The impact of maternal mental health problems on infants in high income countries has been identified mostly in terms of psychosocial and emotional development, thanks to the groundbreaking early work of Spitz (2) and of Bowlby (3), who studied the emotional needs of infants and mother-child attachm...ent. Subsequently, a large body of literature, also from HICs, documented the effects of maternal mental health on the child's psychological development (4), intellectual competence(5), psychosocial functioning (6) and rate of psychiatric morbidity (7, 8).
more
Report of the Joint World Health Organization–Brien Holden Vision Institute Global Scientific Meeting on Myopia | University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia 16–18 March 2015
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.
more
The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) showed
that global commitment and collective action
could significantly reduce the disease burdens of
three deadly communicable diseases: HIV/AIDS,
tuberculosis (TB) and malaria. The MDGs helped
focus efforts on these three deadly diseases
and leveraged ...disease-specific programmes and
financing, thus achieving significant progress.
more
Annals of Global Health, 87(1), p.43. DOI: http://doi.org/10.5334/aogh.3269;
The aim of this study was to examine the prevalence of mental health symptoms (anxiety, depression, and stress) in Bangladesh and the factors associated with these symptoms during the COVID-19 pandemic.
They found that ...about 64%, 87%, and 61% of the respondents in Bangladesh reported high levels of depression, anxiety, and stress, respectively and this varied between divisions (regions), more in women, those who self-quarantined, and those that experienced classical symptoms of COVID-19. We think there is a need for mental health support in this population to minimise the long term effects.
more
The WHO Global strategy on human resources for health: workforce 2030 encourages development partners and global health initiatives to leverage their support to health systems in countries to sustainably strengthen the health workforce. To assess the impact of these investments, a methodology was de...veloped and pilot tested by WHO.
The impact assessment tool (consisting of an MS Excel calculator with two subsets) supports users to:
• assess and quantify the health impact of HRH investments made in the context of HIV, tuberculosis (TB) and malaria programmes through their modelled effect on health service coverage of these three diseases; and
• provide aggregate indicative estimates of the range of health workers required to attain high coverage of selected health services.
more
Background: Healthcare workers’ mental health was affected by SARS-CoV-2 pandemic.
Aim: To evaluate healthcare workers’ mental health and its associated factors during the pandemic in Chile. Material and Methods: An online self-reported questionnaire was designed including the Goldberg Healt...h Questionnaire, the Patient Health
Questionnaire, (PHQ-9), and the Columbia-Suicide Severity Rating Scale among other questions. It was sent to 28,038 healthcare workers.
Results: The questionnaire was answered by 1,934 participants, with a median age of 38 years (74% women). Seventy five percent were professionals, and 48% worked at a hospital. Fifty nine percent of respondents had a risk of having a mental health disorder, and 73% had depressive symptoms. Significant associations were found with sex, workplace, and some of the relevant experiences during the pandemic. Fifty one
percent reported the need for mental health support, and 38% of them received it.
Conclusions: There is a high percentage of health workers with symptoms of psychological distress, depression, and suicidal ideas. The gender approach is essential to understand the important differences found. Many health workers who required mental health care did not seek or received it.
more
The COVID-19 pandemic is having a major impact on the mental health of populations in the Americas. Studies
show high rates of depression and anxiety, among other psychological symptoms, particularly among women, young
people, those with pre-existing mental health conditions, health workers, and p...ersons living in vulnerable condi-
tions. Mental health systems and services have also been severely disrupted. A lack of financial and human resource
investments in mental health services, limited implementation of the decentralized community-based care approach
and policies to address the mental health gap prior to the pandemic, have all contributed to the current crisis. Coun-
tries must urgently strengthen their mental health responses to COVID-19 by taking actions to scale up mental
health and psychosocial support services for all, reach marginalized and at-risk populations, and build back better
mental health systems and services for the future.
more
Global temperatures and the frequency and intensity of heatwaves will rise in the 21st century as a result of climate change. Extended periods of high day and nighttime temperatures create cumulative physiological stress on the human body which exacerbates the top causes of death globally, including... respiratory and cardiovascular diseases, diabetes mellitus and renal disease. Heatwaves can acutely impact large populations for short periods of time, often trigger public health emergencies, and result in excess mortality, and cascading socioeconomic impacts
more
The Americas region hosts more than 18.4 million refugees, asylum-seekers, displaced and stateless people, representing some 20 per cent of persons of concern to UNHCR worldwide. During the last two years, the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic has had a disproportionate impact on refugees and ...migrants in host communities, including loss of livelihoods opportunities, an increase in evictions, engagement in negative coping mechanisms, discrimination and xenophobia. Further compounded by limited access to regularization and documentation in some countries, these impacts have contributed to onward movements of people in search of protection and/or better opportunities elsewhere.
more
Investing to overcome the global impact of neglected tropical diseases charts new ground in tackling the 17 neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) that aff ect more than a billion people in 149 countries worldwide. It makes the case for domestic investment to reach the targets of WHO’s Roadmap on NTDs... by 2020 and sustain enhanced, equitable access to high-quality coverage against these diseases to 2030.
Th is third WHO report anticipates the investments needed as countries graduate from
low-income to middle-income status and as the world’s focus expands from the Millennium Development Goals to the Sustainable Development Goals.
more
Children continue to be exposed to powerful food marketing, which predominantly promotes foods high in saturated fatty acids, trans-fatty acids, free sugars and/or sodium and uses a wide variety of marketing strategies that are likely to appeal to children. Food marketing has a harmful impact on chi...ldren’s food choice and their dietary intake, affects their purchase requests to adults for marketed foods and influences the development of their norms about food consumption. Food marketing is also increasingly recognized as a children’s rights concern, given its negative impact on several of the rights enshrined in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child.This WHO guideline provides Member States with recommendations and implementation considerations on policies to protect children from the harmful impact of food marketing, based on evidence specific to children and to the context of food marketing. Guidelines on other policies to improve the food environment are currently under development.
more
Background: Several countries allocate official development assistance (ODA) for research on global health and development issues that is initiated in the donor country. The integration of such research within domestic research systems aligns with efforts to coordinate ODA investments with science, ...technology and innovation policies towards achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Methods: Through a document synthesis and interviews with research funders in ODA donor and recipient countries, we evaluated the performance of this funding approach across seven donor-country programmes from five donor countries and examined the institutional design elements that increase its chances of advancing development goals and addressing global challenges.
Results: We found that carefully designed programmes provide a promising pathway to producing valuable and contextually relevant knowledge on global health and development issues. To achieve these outcomes and ensure they benefit ODA-receiving countries, programmes should focus on recipient-country priorities and absorptive capacity; translate research on global public goods into context-appropriate technologies; plan and monitor pathways to impact; structure equitable partnerships; strengthen individual and institutional capacity; and emphasize knowledge mobilization.
Conclusions: Global health and development research programmes and partnerships have an important role to play in achieving the SDGs and addressing global challenges. Governments should consider the potential of ODA-funded research programmes to address gaps in their global health and development frameworks. In the absence of concrete evidence of development impact, donor countries should consider making increases in ODA allocations for research additional to more direct investments that have demonstrated effectiveness in ODA-receiving countries.
more
The Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) has had a continuous and robust impact on world health. The resulting COVID-19 pandemic has had a devastating physical, mental and fiscal impact on the millions of people living with noncommunicable diseases (NCDs), as they have a higher risk of severe illness... and death from COVID-19. COVID-19 has been associated with an
excess in all-cause and cardiovascular disease (CVD) mortality beyond that related to the infection itself and its immediate consequences. Studies in the
United Kingdom (UK) and United States of America (USA) have clearly shown increasing deaths from ischemic heart disease, stroke and hypertensive disease due to COVID-19. Overall, the impact has been greater in individuals with lower socioeconomic status, even in high income nations.
more
The World Health Organization (WHO) released its first-ever report on the devastating global impact of high blood pressure, along with recommendations on the ways to win the race against this silent killer. The report shows approximately 4 out of every 5 people with hypertension are not adequately t...reated, but if countries can scale up coverage, 76 million deaths could be averted between 2023 and 2050.
more
One in three people globally suffers from at least one form of malnutrition, leading to poor health outcomes and low productivity in the workplace. The workplace offers an important, relatively unexploited opportunity to address malnutrition in all its forms. This narrative literature review aims to... understand the impact of workforce nutrition programmes on nutrition, health, and business outcomes, based on high-strength-of-evidence studies. We used PubMed as our primary research database, complemented by Google Scholar, to identify systematic reviews, meta-analyses, and randomised controlled trials published between January 2010 and October 2021. In total, 26 records were included. We found that comprehensive workforce nutrition programmes, including a variety of intervention areas, and/or programmes targeting high-risk categories of workers (overweight/obese or (pre-)diabetic) were more likely to be effective on nutrition, health, and business outcomes. Within comprehensive and targeted programmes, individualised counselling and worksite environmental modifications were often mentioned as the most effective components. However, a high degree of heterogeneity in outcome measures and programme designs made it difficult to draw strong conclusions on the impact of workforce nutrition interventions. Limited evidence was found on business outcomes, longer-term effects of interventions, and programme implementation in LMICs. Therefore, further research is needed to address these evidence gaps.
more
The document presents a systematic analysis of dietary risks and their health impacts in 195 countries from 1990 to 2017. It highlights that suboptimal diets, such as those high in sodium and low in whole grains, fruits, and vegetables, significantly contribute to non-communicable diseases like hear...t disease, stroke, and diabetes. The study emphasizes the urgent need for improved dietary habits and policy interventions to reduce diet-related mortality and morbidity globally.
more
Background: Community Health Workers (CHWs) have a positive impact on the provision of community-based
primary health care through screening, treatment, referral, psychosocial support, and accompaniment. With a
broad scope of work, CHW programs must balance the breadth and depth of tasks to mainta...in CHW motivation for
high-quality care delivery. Few studies have described the CHW perspective on intrinsic and extrinsic motivation to
enhance their programmatic activities.
Methods: We utilized an exploratory qualitative study design with CHWs employed in the household model in Neno
District, Malawi, to explore their perspectives on intrinsic and extrinsic motivators and dissatisfiers in their work. Data
was collected in 8 focus group discussions with 90 CHWs in October 2018 and March–April 2019 in seven purposively
selected catchment areas. All interviews were audiotaped, transcribed verbatim, coded, and analyzed using Dedoose.
Results: Themes of complex intrinsic and extrinsic factors were generated from the perspectives of the CHWs in
the focus group discussions. Study results indicate that enabling factors are primarily intrinsic factors such as positive
patient outcomes, community respect, and recognition by the formal health care system but can lead to the chal-
lenge of increased scope and workload. Extrinsic factors can provide challenges, including an increased scope and
workload from original expectations, lack of resources to utilize in their work, and rugged geography. However, a posi-
tive work environment through supportive relationships between CHWs and supervisors enables the CHWs.
Conclusion: This study demonstrated enabling factors and challenges for CHW performance from their perspec-
tive within the dual-factor theory. We can mitigate challenges through focused efforts to limit geographical distance,
manage workload, and strengthen CHW support to reinforce their recognition and trust. Such programmatic empha-
sis can focus on enhancing motivational factors found in this study to improve the CHWs’ experience in their role. The
engagement of CHWs, the communities, and the formal health care system is critical to improving the care provided
to the patients and communities, along with building supportive systems to recognize the work done by CHWs for
the primary health care systems.
more
The WHO document, "High-level technical meeting on noncommunicable diseases and mental health in small island developing states: summary brief," outlines the outcomes of a January 2023 meeting in Barbados, focusing on NCDs and mental health challenges in small island developing states (SIDS). Key to...pics included the need for sustainable financing, addressing the impact of climate change, improving emergency preparedness, strengthening multisectoral collaboration, and managing commercial determinants of health. The document emphasizes building political support and international cooperation to reduce the NCD and mental health burden in SIDS, with recommendations for policy coherence and increased support for these vulnerable regions.
more