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The World Health Organization's Actions Within the United Nations System to Facilitate a Whole-of-Society Response to COVID-19 at Country Level

The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic highlighted that managing health emergencies requires more than an effective health response, but that operationalizing a whole-of-society approach is challenging. The World Health Organization (WHO), as the lead agency for health within the United Nations...

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Autores principales: Samaan, Gina, McPherson, Michelle, Eidman, Johan, Obubah, Offeibea, Baptiste, Jean-Pierre, Kuppens, Lianne, Von Harbou, Kai, Sembiring, Miftahul Fahmi, Acharya, Shambhu, Graaff, Peter
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8804283/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35118047
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2021.831220
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author Samaan, Gina
McPherson, Michelle
Eidman, Johan
Obubah, Offeibea
Baptiste, Jean-Pierre
Kuppens, Lianne
Von Harbou, Kai
Sembiring, Miftahul Fahmi
Acharya, Shambhu
Graaff, Peter
author_facet Samaan, Gina
McPherson, Michelle
Eidman, Johan
Obubah, Offeibea
Baptiste, Jean-Pierre
Kuppens, Lianne
Von Harbou, Kai
Sembiring, Miftahul Fahmi
Acharya, Shambhu
Graaff, Peter
author_sort Samaan, Gina
collection PubMed
description The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic highlighted that managing health emergencies requires more than an effective health response, but that operationalizing a whole-of-society approach is challenging. The World Health Organization (WHO), as the lead agency for health within the United Nations (UN), led the UN response at the global level through the Crisis Management Team, and at the country level through the UN Country Teams (UNCTs) in accordance with its mandate. Three case studies—Mali, Cox's Bazar in Bangladesh, and Uzbekistan—provide examples of how WHO contributed to the whole-of-society response for COVID-19 at the country level. Interviews with WHO staff, supplemented by internal and external published reports, highlighted that the action of WHO comprised technical expertise to ensure an effective whole-of-society response and to minimize social disruption, including those affecting peacekeeping in Mali, livelihood sectors in Cox's Bazar, and the education sector in Uzbekistan. Leveraging local level volunteers from various sectors led to both a stronger public health response and the continuation of other sectoral work. Risk communication and community engagement (RCCE) emerged as a key theme for UN engagement at country level. These collective efforts of operationalizing whole-of-society response at the country level need to continue for the COVID-19 response, but also in preparedness for other health and non-health emergencies. Building resilience for future emergencies requires developing and exercising multi-sectoral preparedness plans and benefits from collective UN support to countries. Coronavirus disease had many impacts outside of health, and therefore emergency preparedness needs to occur outside of health too.
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spelling pubmed-88042832022-02-02 The World Health Organization's Actions Within the United Nations System to Facilitate a Whole-of-Society Response to COVID-19 at Country Level Samaan, Gina McPherson, Michelle Eidman, Johan Obubah, Offeibea Baptiste, Jean-Pierre Kuppens, Lianne Von Harbou, Kai Sembiring, Miftahul Fahmi Acharya, Shambhu Graaff, Peter Front Public Health Public Health The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic highlighted that managing health emergencies requires more than an effective health response, but that operationalizing a whole-of-society approach is challenging. The World Health Organization (WHO), as the lead agency for health within the United Nations (UN), led the UN response at the global level through the Crisis Management Team, and at the country level through the UN Country Teams (UNCTs) in accordance with its mandate. Three case studies—Mali, Cox's Bazar in Bangladesh, and Uzbekistan—provide examples of how WHO contributed to the whole-of-society response for COVID-19 at the country level. Interviews with WHO staff, supplemented by internal and external published reports, highlighted that the action of WHO comprised technical expertise to ensure an effective whole-of-society response and to minimize social disruption, including those affecting peacekeeping in Mali, livelihood sectors in Cox's Bazar, and the education sector in Uzbekistan. Leveraging local level volunteers from various sectors led to both a stronger public health response and the continuation of other sectoral work. Risk communication and community engagement (RCCE) emerged as a key theme for UN engagement at country level. These collective efforts of operationalizing whole-of-society response at the country level need to continue for the COVID-19 response, but also in preparedness for other health and non-health emergencies. Building resilience for future emergencies requires developing and exercising multi-sectoral preparedness plans and benefits from collective UN support to countries. Coronavirus disease had many impacts outside of health, and therefore emergency preparedness needs to occur outside of health too. Frontiers Media S.A. 2022-01-18 /pmc/articles/PMC8804283/ /pubmed/35118047 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2021.831220 Text en Copyright © 2022 Samaan, McPherson, Eidman, Obubah, Baptiste, Kuppens, Von Harbou, Sembiring, Acharya and Graaff. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Public Health
Samaan, Gina
McPherson, Michelle
Eidman, Johan
Obubah, Offeibea
Baptiste, Jean-Pierre
Kuppens, Lianne
Von Harbou, Kai
Sembiring, Miftahul Fahmi
Acharya, Shambhu
Graaff, Peter
The World Health Organization's Actions Within the United Nations System to Facilitate a Whole-of-Society Response to COVID-19 at Country Level
title The World Health Organization's Actions Within the United Nations System to Facilitate a Whole-of-Society Response to COVID-19 at Country Level
title_full The World Health Organization's Actions Within the United Nations System to Facilitate a Whole-of-Society Response to COVID-19 at Country Level
title_fullStr The World Health Organization's Actions Within the United Nations System to Facilitate a Whole-of-Society Response to COVID-19 at Country Level
title_full_unstemmed The World Health Organization's Actions Within the United Nations System to Facilitate a Whole-of-Society Response to COVID-19 at Country Level
title_short The World Health Organization's Actions Within the United Nations System to Facilitate a Whole-of-Society Response to COVID-19 at Country Level
title_sort world health organization's actions within the united nations system to facilitate a whole-of-society response to covid-19 at country level
topic Public Health
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8804283/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35118047
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2021.831220
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