This report challenges policy-makers and political leaders to tackle fossil fuel production and consumption as a health control issue, in the same way that smoking has been reduced and regulated. Fossil fuel combustion is a major source of toxic air pollution that kills 7 million people every year, ...almost the same as the number of deaths caused by tobacco smoking.
In 2018, the World Health Organization (WHO) recognised air pollution as a major health risk factor. There is widespread public discussion about the effects of fossil fuel combustion and emissions on climate change… but what about the effect on our health? Climate change poses a threat not only to the health of the planet, but also to humans.
The case studies evaluated in this report offer examples of mechanisms that can be used to restrict the production and consumption of unhealthy commodities, so that the health, air pollution and climate communities can learn from one another, using shared approaches and language. These case studies show that the connection with health is a strong argument to support sustainable change.
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Zambia has recognised the Public Health threat of antimicrobial resistance and its impact on morbidity and mortality, as well as the subsequent economic consequences. The country has recorded microorganisms which have developed resistance to antimicrobial drugs. Notable among these are; Multidrug Re...sistant Mycobacterium Tuberculosis (MDR), Human Immunodeficiency virus resistant to antiretroviral drugs, Plasmodium resistance to antimalarial drugs, and fungal species showing indications of resistance to antifungal drugs. Emergence of “Superbugs” such as Methicillin Resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), Extended Spectrum beta-lactam (ESBL) producing Klebsiella pneumoniae and Vancomycin Resistant Enterococci (VRE) have also been reported.
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Lancet Public Health 2018 Published Online September 12, 2018 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/ S2468-2667(18)30138-5
In 2017, the World Bank and partners created the Global Investment Framework for Nutrition as a roadmap towards achieving the World Health Assembly (WHA) nutrition targets by 2025. The framework estimates that the world needs to mobilize an annual additional investment of $7 billion per year to scal...e-up nutrition-specific interventions at the level needed to achieve the global targets. However, the world is off-track to meet the global targets. And it is unclear whether additional resources will be mobilized for life-saving and cost-effective nutrition-specific interventions, or whether donor support will be enough to meet the annual resource need established by the framework.
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In where under-five mortality is high and vitamin A deficiency is a public health problem, two high-dose supplements of vitamin A per year, spaced four to six months apart, can strengthen children’s immune systems and improve their chances of survival.
During much of early childhood – from... 6 months to 5years of age – two high doses of vitamin A every year can prevent blindness and hearing loss, boost children’s immunity against diseases like measles and diarrhoea and provide critical protection against death. Like all forms of malnutrition, vitamin A deficiency is a marker of inequality. In countries where diets are lacking in vitamin A and infections and deaths are prevalent, supplementation programmes give vulnerable children a better chance to survive, develop and thrive.
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Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) has emerged as a major public health concern, around which the international leadership has come together to form strategic partnerships and action plans. The main driving force behind the emergence of AMR is selection pressure created due to consumption of antibiotics.... Consumption of antibiotics in human as well as animal sectors are driven by a complex interplay of determinants, many of which are typical to the local settings.
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UNICEF analysis indicates that:
- Investments that increase access to high-impact health and nutrition interventions by poor groups have saved almost twice as many lives as equivalent investments in non-poor groups.
- Access to high-impact health and nutrition interventions has improved ra...pidly among poor groups in recent years, leading to substantial improvements in equity.
- During the period studied, absolute reductions in under-five mortality rates associated with improvements in intervention coverage were three times faster among poor groups than non-poor groups.
- Because birth rates were higher among the poor, the reduction in the under-five mortality rate translated into 4.2 times more lives saved for every 1 million people. Indeed, of the 1.1 million lives saved across the 51 countries during the final year studied for each country, nearly 85 per cent were among the poor.
- Intensified focus on equity-enhancing policies and investments can help countries achieve the Sustainable Development Goal newborn and child mortality targets (SDG3.2).
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This case study explores how the Talent Youth Association, supported by Link Up, promotes the integration of comprehensive sexuality education in school curricula in Ethiopia in order to enable young people to understand and claim their sexual and reproductive health and rights
Treatment Improvement Protocol (TIP) Series No. 59
This Quick Guide is based entirely on information contained in TIP 59, published in 2014. No additional research has been conducted to update this topic since publication of TIP 59. | This Quick Guide provides succinct, easily accessible informatio...n to behavioral health administrators about developing culturally competent organizations. The guide is based entirely on Improving Cultural Competence, Number 59 in the Treatment Improvement Protocol (TIP) series. Users of the Quick Guide are invited to consult the primary source, TIP 59, for more information and a complete list of resources for improving cultural competence. To order a copy of TIP 59 or to access it online, see the inside back cover of this guide.
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In this report a nutrition governance framework was applied to research and analyse the provincial experience with nutrition policy in Pakistan, looking both at chronic and acute malnutrition. Twenty-one in-depth interviews with key stakeholders were also conducted along with a review of published a...nd grey literature. Findings were validated and supplemented by consultative provincial roundtable meetings. Punjab’s nutritional puzzle is that it has high levels of chronic malnutrition and micro-nutrient deficiencies despite a surplus production of food and a low poverty level. Under-nutrition is mainly linked to insufficient attention to preventive health strategies and to a lack of connection between relevant sectors such as Education, Health, Poverty, Safe Water and Sanitation, and Food. Strategic opportunities are recommended which include cross-party political support and ownership for nutrition, with steering by executive leadership; multi-sectoral action and functional integration of various departments and programmes with the creation of a central convening structure for effective cross-sectoral coordination; broadening of nutritional activities beyond salt iodization and vitamin A coverage; central co-ordination of monitoring and evaluation and effective partnerships between the state and non-state sector around data production, awareness, advocacy, and monitoring.
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Conflict and Health 2015, 9:8 doi:10.1186/s13031-015-0035-8
In the context of the Support to National Malaria Control Programme (SuNMaP), demand creation is the strategic combination of advocacy, communication and mobilisation approaches that seek to achieve increased community awareness of, and demand for, effective malaria prevention and treatment services.... For malaria treatment, demand creation focuses on promoting improved testing, prompt and proper use of artemisinin combination therapy (ACT) treatment for individual cases of malaria, and effective home management of fever, together with referrals of severe cases to a higher-level health facility.
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To Initiating a Maternal, Neonatal and Child Health Project in Urban Slums with Social Mapping, Census Taking, and Community Engagement
Further Analysis of the 2000, 2005, and 2011 Demographic and Health Surveys. DHS Further Analysis Reports No. 83
Further Analysis of the 2000, 2005, and 2011 Demographic and Health Surveys. DHS Further Analysis Reports No. 79
The COPSI project is divided into three phases: the first in which the intervention is developed, the second in which researchers evaluate the intervention in a randomised controlled trial, and the final one in which the results of the trial are analysed and disseminated.
A COPSI resource kit has ...been developed comprising the COPSI training manual for the community health workers, intervention flip chart, 14 intervention handouts, recovery stories booklet and videos about people with schizophrenia and their families telling their stories of illness and recovery in a deeply personal way.
To access the videos, please click to http://www.sangath.in/copsi/ to watch the video based in Tamil Nadu and to watch the video based in Maharashtra.
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The full range and scale of all forms of violence against children are only now becoming visible, as is the evidence of the harm it does. This book documents the outcomes and recommendations of the process of the United Nations Secretary-General’s Study on Violence against Children. ‘The Study... is the first comprehensive, global study on all forms of violence against children.
It builds on the model of the study on the impact of armed conflict on children, prepared by Graça Machel and presented to the General Assembly in 1996, and follows the World Health Organization’s 2002 World Report on Violence and Health.1
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Int Health. 2012 December 1; 4(4): 253–259. doi:10.1016/j.inhe.2012.07.001
The disease burden caused by poor water, sanitation and hygiene is significant. For instance, soil transmitted helminthes (hookworm, roundworm, ringworm) infest approximately two billion people. Shistosomiasis infects and debilitates 200 million people. Trachoma, a disease related to poor sanitation... and hygiene which can cause blindness, infects five million people. However, the most serious health impact of poor WASH is diarrheal disease, particularly on children.
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DHS Working Papers No. 69
This paper uses data from the three Indian National Family Health Surveys (1992-93, 1998-99, 2005-06) to examine how the relationship between household wealth and child mortality evolved during a time of significant economic change in India. The main predictor is a new... measure of household wealth that captures changes in wealth over time. Outcomes include neonatal mortality, postneonatal mortality, child mortality, and under-five mortality. Multivariate analysis is conducted at the national, urban, rural, and regional levels.
Results indicate that the overall relationship between household wealth and mortality weakened over time, as evidenced by the coefficients for under-five mortality at the national level.
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