Universal access to essential health information: accelerating progress towards universal health coverage and other SDG health targets

The information that people need to protect and manage their own health and the health of those for whom they are responsible is a fundamental element of an effective people-centred healthcare system. Achieving universal health coverage (UHC) requires universal access to essential health information. While it was recently recognised by the World Medical Association, universal access to essential health information is not yet reflected in official monitoring of progress on UHC for the sustainable development goals (SDGs). In this paper, we outline key features that characterise universal access to essential health information and indicate how it is increasingly achievable. 

mHealth for Integrated People-Centred Health Services in the Western Pacific: A Systematic Review

The global move towards achieving Universal Health Coverage (UHC) and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) requires a fundamental shift towards integrated healthcare systems. This vision of ‘Integrated care’ has been defined as a “coherent set of methods and models on the funding, administrative, organisational, service delivery and clinical levels designed to create connectivity, alignment and collaboration within and between the cure and care sectors.”

Digital Health includes the use of mobile health (mHealth) applications, social media and health information systems and data. With the Internet of Things (IoT), it improves the data flow and interface between self-care, home-based services, primary care, ambulatory care, outreach services, and hospital-based curative and palliative services

This review analized how mobile health (mHealth) to support integrated people-centred health services has been implemented and evaluated in the World Health Organization (WHO) Western Pacific Region (WPR).

Primary health care: transforming vision into action

Marking the two-year anniversary of the Declaration of Astana, this event, hosted by WHO, UNICEF and the Ministry of Health of Kazakhstan, brings together national experiences from across the globe to launch the operational framework and discuss its relevance for strengthening PHC both in the COVID-19 pandemic context and as part of building better.

 Agenda:

11:00 – 12:00 Ministerial Plenary Session (streamed in the six UN languages)

• Welcome & opening remarks - H.E. Alexey Tsoi, Minister of Healthcare of Kazakstan
• WHO Remarks - Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General, WHO
• UNICEF Remarks - Dr Henrietta Fore, Executive Director
• Presentation of PHC Operational Framework - Dr Suraya Dalil, Director, Special Programme on PHC
• Ministerial Panel – moderator: Dr Hans Kluge, WHO Regional Director for Europe
• Featuring Ministers of Health
• Reflections on two years since the Declaration of Astana - Zsuzsanna Jakab, Deputy Director-General, WHO

Participants will be able to join one of five roundtable discussions focusing on ...

Introducing The Lancet Global Health Commission on financing primary health care: putting people at the centre

The Lancet Global Health Commission on financing primary health care: putting people at the centre

2022 Progress report on the Global Action Plan for Healthy Lives and Well-being for All. Stronger collaboration for an equitable and resilient recovery towards the health-related Sustainable Development Goals – Incentivizing collaboration

As COVID-19 continued to dominate global health over the last year, the direct and indirect impact of the pandemic has led progress against the health-related SDGs to fall even further behind.  At the same time, crises such as armed conflict, increasing food insecurity, political and economic instability and the growing impact of climate change threaten to derail recovery from the pandemic.

A key way to respond to and ensure an equitable and resilient recovery from COVID-19 is for multilateral agencies to collaborate even more closely in providing effective and efficient joint support to countries, which is the foundation of the Global Action Plan for Healthy Lives and Well-being for All (SDG3 GAP).

SDG3 GAP is helping to promote synergies among its signatory agencies’ pandemic-specific responses and longer-term work to accelerate progress towards the SDGs by creating an improvement platform for collaboration on health among key actors in the multilateral system.

UN General Assembly High-Level Meetings on health 2023: Universal Health Coverage

Regional framework on the future of primary health care in the Western Pacific

Regional Framework on the Future of Primary Health Care (PHC) was adopted by Member States at the seventy-third session of the Regional Committee for the Western Pacific in 2022. The framework outlines five key attributes of PHC including people and community-centered, continuous, high-quality and equitable, integrated, and innovative. It highlights five strategic areas of actions needed which pivot around models of service delivery, individual and community empowerment, workforce and provider base, financing, enabling and supportive environment to enable this transformation. It calls on critical health system transformation for the future to achieve Universal Health Coverage and Sustainable Development Goals.

International Conference on Primary Health Care Resilient Primary Health Care: The Foundation of Universal Health Coverage In The Era of Sustainable Development Goals

Welcome to the International Conference on Primary Health Care!

The International Institute for Primary Health Care (IPHC-E) in collaboration with the Ethiopian Ministry of Health (MoH-E) and supported by the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health is thrilled to announce the upcoming conference on PHC. The Conference follows the successful pre-conference that was attended by more than 500 participants from over 80 countries.

This conference is designed to provide our participants with an interactive and engaging experience featuring keynote plenary panels, concurrent workshop sessions, roundtable discussions, lightning paper sessions, a poster and exhibit hall and much more. The overall goal of the conference is to facilitate attainment of Universal Health Coverage (UHC) and the health-related SDG’s by strengthening the PHC movement globally.

WATCH RECORDINGS

Tracking Universal Health Coverage: 2023 Global monitoring report

The world is off track to make significant progress towards universal health coverage (UHC) (SDG target 3.8) by 2030 as improvements to health services coverage have stagnated since 2015, and the proportion of the population that faced catastrophic levels of out-of-pocket (OOP) health spending has increased.

Download the report

A vision for primary health care in the 21st century

In 1978 world leaders, international organizations and health authorities gathered in Alma-Ata (now Almaty), Kazakhstan, and released the Declaration of Alma-Ata on Primary Health Care, which remains a landmark document in the history of global health. The Alma-Ata Declaration established a standard of public commitment to making community-driven, quality health care accessible, both physically and financially, for all. This was the forerunner of the Global Strategy for Health for All by the Year 2000 that was pursued by WHO and its partners for the rest of the 20th century, and of Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 3: “Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages” by 2030.

A Vision for Primary Health Care in the 21st Century provides the rationale for and foundation of the Astana Declaration, with its continued political focus on the right to integrated, quality, personal and population-level primary care; on health as a multisectoral ...