Module 1
Short- and long-term public health interventions to promote refugee and migrant health
Tool 3: Public health emergency preparedness and response
Tool overview
Nearly a quarter of the global population currently live in settings affected by conflict, displacement, forced migration and natural disasters. Combined with weak national health systems, these settings make it difficult to deliver basic health services where they are most needed and would make the biggest difference. As a result, countries that host fragile, conflict-affected and vulnerable settings also have high burden of disease and death: more than 70% of cases of epidemic-prone diseases, such as cholera, measles and meningitis; 60% of preventable maternal deaths; 53% of deaths in children under-5 years of age; and 45% of infant deaths. The majority of these countries host high number of refugees, migrants and other displaced people.
Humanitarian emergencies increase the risk of transmission of infectious diseases and other health conditions such as severe malnutrition. An effective disease surveillance system is essential to detecting disease outbreaks quickly before they spread, cost lives and become difficult to control. WHO’s Early Warning, Alert and Response System (EWARS) is designed to improve disease outbreak detection in emergency settings, such as in countries in conflict or following a natural disaster.
Emergencies disrupt health systems and impact population health negatively, in particular vulnerable populations such as refugees, some migrants and other displaced people in countries with complex and protracted emergencies where health systems are already weak. It is critical that emergency responses are accompanied by efforts to recover, rebuild and strengthen the health system. The recovery process provides the opportunity to build back better and create stronger more fit-for-purpose health systems that are able to promote, restore and maintain health, as well as prepare for and respond to future emergencies. There is a need for an approach that promotes and facilitates coordination and cooperation among humanitarian, development and peace actors. The triple nexus – or humanitarian, development and peace nexus (HDPNx) – approach aims to meet immediate humanitarian needs while reducing such needs over time by leveraging the comparative advantage of humanitarian, development and peace actors and working over time frames of several years to achieve collective outcomes.
The approach promotes joined-up working and partnership among the three groups of actors, with the goal of improving efficiency and effectiveness, reducing service delivery gaps and the duplication of efforts, and addressing the drivers of emergencies.
Rapid detection and verification of health emergencies is essential to save lives. Many countries currently lack the minimum capacities necessary to rapidly detect and respond to known vulnerabilities and likely public health emergencies. The WHO Outbreak Toolkit responds to the need for standardization of tools to improve comparability and sharing of data collected between investigation teams, locations and time frames. The Toolkit is especially designed for complex emergencies and limited resource settings.
The negative consequences of any emergencies or disasters, including those of the COVID-19 pandemic, on communities and countries have continued to highlight the importance of the all-hazards risk management approach across the health emergency and disaster risk management cycle of prevention, preparedness, readiness, response and recovery. WHO's Health Emergency and Disaster Risk Management Framework outlines a comprehensive approach for integrating and applying disaster risk management principles in the health sector in a holistic manner. Such a risk management approach builds on multisectoral collaboration and whole-of-society action to ensure inclusive, participatory and non-discriminatory processes for developing capacities in the communities. Community health organizations play a central role in enhancing community resilience both as first responders and for ensuring risk awareness among at-risk populations. WHO's Strategic Tool for Assessing Risks offers a comprehensive, easy-to-use toolkit and approach to enable national and subnational governments to rapidly conduct a strategic and evidence-based assessment of public health risks for planning and prioritization of health emergency preparedness and disaster risk management activities. Risk assessment is recognized as one of the core elements of the IHR and the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction.
Guidance and tools
IHR and essential public health functions
Guidance, training, reports
Since the first WHO list of essential public health functions (EPHFs) was published in 1998, EPHFs have been a recurring method used by WHO regions, Member States...
21st century health challenges: can the essential public health functions make a difference?: discussion...
Countries worldwide are facing complex and diverse health challenges in 21st century, and usually there is one national health system for individual and...
Communicable disease control in emergencies: a field manual
This manual is intended to help health professionals and public health coordinators working in emergency situations prevent, detect and control the major...
Tools
Emergency and outbreaks response
Guidance, training, reports
Emergency response framework (ERF), Edition 2.1
The ERF provides WHO staff with essential guidance on how the Organization manages the assessment, grading and response to public health events and emergencies...
Emergencies and disasters take a profound toll on people’s health, often well after the headlines fade. Every year, over 170 million people will...
Managing epidemics: Key facts about major deadly diseases
Epidemics of infectious diseases are occurring more often, and spreading faster and further than ever, in many different regions of the world. The background...
A strategic framework for emergency preparedness
The Strategic Framework for Emergency Preparedness is a unifying framework which identifies the principles and elements of effective country health emergency...
Outbreak surveillance and response in humanitarian emergencies: WHO guidelines for EWARN implementation
Humanitarian emergencies often involve the displacement of large numbers of people. Those affected are frequently settled in temporary locations with high...
Tools
Health systems resilience
Guidance, training, reports
Health service continuity planning for public health emergencies
In view of the current paucity of guidance on health service continuity planning at facility level; this handbook is developed with the aim of supporting...
Fostering resilience through integrated health system strengthening: technical meeting report
Public health emergencies continually reinforce the need for an integrated approach to health systems strengthening, underpinned by a public health approach,...
The identified materials were examined from a health system resilience perspective, using the six health system building blocks outlined in the WHO health...
Tools
Health systems resilience toolkit: a WHO global public health good to support building and strengthening...
This document is a consolidated, fit-for-purpose technical reference package to support countries in strengthening health systems resilience at national...
Recovery toolkit: supporting countries to achieve health service resilience: a library of tools and resources...
The overall goal of this Toolkit is to support countries in the reactivation of essential health services in the aftermath of a public health emergency....
Additional resources