The mhGAP Humanitarian Intervention Guide (mhGAP-HIG) Training of Health-Care Providers manual is designed to guide facilitators in training non-specialist health care providers to manage mental, neurological and substance use conditions in humanitarian emergency settings.
The manual covers sugge...sted training schedules, learning objectives, and tips for planning and facilitating the training. It also includes step-by-step training modules for different conditions covered in the mhGAP Humanitarian Intervention Guide (mhGAP-HIG).
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This joint publication by UNAIDS and WHO emphasizes the importance of integrating HIV prevention, testing, treatment and care and mental health services for people living with HIV. It provides a compilation of tools, best practices, recommendations and guidelines that facilitate the integration of i...nterventions and services to address the interlinked issues of mental health and HIV. This publication is intended for global, regional and national policy-makers; programme implementers including at subnational levels; organizations working in and providers of HIV and mental health services; civil society; and community-based and community-led organizations and advocates.
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As countries commit to achieving universal health coverage, it is imperative to ensure that the design and delivery of palliative care services place attention on quality of care, with action needed across all domains of quality health services: effectiveness, safety, people-centredness, timeliness,... equity, integration and efficiency. Providing compassionate, dignified and people-centred palliative care is an ethical responsibility of health systems.
This document provides a practical resource to support implementation of sustainable improvements in the quality of palliative care. It describes approaches to quality policy, strategy and planning for palliative care programmes and services, presents learning on quality of care arising from palliative care programmes, and offers considerations on measurement of quality palliative care services at all levels of the health system. The document also highlights relevant WHO resources available that further support the development of quality palliative care services.
The audience for this document is a general one that includes policy-makers, palliative care service planners, managers, practitioners and health care providers at all levels.
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Almost 25% of deaths worldwide could be prevented if the actions in the compendium were fully implemented
This compendium provides a systematic compilation of published guidance from WHO and other UN organizations on health and environment. Guidance on policies and actions as well as awareness rais...ing and capacity building interventions is presented for all major areas of health and environment. Guidance referring to priority settings for action such as cities and other urban settlements, housing, workplaces and health care facilities is also listed.
For greater practical relevance, each guidance is classified according to principally involved sectors, level of implementation and instruments for implementation.
The compilation of guidance for each area of health and environment or priority setting for action is accompanied, as available, by information on main sources, exposure assessment and existing guideline values. Important tools and further resources are presented alongside.
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Interim Guidance, 12 July 2021; This tool was developed to assess present and surge capacities for the treatment of COVID-19 in health facilities. It allows health facilities to assess the availability and status of stockout of critical COVID-19 medicines, equipment and supplies on site and to ident...ify areas that need further attention to enable the facility to respond effectively to the pandemic. The tool encompasses key components that are essential to managing COVID-19 in a hospital setting, including:
health workforce (numbers, absences, COVID-19 infections, staff vaccinated for COVID-19 health workforce management, training and support);
medicines and medical supplies for management of COVID-19;
IPC capacities (protocols, safety measures, guidelines) and the availability of personal protective equipment (PPE) for staff;
diagnostic testing, imaging and patient monitoring devices and supplies
medical equipment for management of COVID-19, including O2 administration;
COVID-19 vaccine readiness ;
beds and space capacity.
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In the context of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic response, WHO identifies young people as a priority target audience with specific concerns, experiences and behaviours. This policy brief provides relevant insights from behavioural evidence and a set of behavioural considerations for tho...se promoting COVID-19 preventive behaviours among young people. Designers of programmes and initiatives targeting youth may find it helpful to refer to the youth-specific barriers and drivers identified in this policy brief and to prioritize these for testing when planning initiatives targeted at young people.
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Interim guidance. 12 May 2021. The Continuity of essential health services: Facility Assessment Tool can be used by countries to rapidly assess the capacity of health facilities to maintain the provision of essential health services during the COVID-19 pandemic. It can help to alert the authorities ...and other stakeholders about where service delivery and utilization may require modification and/or investment. This assessment tool covers the following aspects of essential health services:
health workforce (numbers, absences, COVID-19 infections, health workforce management, training and support);
financial management and barriers;
service delivery and utilization (facility closures, changes in service delivery, community communication campaigns, changes in service utilization and catch-up strategies);
IPC capacities (protocols, safety measures, guidelines and the availability of personal protective equipment (PPE) for staff);
availability of therapeutics, diagnostics and supplies, and vaccine readiness; and
provision of COVID-19 primary care services.
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The guide is suitable and can be used for the following audiences:
1. nurses and other trained healthcare workers who can use this manual as a self-study tool and then incorporate its guidance into their practice;
2. governmental and non-governmental employers of lay and professional TB treatment ...adherence workers, who can provide training and guidance to their staff using the guidance in this manual;
3. TB clinicians, programme managers, policy makers and other leaders, to make them aware of the full range of interventions required by a person on TB treatment to complete his or her treatment and thus understand the gap that often exists in the support provided to patients;
4. people who, with enhanced capacity and support, can act as peer counsellors and supporters for people affected by TB. This can include family members who, in most contexts, play an important role in offering support to people with TB.
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Covid-19 Social Policy Response Series / No.14
This report examines Ecuador’s social policy response to mitigate the Covid-19 pandemic’s effects and protect
vulnerable populations. It chronologically traces containment, closure policies, social policies and programmes
put in place following t...he announcement of Covid-19 as a global pandemic. A combination of external con-
straints and domestic structures, i.e. informality and weak coordination, led to truncated efforts in the healthcare
response, while persistent inequalities in access to technology and high levels of informality led to fragmented
education, labour policies and social protection responses. The report zooms into the Family Protection Grant
(Bono de Protección Familiar or BPF), a new social protection programme that covers informal workers, which
captures the difficulties in reaching unregistered populations amid lockdown and containment measures.
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This document provides guidance on how to implement contact screening and chemoprophylaxis with single-dose rifampicin. The contents are logically ordered: counselling and obtaining consent, identification and listing of index case, listing of contacts, tracing of contacts, screening of contacts, ad...ministration of prophylactic drugs. Managerial aspects to undertake contact screeninig and chemoprophylaxis are also elaborated, including planning , training , supervision and drug management.
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The health impact of radiological and nuclear emergencies can last for decades. Lessons learned from past radiological and nuclear accidents have demonstrated that the mental health and psychosocial consequences can outweigh the direct physical health impacts of radiation exposure. International rad...iation emergency preparedness and response standards outline provisions for mitigating these effects. Yet, practical guidance for addressing the mental health and psychosocial aspects of radiation emergencies remains scarce.
This framework aims to promote integration between the MHPSS and radiation protection fields. It is intended for officials and specialists involved in radiation emergency planning and risk management as well as MHPSS experts working in health emergencies.
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Noma (cancrum oris) is a severe gangrenous disease of the mouth and face. It mostly affects children between the ages of 2 and 6 years living in extreme poverty. In addition to the known factors such as malnutrition, lack of vaccination in children and poor oral hygiene, several social and environme...ntal factors such as maternal malnutrition and close spacing of pregnancies that result in offspring with increasingly weakened immune systems are potentially related to the onset of the disease.
The aim of this guide is to assist the ministries of health (MoHs) to identify a general goal to be attained by the end of five years, with a view to sustainably reducing the incidence of noma as a public health problem through programmes that are fully integrated with national health planning, strengthening of primary health care (PHC) and attainment of UHC.
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This guidance document has been produced by WHO to assist blood services in the development of national plans to respond to any emerging infectious threats to the sufficiency or safety of the blood supply, whether from an existing infectious agent that is changing in incidence and spread, or from a ...newly identified infectious agent. It is intended that this document be followed to guide the national blood service through the process of planning how to respond in a timely, controlled and appropriate way to any specific infectious threat that may subsequently emerge. It is acknowledged that it is not only the blood supply that may be affected by such emerging infectious threats; in those countries undertaking transplantation, the supply of cell, tissues and organs may also be threatened. Increasingly, blood services are taking overall national responsibility for transplantation in their capacity as the organization responsible for the collection, processing, storage and supply of cells, tissues and organs. This approach is both sensible and appropriate, as the overall donor selection and screening processes are the same or very similar. This guidance document can therefore also be used to assist those bodies responsible for the provision of cells, tissues and organs to prepare for an emerging infectious threat.
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WHY THIS GUIDE?
Because, in the face of crises and emergencies, it is vital to include a human rights perspective in responses. Vulnerable groups face major obstacles to accessing and benefiting from prevention, mitigation, and health care policies due to structural barriers of inequality. To offer... guidelines to the countries of the Americas for crafting and implementing inclusive and accessible, human rights-based responses to a pandemic that is unprecedented in the region and in the world as a whole.
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Integrated management of childhood illness. The last update was in the IMCI chart booklet in 2014, but since then there have been significant updates on the management of sick young infant (SYI) aged up to 2 months. This 2019 update of the sick young infant section Management of the sick young infan...t age up to 2 months: IMCI chart booklet. supersedes the 2014 IMCI chart booklet. The new updates reflect the recent guidelines on Managing possible serious bacterial infection (PSBI) in young infants when referral is not feasible published in 2015. It includes assessment, classification and referral of SYI with PSBI; and outpatient treatment of SYI with local infection or fast breathing (pneumonia) in infants 7-59 days old. Other updates include: a new section on how to reassess, classify and treat SYI with PSBI when referral is not feasible in outpatient health facilities by IMNCI trained health workers; changes in assessment and management of young infants for HIV infection; and identification of infants less than 7 days of who need Kangaroo Care.
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The publication aims to establish the rationale for inclusion and provides technical advice and tools for putting theory into practice. It is intended to be used as a reference during organizational and program/project development with a focus on gender responsiveness and disability inclusion as wel...l as a tool to support good practice in implementation.
This first part guides the reader through the process of assessing whether or not the organization is ready to change towards becoming a more inclusive organization. The second part introduces the ACAP framework, which sets up a way of approaching inclusion via focus on the areas: Access, Communication, Attitude and Participation. It then demonstrates how the framework can be applied to projects and programmes. The third part provides guidelines for the people who will guide organizations through the process of change towards becoming inclusive of persons from marginalized groups.
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[Preface]. For more than forty years Primary Health Care (PHC) has been recognized as the cornerstone of an effective and responsive health system. The Alma-Ata Declaration of 1978 reaffirmed the right to the highest attainable level of health, with equity, solidarity and the right to health as its ...core values. It stressed the need for comprehensive health services, not only curative but services that addressed needs in terms of health promotion, prevention, rehabilitation and treatment of common conditions. A strong resolutive first level of care is the basis for health system development [...] The Pan American Health Organization/World Health Organization (PAHO/WHO) has supported the countries in the establishment of interprofessional PHC teams, in the transformation of health education and in building capacity in the strategic planning, and management of human resources for health. Nursing can play a critical role in advancing PHC. New profiles such as the advanced practice nurses, as discussed in this document, can be fundamental in this effort, and in particular, in health promotion, disease prevention and care, especially in rural and underserved areas.
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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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This report summarizes the latest scientific knowledge on the links between exposure to air pollution and adverse health effects in children. It is intended to inform and motivate individual and collective action by health care professionals to prevent damage to children’s health from exposure to ...air pollution.
Air pollution is a major environmental health threat. Exposure to fine particles in both the ambient environment and in the household causes about seven million premature deaths each year. Ambient air pollution alone imposes enormous costs on the global economy, amounting to more than US$ 5 trillion in total welfare losses in 2013.
This public health crisis is receiving more attention, but one critical aspect is often overlooked: how air pollution affects children in uniquely damaging ways. Recent data released by the World Health Organization (WHO) show that air pollution has a vast and terrible impact on child health and survival. Globally, 93% of all children live in environments with air pollution levels above the WHO guidelines (see the full report, Air pollution and child health: prescribing clean air. More than one in every four deaths of children under 5 years of age is directly or indirectly related to environmental risks. Both ambient air pollution and household air pollution contribute to respiratory tract infections that resulted in 543 000 deaths in children under the age of 5 years in 2016.
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The WHO Mental Health Gap Action Programme (mhGAP) aims at scaling up mental health services in non-specialized health settings to achieve universal health coverage. The mhGAP operations manual is an integral component of the mhGAP package and supports district health managers and others responsible... for integrating mental and physical health services. The manual offers practical guidance and necessary tools for planning, preparing, implementing, monitoring and evaluating mhGAP
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