World Health Organization

About: World Health Organization is a government organization based out in Islamabad, Pakistan. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Public health. The organization has 13330 authors who have published 22232 publications receiving 1322023 citations. The organization is also known as: World Health Organisation & WHO.

Analyzing health equity using household survey data : a guide to techniques and their implementation

Abstract: This book shows how to implement a variety of analytic tools that allow health equity - along different dimensions and in different spheres - to be quantified. Questions that the techniques can help provide answers for include the following: Have gaps in health outcomes between the poor and the better-off grown in specific countries or in the developing world as a whole? Are they larger in one country than in another? Are health sector subsidies more equally distributed in some countries than in others? Is health care utilization equitably distributed in the sense that people in equal need receive similar amounts of health care irrespective of their income? Are health care payments more progressive in one health care financing system than in another? What are catastrophic payments? How can they be measured? How far do health care payments impoverish households? This volume has a simple aim: to provide researchers and analysts with a step-by-step practical guide to the measurement of a variety of aspects of health equity. Each chapter includes worked examples and computer code. The authors hope that these guides, and the easy-to-implement computer routines contained in them, will stimulate yet more analysis in the field of health equity, especially in developing countries. They hope this, in turn, will lead to more comprehensive monitoring of trends in health equity, a better understanding of the causes of these inequities, more extensive evaluation of the impacts of development programs on health equity, and more effective policies and programs to reduce inequities in the health sector.

Worldwide Timing of Growth Faltering: Revisiting Implications for Interventions

Abstract: OBJECTIVE: Our goal was to describe worldwide growth-faltering patterns by using the new World Health Organization (WHO) standards. METHODS: We analyzed information available from the WHO Global Database on Child Growth and Malnutrition, comprising data from national anthropometric surveys from 54 countries. Anthropometric data comprise weight-for-age, length/height-for-age, and weight-for-length/height z scores. The WHO regions were used to aggregate countries: Europe and Central Asia; Latin America and the Caribbean; North Africa and Middle East; South Asia; and sub-Saharan Africa. RESULTS: Sample sizes ranged from 1000 to 47 000 children. Weight for length/height starts slightly above the standard in children aged 1 to 2 months and falters slightly until 9 months of age, picking up after that age and remaining close to the standard thereafter. Weight for age starts close to the standard and falters moderately until reaching approximately −1 z at 24 months and remaining reasonably stable after that. Length/height for age also starts close to the standard and falters dramatically until 24 months, showing noticeable bumps just after 24, 36, and 48 months but otherwise increasing slightly after 24 months. CONCLUSIONS: Comparison of child growth patterns in 54 countries with WHO standards shows that growth faltering in early childhood is even more pronounced than suggested by previous analyses based on the National Center for Health Statistics reference. These findings confirm the need to scale up interventions during the window of opportunity defined by pregnancy and the first 2 years of life, including prevention of low birth weight and appropriate infant feeding practices.