Over the past few decades and throughout the world, the landscape of adolescent health has been altered dramatically. Currently, the total population of adolescents between the ages of 10 and 19 years is 1.2 billion – the largest generation of young people in history. The vast majority of adolesce...nts (85%) live in developing countries where, in many areas, they make up more than a third of the population. They face a variety of different experiences given the diverse political, economic, social and cultural realities within their communities. Although, for many, adolescence is a period of learning and building confidence in a nurturing environment, for others it is a period of heightened risk and complex challenges.
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Maintaining proper storage conditions for health commodities is vital to ensuring their quality. Product expiration dates are based on ideal storage conditions and protecting product quality until their expiration date is important for serving customers and conserving resources. Guidelines for the S...torage of Essential Medicines and Other Health Commodities is a practical reference for those managing or involved in setting up a storeroom or warehouse. The guide contains written directions and clear illustrations on receiving and arranging commodities; special storage conditions; tracking commodities; maintaining the quality of the products; constructing and designing a medical store; waste management; and resources. It was written to meet the needs of district-level facilities; however, the guidelines and information it contains apply to any storage facility, of any size, in any type of environment.
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Conclusion: CBR has improved the quality of life, access to medical services, functional independence, autonomy, community inclusion, and empowerment of people with disabilities in LMICs in the Asia-Pacific region. However, challenges in the implementation of CBR remain. These include lack of awaren...ess and understanding of CBR, and physical, environmental, socio-economical and personal barriers.
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Standards & Guidelines for Environmental Health Services
Improving Quality & Safety of Health Services
No publication year indicated.
This resource presents "the minimum level of educational quality and access in emergencies through to recovery. The aim of the handbook is to enhance the quality of educational preparedness, response and recovery; to increase access to safe and relevant learning opportunities for all learners, regar...dless of their age, gender or abilities; and to ensure accountability and strong coordination in the provision of education in emergencies through to recovery...The INEE Minimum Standards are organised in five domains: Foundation standards; Access and learning environment; Teaching and learning; Teachers and other education; personnel; Education policy". Available in different languages: English, French, Arabic, Azerbajani, Bangla, Indonesia, Bosnian, Coratian, Serbian, Burmese, Chinese, Dari, Japanese, Nepali, Pashto, Portugese, Russian, Spanish, Turkish, Urdu, Vietnamese
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DHS Methodological Report No. 20
This study used Service Provision Assessment (SPA) and Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) data from Haiti, Malawi, and Tanzania to compare traditionally used additive methods with a data reduction method—principal component analysis (PCA).
We scored ...the quality of health facilities with three approaches (simple additive, weighted additive, and PCA) for two constructs: quality of services, with only facilities-level data, and quality of care, which incorporates observation and client data. We ranked facilities as high, medium, or low quality based on their scores. Our results indicated that the rankings change with the scoring methodology. There was more consistency in the rankings of facilities by the simple additive and PCA methods than the weighted additive and PCA-based rankings. This may be due to the low factor loadings and little variance explained by the first component in the PCA. We aggregated facility scores to their respective DHS clusters (Haiti, Malawi) or regions (Tanzania) and geographically linked them to women interviewed in DHS surveys to test associations between the use of family planning services and the quality environment, as measured with each index.
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This compendium represents a curated, pragmatic and non-prescriptive collection of tools and resources to support the implementation of interventions to improve quality of care in such contexts. Relevant tools and resources are listed under five areas: Ensuring access and basic infrastructure for qu...ality; shaping the system environment; reducing harm; improving clinical care; and engaging and empowering patients, families and communities.
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Accessed on 06.03.2022
Air pollution is the biggest environmental health risk in Europe
Air pollution is hard to escape, no matter where you live. It can seriously affect your health and the environment. Even though air quality in Europe has improved over recent decades, the levels of air pollutan...ts still exceed EU standards and the most stringent World Health Organization guidelines.
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Harmful particle pollution is one of our nation’s most common air pollutants. Use the chart below to help reduce your exposure and protect your health. For your local air quality forecast, visit www.airnow.gov
The EU's air quality directives (2008/50/EC Directive on Ambient Air Quality and Cleaner Air for Europe and 2004/107/EC Directive on heavy metals and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in ambient air) set pollutant concentrations thresholds that shall not be exceeded in a given period of time. In case... of exceedances, authorities must develop and implement air quality management plans. These plans should aim to bring concentrations of air pollutants to levels below the limit and target values.
Selected EU standards and the World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines are summarised in the table below. These apply over differing periods of time because the observed health impacts associated with the various pollutants occur over different exposure times.
The WHO guideline values are set for the protection of health, and are generally stricter than the comparable politically agreed EU standards.
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Climate change is a public health crisis – impacting our weather and environment, along with the quality of the air we breathe, the water we drink, and the food we eat. The most vulnerable members of our communities – children, people of color, the poor, people with disabilities or chronic disea...ses, and the elderly – are the ones who suffer the most.
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The global burden of disease associated with air pollution exposure exacts a massive toll on human health worldwide: exposure to air pollution is estimated to cause millions of deaths and lost years of healthy life annually. The burden of disease attributable to air pollution is now estimated to be ...on a par with other major global health risks such as unhealthy diet and tobacco smoking, and air pollution is now recognized as the single biggest environmental threat to human health.
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Environmental pollution, protection, quality and sustainability
Thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Nursing Science in the Faculty of Health Sciences at Stellenbosch University.
The mobile clinic health care services fulfil an essential role in delivering primary health care to the dwellers in the rural commun...ities of the Western Cape. However, occupational health and safety, as well as quality assurance are issues that need to be addressed urgently. It is thus recommended that policy makers take cognizance of the specific needs of every individual mobile clinic team.
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This document is a guide defining requirements for quality and safety for malaria rapid diagnostic testing services to safeguard the quality of the results, the safety of the operators and patients and that of the environment for use by national malaria control programmes, regulators, implementers a...nd rapid diagnostic providers.
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To improve the quality of care during labour and childbirth, facilitate effective implementation of the World Health Organization (WHO) recommendations: Intrapartum care for a positive childbirth experience, published in 2018, and promote a shift towards improving the experience of childbirth, WHO d...eveloped the WHO Labour Care Guide (LCG) and an accompanying WHO labour care guide: user's manual. The WHO LCG is a tool to facilitate implementation of quality, evidence-based, woman-centred care for a positive childbirth experience within the context of a broader, rights-based approach.
The goal of this policy brief is to provide maternal and newborn health stakeholders and decision-makers with an overview of the WHO LCG and its guiding principles, key advantages of making the shift from the WHO partograph to the WHO LCG, and what is required to ensure an enabling environment that will facilitate a sustainable introduction of the WHO LCG.
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Those who clean are the first line of defense against health care-associated infections (HAIs), and support efforts to reduce antimicrobial resistance (AMR).
Strengthening the training of this important group can contribute to resolving many of today’s public health challenges. This is importan...t given that cleaning both surfaces and hands is vital to control the transmission of a number of HAIs.
This two-part training package targets those who clean heath care facilities.
The Trainer’s Guide takes the user through how to prepare, deliver and sustain an effective training for those who clean. The Modules and Resources provides instructions, definitions, photographs, posters and specific illustrations of recommended practices
The package can be used by those who deliver environmental cleaning training programmes and/or those with a background in IPC including ministries of health, nongovernmental organizations, academic institutions, experts working in Quality of care, IPC and environmental cleaning/ Water, sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) and Health facility IPC focal points and onsite cleaning supervisors
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Fully functioning water, sanitation, hygiene (WASH) and health care waste management services are a critical aspect of infection prevention and control (IPC) practices, and ensuring patient safety and quality of care. Such services are also essential for creating an environment that supports the dig...nity and human rights of all care seekers, especially mothers, newborns, children and care providers.
WASH and waste services are also critical for preventing and effectively responding to disease outbreaks. The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed gaps in these basic services (Box 1). These gaps threaten the safety of patients and caregivers, and have environmental consequences, especially as a result of large increases in plastic health care waste. In short, WASH is a critical foundation for improving quality across the health system (1).
Many facilities lack plans and budgets for WASH, which has impacts on IPC. This lack of services, and of systems to improve them, compromises the ability to provide safe and quality care, and places health care providers and those seeking care at substantial risk of infection and loss of dignity. Unhygienic health care facilities without drinking water or functional toilets are also a disincentive to seeking care and undermine staff morale – these factors can have a critical impact on controlling infectious disease outbreaks.
Climate change and its impacts on WASH and health services, gender-specific needs, and equity in service provision and management all require rigorous attention, adaptable tools and regular monitoring.
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