First Global Patient Safety Challenge Clean Care is Safer Care
The WHO Guidelines on Hand Hygiene in Health Care provide health-care workers (HCWs), hospital administrators and health authorities with a thorough review of evidence on hand hygiene in health care and specific recommendations to impro...ve practices and reduce transmission of pathogenic microorganisms to patients and HCWs. The present Guidelines are intended to be implemented in any situation in which health care is delivered either to a patient or to a specific group in a population. Therefore, this concept applies to all settings where health care is permanently or occasionally performed, such as home care by birth attendants.
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The objective of this study is to analyze the strengths, weaknesses, sustainability, and impact of the tsunami response in Sri Lanka and Indonesia 10 years later. A cross cutting theme of this study is the assessment of whether communities are now better prepared to respond to and cope with disaster....
Three key lessons for the future of humanitarian response are highlighted:
Lesson 1: Participation is the cornerstone of humanitarian response and recovery;
Lesson 2: Partnership as a prerequisite for long-term change;
Lesson 3: Creating momentum for risk reduction.
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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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Unchecked inequality and failure to protect the rights of poorest women could undermine peace and world’s development goals, new UNFPA report warns:
- Only about half of the world’s women hold paid jobs
- Globally, women earn 77 per cent of what men get
- Three in five women worldwide lack m...aternity leave, many pay "motherhood penalty"
The report is also available in French: https://www.unfpa.org/sites/default/files/sowp/downloads/UNFPA_PUB_2017_FR_swop_Etat_de_la_population_mondiale.pdf; in Spanish: https://www.unfpa.org/sites/default/files/sowp/downloads/UNFPA_PUB_2017_ES_SWOP_Estado_de_la_Poblacion_Mundial.pdf; in Russian: https://www.unfpa.org/sites/default/files/sowp/downloads/UNFPA_PUB_2017_RU_SWOP_NARODONASELENIE_MIRA_V_2017_GODU.pdf and in Arabic: https://www.unfpa.org/sites/default/files/sowp/downloads/UNFPA_PUB_2017_AR_SWOP_Hl_skn_llm_.pdf
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This working paper is a case study on South Sudan as an important refugee country of origin. The case study looks at issues of forced displacement in South Sudan and underscores the linkages between internally displaced persons and South Sudanese refugees. The case study highlights the importance of... understanding local contexts and root drivers of conflict and displacement. It reviews evaluations of programmes in South Sudan, including past efforts at state building and refugee resettlement to look at learning within the international community. The study was undertaken as part of a wider research project on learning from evaluations to improve responses to situations of forced displacement .
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While the world was gripped by the unfolding COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, children continued to face the same crisis they have for decades: intolerably high mortality rates and vastly inequitable chances at life. In total, more than 5.0 million children under age 5, including 2.4 million newborns, alo...ng with 2.2 million children and youth aged 5 to 24 years – 43 per cent of whom are adolescents – died in 2020. This tragic and massive loss of life, most of which was due to preventable or treatable causes, is a stark reminder of the urgent need to end preventable deaths of children and young people.
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WHO-SEARO in partnership with WHOCC AIIMS, UNICEF, UNFPA and USAID has prepared a training package for building capacity of healthcare teams in health facilities for continous quality improvement of maternal and newborn healthcare. The focus is on the care of mothers and newborns at the time of chil...d birth since a large proportion of maternal deaths, newborn deaths and stillbirths happen around that time.
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Neonatal mortality is a major challenge in reducing child mortality rates in Nepal. Despite efforts by the Government of Nepal, data from the last three demographic and health surveys show a rise in the contribution of neonatal deaths to infant and child mortality. The Government of Nepal has implem...ented community-based programs that were piloted and then scaled up based on lessons learned. These programs include, but are not limited to ensuring safe motherhood, birth preparedness package, community-based newborn care package, and integrated management of childhood illnesses. Despite the implementation of such programs on a larger scale, their effective coverage is yet to be achieved. Health system challenges included an inadequate policy environment, funding gaps, inadequate procurement, and insufficient supplies of commodities, while human resource management has been found to be impeding service delivery. Such bottlenecks at policy, institutional and service delivery level need to be addressed incorporating health information in decision-making as well as working in partnership with communities to facilitate the utilization of available services.
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The Report describes the evaluation of WHO's contribution to the Maternal Health Program in South-East Asia Region. This was an independent evaluation conducted in 2015 by Amaltas, a Delhi based organization. The evaluation highlights the progress in five countries, namely Bangladesh, Indonesia, Mya...nmar, Nepal and Sri Lanka and provides specific recommendations for Organizational Learning and Development. This report will be useful for all those interested in WHO's work on Maternal Health Program in the Region.
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In 2016, the risk of premature mortality1 from noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) in Ethiopia was 18.3%. The economic costs of NCDs are significant and are due principally to their impact on the non-health sector (reduced workforce and productivity). In this study, it is estimated that NCDs cost Ethiop...ia at least 31.3 billion birr (US$ 1.1 billion) per year, equivalent to 1.8% of the gross domestic product (GDP). Less than 15% of the costs are for health care.
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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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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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Ethiopia has seen high economic growth over the last decade, but remains a poor country with a high burden of disease. It has made considerable health gains in recent years, mainly by having health policies that focus on extending primary healthcare, using health extension workers. It... has made good use of existing resources,but has a low health expenditure (of around US$21 per capita, and totalling 4per centof GDP). It has a federal system with devolved healthcare financing, whereby block grants are allocated to sectors at regional and woreda(district) level. The challenge now,with the epidemiological transition (and a sense that the ‘low-hanging fruits’have already been gathered in relation to public health), is how Ethiopia, still poor, continuesto invest in health improvements?Human resources for health (HRH) are a critical pillar within any health system –the health staff combine inputs to provide the services, thus affecting how all other resources are used, and they make frontline (and back-office) decisions thatare importantdeterminants of servicequality,effectiveness and equity. HRH is usually the most resource-intensive element within the health system –commonly absorbing 50–70per centof public expenditure onhealth, although the proportions are very varied by individual countries and across regions. As they are commonly part of the public administration, reforms to HRH are also part of a complex political economy in most countries.Assessing value for money (VfM) in relation to HRH is correspondingly complex;across the value chain, manyfactors influence the conversion of inputs into outputs and outcomes (see Figure 1).A more detailed description of the HRH value chain can be found in Annex1.
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2021 UNAIDS Global AIDS Update. UNAIDS report shows that people living with HIV face a double jeopardy, HIV and COVID-19, while key populations and children continue to be left behind in access to HIV services
Community-based strategies play a significant role in many health systems in low- and middle-income countries, especially in light of critical shortages in the health workforce. The term community health worker has been used to refer to volunteers and salaried, professional or lay health workers wit...h a wide range of training, experience, scope of practice and integration in health systems. In the context of this study, we use the term community-based practitioner (CBPs) to reflect the diverse nature of these cadres of health workers.
CBPs provide preventive, promotive, curative and palliative services across a range of areas, including reproductive, maternal, newborn and child health, HIV, tuberculosis, malaria, control of other endemic diseases, and noncommunicable diseases. Significant evidence has emerged over the past two decades on their effectiveness, which has triggered interest in the potential to use their services to expand access to care, in particular in rural and underserved areas where deployment and retention of more qualified health workers is problematic. Calls have been made to integrate CBP programmes in human resources and health strategies, and to scale up rapidly the extent and coverage of CBP initiatives.
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The report offers a snapshot of the drivers behind the persistent exclusion of persons with disabilities and proposes a framework to build an actionable agenda building on promising practices available in the region. The COVID-19 pandemic has laid bare the urgent need to build more inclusive and res...ilient societies. The region has shown its resilience in recovering from many crises in the past. Today, we are at a crucial flection point where it is clear that universal policies and economic growth alone are insufficient to eradicate the remaining pockets of exclusion. A disability-inclusive recovery should be at the core of the region’s rebuilding strategy. This matters in its own right but is also of utmost importance for the sustainability of the region.
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Nearly 260 000 people died in parts of Somalia between October 2010 and April 2012, including
133 000 children under five during the famine and food crisis in Somalia making it the worst famine in history.
A study commissioned and funded by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Natio...n’s food security and nutrition analysis unit for Somalia stated that the famine early warning systems clearly identified the risk of famine in South Central Somalia in 2010–2011 but timely action to prevent the onset of famine was not taken. The result was large scale
mortality, morbidity and population displacement.
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Improving the survival chances and quality of life of women, newborns, and children remains an urgent global challenge. Since 2012, substantial progress has been made in reducing maternal and under-5 deaths, and a only handful of countries are on target to meet the SDG targets in 2030. Yet, 5 millio...n children still die each year under the age of 5, and nearly half of those are newborns less than a month old. Worse still, the global maternal mortality ratio is going in the wrong direction.
A Decade of Progress and Action for the Future will examine the tenacity and innovation that helped us make gains, the lessons learned through monitoring, country-led adaptation and leadership, analysis, and reflection, as well as the approaches we must take to reinvigorate the momentum and global commitment to improving maternal and child survival. Increasing coverage, strengthening the quality of care, and enhancing equity will be tantamount to our global progress.
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Financing Global Health 2013: Transition in an Age of Austerity, IHME’s fifth annual report on global health expenditure, depicts financing trends that underline the resilience of development assistance for health. This year’s updated estimates show that despite lackluster economic growth and fi...scal cutbacks in many developed countries, total assistance remained steady, reaching an all-time high of $31.3 billion in 2013. While annual increases have leveled off since 2010, continued international funding is a sign of the international development community’s enduring support for global health.
The report also shows shifts in sources of financing. As funding from many bilateral donors and development banks has declined, growth in funding from the GAVI Alliance, the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, non-governmental organizations, and the UK government is counteracting these cuts. Development assistance for different health issues is tracked up to 2011, revealing that the greatest increase in funding was for maternal, newborn, and child health.
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In 2015, the United Nations set important targets to reduce premature
cardiovascular disease (CVD) deaths by 33% by 2030. Africa disproportionately
bears the brunt of CVD burden and has one of the highest risks of dying
from non-communicable diseases (NCDs) worldwide. There is currently
an epide...miological transition on the continent, where NCDs is projected
to outpace communicable diseases within the current decade. Unchecked
increases in CVD risk factors have contributed to the growing burden of three
major CVDs—hypertension, cardiomyopathies, and atherosclerotic diseasesleading to devastating rates of stroke and heart failure. The highest age
standardized disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) due to hypertensive heart
disease (HHD) were recorded in Africa. The contributory causes of heart failure
are changing—whilst HHD and cardiomyopathies still dominate, ischemic
heart disease is rapidly becoming a significant contributor, whilst rheumatic
heart disease (RHD) has shown a gradual decline. In a continent where health
systems are traditionally geared toward addressing communicable diseases,
several gaps exist to adequately meet the growing demand imposed by CVDs.
Among these, high-quality research to inform interventions, underfunded
health systems with high out-of-pocket costs, limited accessibility and
affordability of essential medicines, CVD preventive services, and skill
shortages. Overall, the African continent progress toward a third reduction
in premature mortality come 2030 is lagging behind. More can be done in
the arena of effective policy implementation for risk factor reduction and
CVD prevention, increasing health financing and focusing on strengthening
primary health care services for prevention and treatment of CVDs, whilst
ensuring availability and affordability of quality medicines. Further, investing
in systematic country data collection and research outputs will improve the accuracy of the burden of disease data and inform policy adoption on
interventions. This review summarizes the current CVD burden, important
gaps in cardiovascular medicine in Africa, and further highlights priority
areas where efforts could be intensified in the next decade with potential
to improve the current rate of progress toward achieving a 33% reduction
in CVD mortality.
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