Handbook on pregnancy, childbirth, childhood illnesses, child development and the care of children. The handbook, Facts for Life, provides vital messages and information for mothers, fathers, other family members and caregivers and communities to use in changing behaviours and practices that can sav...e and protect the lives of children and help them grow and develop to their full potential.
This version of Facts for Life builds on the three previous editions, which have been helping families and communities around the world since 1989. Newborn Health has been added to the Safe Motherhood chapter, giving attention to child survival from the first stage of life. A new chapter, Child Protection, has been included, focusing attention on the actions needed to ensure children grow up in protective environments.
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Evidence for technical update of pocket book recommendations. Newborn conditions, dysentery, pneumonia, oxygen use and delivery, common causes of fever, severe acute malnutrition and supportive care
This version of Field Trials of Health Interventions includes seven new chapters on conducting systematic literature reviews, trial
governance, preliminary studies and pilot testing, budgeting and accounting, intervention costing and economic analysis, and Phase IV studies. Before new interventions... are released into disease control programmes, it is essential that they are carefully evaluated in ‘field trials’. These may be complex and expensive undertakings, requiring the follow-up of hundreds, or thousands, of individuals, often for long periods. This manual was designed to provide guidance on the practical issues in great detail
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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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This updated implementation guidance is intended for all those who set policy for, or offer care to, pregnant women, families and infants: governments; national managers of maternal and child health programmes in general, and of breastfeeding- and BFHI-related programmes in particular; and health-f...acility managers at different levels (facility directors, medical directors, chiefs of maternity and neonatal wards). The document presents the first revision of the Ten Steps since 1989. The topic of each step is unchanged, but the wording of each one has been updated in line with the evidence-based guidelines and global public health policy.
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No publication year indicated
The cost of newborn and child health interventions were estimated considering several different angles. At the first attempt, the cost of implementing all newborn and child health interventions packaged as antenatal, Intra natal, Essential newborn care, Care of sic...k newborn, Care of premature & LBW, Nutrition, Immunization, Care of sick infants and newborns, ECCD and WASH was estimated. This estimate reflects the cost of entire newborn and child care program thrust in the country. Costs of different intervention sub packages were also determined.
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No publication year indicated
The specific objectives of the plan are to:
- Scale up evidence-based, cost effective interventions through effective strategies within a HSS approach and provide equitable coverage with quality.
- Reduce neonatal mortality by improved home-based newborn ...care, early identification of sick newborns and improved access to institutional newborn care of adequate quality.
- Reduce common childhood illness related mortality (due to pneumonia and diarrhoea in all areas and malaria in endemic areas) by improving key family and community practices, community-based early diagnosis and management and referral care for complicated cases.
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DHS Further Analysis Reports No. 108 - This report examines levels, trends, and inequalities in maternal health in Rwanda from 2010 to 2014-15 among women age 15-49 with a recent birth. The analysis uses Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) data for 15 key indicators of maternal health: 6 for antenat...al care, 3 for delivery, 1 for postnatal care, and 5 for barriers to accessing medical care. Levels and trends in these indicators were analyzed overall and by three background characteristics: women’s education, household wealth quintile, and region.
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Objectives of the Study:
To understand the community needs, behaviors and perception for MNH in urban poor settings.
To explore various factors (both demand and supply side) affecting care seeking for MNH.
To assess the preparedness of the urban health system for providing MNH services at variou...s levels of care in terms of infrastructures at various levels of care, HR availability and capacity, logistics, drugs & equipment, referral, recording & reporting, supervision, governance and financial modalities.
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Every Newborn: an action plan to end preventable deaths is a roadmap for change. It takes forward the Global Strategy for Women’s and Children’s Health by focusing specific attention on newborn health and identifying actions for improving their survival, health and development.
Neonatal mortality is a major challenge in reducing child mortality rates in Nepal. Despite efforts by the Government of Nepal, data from the last three demographic and health surveys show a rise in the contribution of neonatal deaths to infant and child mortality. The Government of Nepal has implem...ented community-based programs that were piloted and then scaled up based on lessons learned. These programs include, but are not limited to ensuring safe motherhood, birth preparedness package, community-based newborn care package, and integrated management of childhood illnesses. Despite the implementation of such programs on a larger scale, their effective coverage is yet to be achieved. Health system challenges included an inadequate policy environment, funding gaps, inadequate procurement, and insufficient supplies of commodities, while human resource management has been found to be impeding service delivery. Such bottlenecks at policy, institutional and service delivery level need to be addressed incorporating health information in decision-making as well as working in partnership with communities to facilitate the utilization of available services.
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India contributes to 16% of the global maternal deaths and around 27% of global newborn deaths. Reducing the burden of maternal and newborn mortality and morbidity in urban poor settings today requires an expansion of effective Maternal and Newborn Health (MNH) care services and lowering the barrier...s to the use of such services, especially availability and accessibility.
For designing sensitive, responsive and relevant urban health policy and action, it is important for planners and programme managers to understand the context with regard to current systems and mechanisms, potential organisations and best practices.
In order to adres this need, Save the Children’s Saving Newborn Lives programme commissioned a study that reviewed the literature and looked at available secondary data on MNH in urban poor settings.
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The guidelines begin with an overview of the determinants of mental health among children and adolescents before reviewing related South African policies and legislation. The document then discusses strategies to build skills among caregivers, teachers and other frontline providers of mental health ...interventions as well as those for counselling professionals. The guidelines conclude by identifying priority areas for mental health services among children and adolescents, including the prevention of child and substance abuse as well as services for those living with intellectual disabilities
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The 2014–2015 Ebola outbreak was catastrophic in West Africa but the indirect impact of increasing the mortality rates of other conditions was also substantial. The increased number of deaths caused by malaria, HIV/AIDS, and tuberculosis attributable to health system failures exceeded deaths from ...Ebola.
With a relatively limited COVID-19 caseload, health systems may have the capacity to maintain routine service delivery in addition to managing COVID-19 cases. When caseloads are high, and/or health workers are directly affected, strategic adaptations are required to ensure that increasingly limited resources provide maximum benefit for the refugees and surrounding host population. The following are key considerations for UNHCR operations on prioritized health care services in the event of a COVID-19 outbreak. These are based on WHO Guidance for Maintaining Essential Health Services and UNHCR guidance for operations and where relevant operation or site level outbreak preparedness and response plans.
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These Blended Learning Modules cover the full range of health promotion, disease prevention, basic management and essential treatment protocols to improve and protect the health of rural communities in Ethiopia. A strong focus is on enabling Ethiopia to meet the Millennium Development Goals to reduc...e maternal mortality by three-quarters and under-5 child mortality by two-thirds by the year 2015. The Modules cover antenatal care, labour and delivery, postnatal care, the integrated management of newborn and childhood illness, communicable diseases (including HIV/AIDS, malaria, TB, leprosy and other common infectious diseases), family planning, adolescent and youth reproductive health, nutrition and food safety, hygiene and environmental health, non-communicable diseases, health education and community mobilisation, and health planning and professional ethics.
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In resource restriced countries
UNHCR’s Public Health Strategy 2021-2025 is based on the lessons learnt, and builds on the achievements, of the Global Strategy for Public Health 2014-2018.
Progress was made on policies favouring inclusion and integration into national systems3 with 92% of 48 operations surveyed reporting refuge...es having access to national primary health care facilities under the same conditions as nationals and 96% reporting refugees having access to all relevant vaccines under the same conditions as nationals. While many refugee hosting countries have policies that allow refugees to access national health services, many face partial access, prohibitive out-of-pocket expenditures and other barriers including distance to facilities, language and provider acceptance. Furthermore, more work is needed on strengthening these systems to be able to meet the needs of both host communities and refugees.
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Background:Neonatal mortality accounts for 43% of global under-five deaths and is decreasing more slowly than maternal or child mortality. Donor funding has increased for maternal, newborn, and child health (MNCH), but no analysis to date has disaggregated aid for newborns. We evaluated if and how a...id flows for newborn care can be tracked, examined changes in the last decade, and considered methodological implications for tracking funding for specific population groups or diseases. MethodsandFindings:We critically reviewed and categorised previous analyses of aid to specific populations, diseases, or types of activities. We then developed and refined key terms related to newborn survival in seven languages and searched titles and descriptions of donor disbursement records in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s Creditor Reporting System database, 2002–2010. We compared results with the Countdown to 2015 database of aid for MNCH (2003–2008) and the search strategy used by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation. Prior to 2005, key terms related to newborns were rare in disbursement records but their frequency increased markedly thereafter. Only two mentions were found of ‘‘stillbirth’’ and only nine references were found to ‘‘fetus’’ in any spelling variant or language
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Beat the heat: child health amid heatwaves in Europe and Central Asia finds that half of these children died from heat-related illnesses in their first year of life. Most children died during the summer months.
"Around half of children across Europe and Central Asia – or 92 million children –... are already exposed to frequent heatwaves in a region where temperatures are rising at the fastest rate globally. The increasingly high temperatures can have serious health complications for children, especially the youngest children, even in a short space of time. Without care, these complications can be life-threatening,” said Regina De Dominicis UNICEF Regional Director for Europe and Central Asia.
Heat exposure has acute effects on children, even before they are born, and can result in pre-term births, low birth weight, stillbirth, and congenital anomalies. Heat stress is a direct cause of infant mortality, can affect infant growth and cause a range of paediatric diseases. The report also notes that extreme heat caused the loss of more than 32,000 years of healthy life among children and teenagers in the region.
As the temperatures continue to rise, UNICEF urges governments across Europe and Central Asia to:
- Integrate strategies to reduce the impact of heatwaves including through National Determined Contributions (NDC), National Adaptation Plans (NAP), and disaster risk reduction and disaster management policies with children at the centre of these plans
Invest in heat health action plans and primary health care to more adequately support heat-related illness among children
- Invest in early warning systems, including heat alert systems
- Adapt education facilities to reduce the temperatures in the areas children play in and equip teachers with skills to respond to heat stress
- Adapt urban design and infrastructure including ensuring buildings, particularly those housing the most vulnerable communities are equipped to minimize heat exposure
- Secure the provision of safe water, particularly in countries with deteriorating water quality and availability.
UNICEF works with governments, partners and communities across the region to build resilience against heatwaves. This includes equipping teachers, community health workers and families with the skills and knowledge to respond to heat stress.
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This purpose of this guide is to inform robust evaluations of the WHO training package – a package aimed at personnel whose primary role in health-care facilities is environmental cleaning, hereafter referred to as cleaners.
The WHO training package – Environmental cleaning and infection prev...ention and control in health-care facilities in low- and middle-income countries – was designed to improve the competencies of cleaners through a practical, educational approach for adult learners in low- and middle-income countries and comprises two volumes: trainer’s guide and modules and resources (1,2). An associated OpenWHO online course describes the essential preparations for trainers to deliver the WHO training package.
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