The standards for the care of small and sick newborns in health facilities define, standardize and mainstream inpatient care of small and sick newborns, building on essential newborn care and ensuring consistency with the WHO quality of care framework. The standards will guide countries in caring fo...r this vulnerable population and support the quality of care of newborns in the context of universal health coverage. They will provide a resource for policy-makers, health care professionals, health service planners, programme managers, regulators, professional bodies and technical partners involved in care
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The WHO report on health preparedness for El Niño 2015-2016 describes the impact of this weather phenomenon on global public health. Strong El Niño events lead to extreme weather conditions, including droughts, floods, and storms, which increase the risk of diseases such as cholera, malaria, and d...engue fever. Particularly affected regions include Africa, Asia-Pacific, and Latin America, where water and food shortages and disease outbreaks are becoming more frequent.
The WHO supports countries through risk assessments, emergency plans, and disease surveillance to prevent outbreaks. Recommended measures include early warning systems, health preparedness in vulnerable areas, and better coordination between health and meteorological services to minimize the negative effects of El Niño on public health.
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Mental Health Policy and Service Guidance Package
Languages: Arabic, English, French, Chinese, Russian
This toolkit was developed to provide detailed information and resources to support implementation of the WHO intrapartum and immediate postnatal care recommendations at the health-care facility level. The careful design of this toolkit is based on a rigorous evidence-based approach that includes im...plementation strategies of proven effectiveness to help close the gap between WHO’s care recommendations and current policies and practices.
The primary target audience for the toolkit includes policy-makers, health-care facility managers, implementers and managers of maternal and child health programmes, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and professional societies involved in the planning and management of maternal and child health services.
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This primer aims to guide health professionals on engaging with WASH-related issues. It gives an overview of WASH interventions and the status of WASH services globally and outlines key linkages with health. It provides examples of key actions that health actors can take to ensure WASH efforts effec...tively protect public health and highlights World Health Organization (WHO) activities to support those actions.
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A manual for health managers
It provides insight into WHO’s work that aims to improve the health of the people of the United Republic of Tanzania in collaboration with key stakeholders.
An estimated 1.3 billion people globally experience significant disability. This figure has grown over the last decade and will continue to rise due to demographic and epidemiological changes. In 2022, the World Health Organization launched the Global report on health equity for persons with disabil...ities. This report demonstrated that many persons with disabilities are still being left behind. Experiencing persistent health inequities, persons with disabilities die earlier, they have poorer health and functioning, and they are more affected by health emergencies than the general population. These differences are largely associated with unjust factors both inside and beyond the health sector and are avoidable. The Global Report called upon Member States to take actions to make health sector more inclusive for persons with disabilities through the primary health care approach. This will be essential for countries to make health coverage truly universal and to progress towards other health-related targets in the sustainable development goals.
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The Atlas of health and climate is a product of this unique collaboration between the meteorological and public health communities. It provides sound scientific information on the connections between weather and climate and major health challenges. These range from diseases of poverty to emergencies... arising from extreme weather events and disease outbreaks. They also include environmental degradation, the increasing prevalence of noncommunicable diseases and the universal trend of demographic ageing.
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Cervical cancer continues to be a significant public health problem and a major cause of premature mortality among women, disproportionately affecting the socioeconomically disadvantaged population in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). In the absence of implementing the known evidence-based, ...cost-effective interventions, the number of deaths per year is projected to reach approximately 416 000 globally in 2035. It was estimated in 2020 that 32% of incident cervical cancer cases and 34% of cervical cancer deaths in the world occurred in the 11 Member States of the WHO South-East Asia (SEA) Region. In 2020, 190 874 new cases and 116 015 deaths were estimated due to cervical cancer, which is the third commonest cancer in the Region
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o support and guide countries and partners to strengthen a health systems response to address violence against women, WHO has produced several tools, including:
• clinical and policy guidelines;
• implementation handbooks and manuals;
• training curriculum;
• evidence-based polic...y, prevention and intervention strategy packages.
The resource package consolidates these documents to support countries to develop or update their national or subnational guidelines, protocols, standard operating procedures, health provider training materials, and multisectoral action plans to prevent and respond to violence against women.
The resource package is also intended to be used for training and sensitization of policy-makers, advocates, health care providers and managers of services and programmes to address violence against women.
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The World Health Organization (WHO) is releasing the second edition of its Global Accelerated Action for the Health of Adolescents (AA-HA!) guidance. The document aims to equip governments to respond to the health and well-being challenges, opportunities and needs of adolescents.
The guidance pro...vides the latest available data on adolescent health and well-being. It also outlines an updated list of core indicators that data should be collected on. Globally, road injury was the top cause of death for adolescent males in 2019. Among female adolescents, the leading causes of death were diarrhoeal diseases among the younger group (10-14 years) and tuberculosis (TB) in the older group (15-19 years).
Over the last 20 years, mortality rates have declined among adolescents globally, with the largest decline in older (15–19 years) adolescent girls. For non-fatal diseases, the burden has not improved over the past two decades, with the main causes of ill health in this category being: mental health conditions (depressive and anxiety disorders, childhood behavioural disorders), iron deficiency anaemia, skin diseases and migraine.
Adolescent well-being depends on a range of factors, including healthy food, education, life skills and employability, connectedness, feeling valued by society, safe and supportive environments, resilience, and the freedom to make choices. To take an appropriately holistic approach, the guidance outlines how to take crosscutting action to support adolescent health and well-being, with mutually reinforcing interventions across sectors, such as health, education, social protection, and telecommunications. Targeted efforts are also required to engage adolescents, as they trust health systems less than adults do and are especially vulnerable to modern-day trends, like online bullying and gaming.
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The 2020 Report analyzes global health spending for 190 countries from 2000 to 2018 and provides insights as to the health spending trajectory from the MDG era to the SDG era prior to the crisis of 2020. The report shows that global spending on health continually rose between 2000 and 2018 and reach...ed US$ 8.3 trillion or 10% of global GDP. The data also show that out-of-pocket spending has remained high in low and lower-middle income countries, representing greater than 40% of total health spending in 2018. We also report and summarize the data on expenditures for PHC, as well as by disease and intervention, including for immunization. The report also analyzes the available data on budget allocation in response to the COVID-19 crisis. In addition, we combine World Bank/IMF projections of the macroeconomic and fiscal impact of the crisis with an analysis of the historical determinants of health spending patterns and UHC indicators, and based on this, we draw out the likely implications of 2020 for future health spending, highlighting key policy and monitoring concerns.
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This fourth WHO report on neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) reviews the progress made towards achieving the Roadmap targets for 2020, noting the remaining challenges, then looks beyond 2020 to evaluate the changing global health and development landscape, considering the implications of integrating... these diseases into the broader 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
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Inequality of access to palliative care and symptom relief is one of the greatest disparities in global health care (1). Currently, there is avoidable suffering on a massive scale due to lack of access to palliative care and symptom relief in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) (1). Yet basic p...alliative care that can prevent or relieve most suffering due to serious or life-threatening health conditions can be taught easily to generalist clinicians, can be provided in the community and requires only simple, inexpensive medicines and equipment. For these reasons, the World Health Assembly (WHA) resolved that palliative care is "an ethical responsibility of health systems"(2). Further, most patients who need palliative care are at home and prefer to remain there. Thus, it is imperative that palliative care be provided in the community as part of primary care. This document was written to assist ministries of health and health care planners, implementers and managers to integrate palliative care and symptom control into primary health care (PHC).
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Obesity in all age groups, including children and adolescents, is a public health challenge across all settings. Obesity is now classified as a complex multifactorial chronic disease and not just a risk factor for other noncommunicable diseases and comorbidities. Recognizing the significance of prim...ary health care for an effective and efficient response to the obesity epidemic, the World Health Organization (WHO) has developed guidance on how to build capacity in the health system to deliver health services for prevention and management of obesity across the life course. This policy brief discusses the challenges and opportunities for preventing obesity in children and adolescents, and providing health services to treat and manage those already living with obesity. It outlines possible interventions through the primary health care approach.
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