not prescriptive and should be adapted to dynamic country contexts, uncertain and changing climatic conditions, and new knowledge and technologies.
9 February 2021
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The COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent public health guidance to reduce the spread of the diseasehave wide-reaching implications for children’s health and wellbeing. Furthermore, paediatric emergency departments(EDs) have rapidly adapted provision of care in response to the pandemic. This qualitativ...e study utilized insight frommultidisciplinary frontline staff to understand the changes in paediatric emergency healthcare utilization duringCOVID-19 the experiences of working within the restructured health system.
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Background paper 8
The Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response
May 2021
A Public Health EOC (PHEOC) serves as a hub for coordinating the preparation for, response to, and recovery from public health emergencies. The preparation includes planning, such as risk and resource mapping, development of plans and procedures, and training and exercising. The response includes al...l activities related to investigation, response and recovery. The PHEOC also serves as a hub for coordinating resources and information to support response actions during a public health emergency and enhances communication and collaboration among relevant stakeholders.
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Primary health care, as outlined in the 1978 Declaration of Alma-Ata and again 40 years later in the 2018 WHO/UNICEF document A vision for primary health care in the 21st century: towards universal health coverage and the Sustainable Development Goals, is a whole-of-government and whole-of-society a...pproach to health that combines the following three components: multisectoral policy and action; empowered people and communities; and primary care and essential public health functions as the core of integrated health services.(1) Primary health care-oriented health systems are health systems organized and operated so as to make the right to the highest attainable level of health the main goal, while maximizing equity and solidarity. They are composed of a core set of structural and functional elements that support achieving universal coverage and access to services that are acceptable to the population and that are equity enhancing. The term “primary care” refers to a key process in the health system that supports first-contact, accessible, continued, comprehensive and coordinated patient-focused care.
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As countries commit to achieving universal health coverage, it is imperative to ensure that the design and delivery of palliative care services place attention on quality of care, with action needed across all domains of quality health services: effectiveness, safety, people-centredness, timeliness,... equity, integration and efficiency. Providing compassionate, dignified and people-centred palliative care is an ethical responsibility of health systems.
This document provides a practical resource to support implementation of sustainable improvements in the quality of palliative care. It describes approaches to quality policy, strategy and planning for palliative care programmes and services, presents learning on quality of care arising from palliative care programmes, and offers considerations on measurement of quality palliative care services at all levels of the health system. The document also highlights relevant WHO resources available that further support the development of quality palliative care services.
The audience for this document is a general one that includes policy-makers, palliative care service planners, managers, practitioners and health care providers at all levels.
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WHO is launching a “Revised edition, 2021” for the Caring for women subjected to violence: A WHO training curriculum for health-care providers today. The revised edition includes 4 new modules three of which are for health managers to assess and strengthen health facility readiness and one modul...e, which is for managers and providers to support prevention of violence against women. The earlier content published in 2019 remains unchanged. The 2021 edition is aimed at creating an enabling health systems environment for health workers to provide quality care to women subjected to violence.
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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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