Mortality and burden of disease attributable to selected major risks
The Global Burden of Disease (GBD) study, a collaborative endeavour of the World
Health Organization (WHO), the World Bank and the Harvard School of Public Health,
drew the attention of the international health community to the burden of neurological
disorders and many other chronic conditions. T...his study found that the burden of neurological
disorders was seriously underestimated by traditional epidemiological and health
statistical methods that take into account only mortality rates but not disability rates. The
GBD study showed that over the years the global health impact of neurological disorders
had been underestimated.
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In this review, the editors will investigate the impact of eight WASH interventions in preventing (reducing the risk of) and controlling outbreaks in LMIC, with particular focus on three diseases of current concern to the response community – cholera, Ebola, and Hepatitis E. Additionally, we will ...explore economic outcomes related to WASH interventions within an outbreak
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This Indicator-Based Pharmacovigilance Assessment Tool (IPAT) was developed as a comprehensive performance metric for pharmacovigilance and medicine safety systems.
The report reviews progress with the task of planning and implementing measures necessary to secure a completely polio-free world. It also examines actions aimed at ensuring successful transfer of polio assets, innovations developed and lessons learned to countries’ public health programmes and ot...her global health priorities
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This report aims to improve the assessment of mental health needs in the Americas by providing an updated and nuanced picture of: (a) the disability resulting from mental, substance use, and specific neurological disorders, plus self-harm, alone and in combination with premature mortality; (b) the i...mbalance between mental health spending and its related disease burden; and (c) the inadequate allocation of the meager mental health spending by countries of the Region
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Global HIV Strategic Information Working Group
Universal health coverage ensures everyone has access to the health services they need without suffering financial hardship as a result. In December 2012, a UN resolution was passed encouraging governments to move towards providing universal access to affordable and quality health care services. As ...countries move towards it, common challenges are emerging -- challenges to which research can help provide answers.
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This Technical Brief focuses on appraising and prioritising options for climate resilience with a view to informing water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) programme and project design.
This Technical Brief:
- provides a simple scorecard/checklist approach to use as a starting point for appr...aising and prioritising options, and as an awareness-raising activity - covers all aspects of WASH
- has a predominantly rural focus, to align with the rest of the Strategic Framework and Technical Briefs
- focuses on current and near future options over the next 15–20 years, which fits in with WASH programming timescales and development
- includes WASH examples to show how the approach can be applied.
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The Core Elements of Outpatient Antibiotic Stewardship provides a framework for antibiotic stewardship for outpatient clinicians and facilities that routinely provide antibiotic treatment. This report augments existing guidance for other clinical settings. In 2014 and 2015, respectively, CDC release...d the Core Elements of Hospital Antibiotic Stewardship Programs and the Core Elements of Antibiotic Stewardship for Nursing Homes. Antibiotic stewardship is the effort to measure and improve how antibiotics are prescribed by clinicians and used by patients. Improving antibiotic prescribing involves implementing effective strategies to modify prescribing practices to align them with evidence-based recommendations for diagnosis and management.
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A framework for planning, developing and implementing solutions with and for young people.
The guidance presented in this document is intended for digital health intervention designers, developers, implementers, researchers and funders. Newcomers to digital health can use it as a start-to-finish pr...imer on how to collaboratively and responsibly develop youth-centred digital health interventions. Those already engaged in this work can jump directly to the chapters and sections with the ideas and resources they need. Funders will find helpful advice in Annex 1, which outlines special considerations for making smarter, more meaningful investments in digital health interventions for young people.
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Working Paper 589 July 2021T
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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Biodiversity and Health in the Face of Climate Change pp 47–66
This chapter reviews the emerging importance of pollen allergies in relation to ongoing climate change. Allergic diseases have been increasing in prevalence over the last decades, partly as the result of the impact of climate change. ...Increased sensitisation rates and more severe symptoms have been the partial outcome of: increased pollen production of wind-pollinated plants resulting in long-term increased abundance of pollen in the air we breathe; earlier shifts of airborne pollen seasons making occurrence of allergic symptoms harder to predict and deal with efficiently; increased allergenicity of pollen causing more severe health effects in allergic individuals; introduction of new, invasive allergenic plant species causing new sensitisations; environment-environment interactions, such as plants and hosted microorganisms, i.e. fungi and bacteria, which comprise a complex and dynamic system, with additive, presently unforeseeable influences on human health; environment-human interactions, as the consequence of a combination of environmental factors, like air pollution, global warming, urbanisation and microclimatic variability, which create a multi-resolution spatiotemporal system that requires new processing technologies and huge data inflow in order to be thoroughly investigated. We suggest that novel, real-time, personalised pollen information services, like mobile-app risk alerts, must be developed to provide the optimum first line of allergy management.
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Snakebite envenoming affects millions of people worldwide annually and is a significant source of mortality. Preventing and treating the problem is complex and requires collaboration among the fields of public health, medicine, ecology, and laboratory science. After being removed from the category A... neglected tropical disease (NTD) list in 2013, snakebite envenoming was reinstated in 2017 in response to antivenom shortages and advocacy from researchers and international NGOs. In 2019, the World Health Organization (WHO) set a target to halve the number of deaths and cases of snakebite envenoming by 2030.
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The chapter Dementia in Latin America and the Caribbean: Prevalence, Incidence, Impact, and Trends over Time, is part of the publication series titled “Decade of Healthy Aging: situation and challenges”. This document aims to provide an outline of the current situation in Latin America and the C...aribbean in respect of the prevalence and incidence of dementia and its impact on the health status of older people. As dementia is a significant global health problem which also has social and economic impacts this document highlights the importance of monitoring dementia in the region. The document evidences that dementia is one of the main contributors to dependence and disability in older people in Latin America and the Caribbean and, although its prevalence and incidence increase exponentially with age, it is not part of normal aging. Alzheimer’s disease is the most common dementia, and there is no cure for this condition, but with timely diagnosis is possible to ameliorate symptoms. It is important to assess what are the needs of people leaving with dementia and their families and to integrate dementia risk reduction strategies in pre-existing strategies for other non-communicable diseases. As shown in the report, despite the huge burden dementia is still underdiagnosed, and it is fundamental to better monitor its prevalence, incidence and the different societal impact that dementia can have. For that, it is crucial to promote the use of harmonized methodologies to address this information in a broader number of studies and countries in the region. This can contribute to the generation of direct actions to decrease dementia risk and lead to healthier lives for people with dementia and their families.
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This guide presents a basis for understanding how diarrhoeal diseases are currently influenced by climate and weather, and may be further exacerbated by climate change. It is a technical guide on how to conduct a Vulnerability & Adaptation assessment for diarrhoeal diseases and climate change, and p...rovides guidance on how to:
identify populations and regions vulnerable to diarrhoeal diseases and the reasons for their vulnerability;
establish relevant baselines that can be analysed and monitored;
conduct analyses to project how diarrhoeal diseases may be impacted in the future due to climate change; and
identify appropriate responses to mitigate and monitor these risks over time.
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Air pollution is one of the leading causes of health complications and mortality worldwide, especially affecting lower-income groups, who tend to be more exposed and vulnerable. This study documents the relationship between ambient air pollution exposure and poverty in 211 countries and territories.... Using the World Health Organization’s (WHO) 2021 revised fine particulate matter (PM2.5) thresholds, we show that globally, 7.3 billion people are directly exposed to unsafe average annual PM2.5 concentrations, 80 percent of whom live in low- and middle-income countries. Moreover, 716 million of the world’s lowest income people (living on less than $1.90 per day) live in areas with unsafe levels of air pollution, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa. Air pollution levels are particularly high in lower-middle-income countries, where economies tend to rely more heavily on polluting industries and technologies. These findings are based on high-resolution air pollution and population maps with global coverage, as well as subnational poverty estimates based on harmonized household surveys.
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Most of the global burden of sepsis occurs in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), but the prevalence and etiology of sepsis in LMICs are not well understood. In particular, the lack of laboratory infrastructure in many LMICs has historically precluded an assessment of the pathogens leading to ...sepsis. A recent systematic review found that data describing antimicrobial resistance were absent for 43% of countries in Africa, and only two countries have national antimicrobial resistance plans. In addition, small studies have identified indiscriminate antibiotic use both in and out of hospital settings in sub-Saharan Africa. The absence of microbiological data and lack of antibiotic stewardship complicate sepsis management and almost certainly worsens outcomes, particularly in low-resource systems. The purpose of this study was to examine the prevalence, etiology, and outcomes of sepsis among a cohort of critically ill patients in a referral hospital of Malawi, with a focus on the prevalence of culture-confirmed bacteremia and urinary tract infections.
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