IHR SPAR Average

The revised International Health Regulations (IHR) were adopted in 2005 and entered into force in 2007 (available at: http://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/10665/43883/1/9789241580410_eng.pdf ) . Under the IHR, States Parties are obliged to develop and maintain minimum core capacities for surveillance and response, including at points of entry, in order to early detect, assess, notify, and respond to any potential public health events of international concern. Article 54 of the IHR request that States Parties and the Director-General shall report to the World Health Assembly on the implementation of these Regulations as decided by the World Health Assembly. In 2008, the World Health Assembly, through the adoption of Resolution WHA61(2), and later on 2018 with the Resolution WHA71(15), decided that “that States Parties and the Director-General shall continue to report annually to the Health Assembly on the implementation of the International Health Regulations (2005), using the self-assessment annual reporting tool”. This SDG 3.d.1. indicator reflects the capacities State Parties of the International Health Regulations (2005) (IHR) had agreed and committed to develop.

Percentage of attributes of 15 capacities that have been attained at a specific point in time.

The 15 capacities are:

• C1. Policy, legal and normative instruments to implement IHR,
• C2. IHR coordination and National IHR Focal Point,
• C.3. Financing,
• C4. Laboratory,
• C5. Surveillance,
• C6. Human resources,
• C7. Health emergency management,
• C8. Health services provision,
• C9. Infection prevention and control (IPC)
• C10. Risk communication and community engagement (RCCE),
• C11. Points of entry (PoEs) and border health,
• C12. Zoonotic diseases,
• C13. Food safety,
• C14. Chemical events,
• C15. Radiation emergencies

Core capacity: the essential public health capacity that States Parties are required to have in place throughout their territories pursuant to Articles 5 and 12, and Annex 1A of the IHR (2005) requirements by the year 2012. Fifteen capacities and 35 indicators are defined in this document.

Indicator: a variable that can be measured repeatedly (directly or indirectly) over time to reveal change in a system. It can be qualitative or quantitative, allowing the objective measurement of the progress of a programme or event. The quantitative measurements need to be interpreted in the broader context, taking other sources of information (e.g. supervisory reports and special studies) into consideration and they should be supplemented with qualitative information.

Attributes: one of a set of specific elements or characteristics that reflect the level of performance or achievement of a specific indicator.

The capability levels: Each attribute has been assigned a level of maturity or a ‘capability level.’ Attainment of a given capability level requires that all attributes at lower levels are in place. In the checklist, the status of core capacity development is measured at five capability levels, each of the 5 levels used is described by specific indicators, according to related capacity.

INDICATOR LEVEL
The e-SPAR tool is based on the assessment of a level of performance for each of the indicators on a scale of 1–5. When processed, the score of each indicator level is classified as a percentage of performance along the 1–5 scale. For example, for a country selecting level 3 for indicator 2.1, the level of performance is expressed as: 3/5 x 100 = 60%). 

CAPACITY LEVEL
Performance at the capacity level is expressed as the average of the indicators related to this capacity. For example, for a country selecting level 3 for indicator 2.1 and level 4 for indicator 2.2, the level of performance of capacity 2 is expressed as: [(3/5 x 100) + (4/5 x 100)]/2 = 70%).

INDICATOR LEVEL
The e-SPAR tool is based on the assessment of a level of performance for each of the indicators on a scale of 1–5. When processed, the score of each indicator level is classified as a percentage of performance along the 1–5 scale. For example, for a country selecting level 3 for indicator 2.1, the level of performance is expressed as: 3/5 x 100 = 60%). CAPACITY LEVEL Performance at the capacity level is expressed as the average of the indicators related to this capacity. For example, for a country selecting level 3 for indicator 2.1 and level 4 for indicator 2.2, the level of performance of capacity 2 is expressed as: [(3/5 x 100) + (4/5 x 100)]/2 = 70%).

Aggregate of each score per indicator/capacity, by country/number of countries submitted the questionnaire out of the 196 IHR State Parties by WHO regions or other groups

Deadline for completed questionnaire submission is end of February and report to be presented to the World Health Assembly is prepared to be submitted by May every year. Collection of data starts second semester every year.

ihrmonitoring@who.int

IHR monitoring

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States Parties interpret the SPAR tool differently based on their contexts it is based on a self-assessment and self-reporting by the State Party and WHO may need to provide more technical support guidance to ensure data quality .

The current questionnaire SPAR second edition was revised in 2020 and the tool used from for SPAR 2021 submission. Caution should be exercised in comparing SPAR data for 2018 – 2022 submission that used the SPAR, 1st edition  and the 2010 – 2017 SPAR submission that used the IHR questionnaire.