Publications

The PEPFAR Vietnam Country Operational Plan (COP) 2018 establishes a bold, aggressive strategy to enroll 14,500 new antiretroviral therapy (ART) patients, retain 84,300 on treatment, and achieve 95 percent viral suppression in two regions. The Northern Economic Zone (NEZ) includes Hanoi, Hai Phong, Quang Ninh and Thai Nguyen. The Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC) metropolitan area (henceforth referred to as HCMC Metro) includes the southern provinces of Ba Ria-Vung Tau, Binh Duong, Dong Nai, Long An, Tay Ninh and Tien Giang, and HCMC itself.

This small scale research project which included an online survey and 4 Focus Group Discussions (FGD) was conducted by Youth Voices Count (YVC) with the support of UNICEF East Asia and Pacific Regional Office in order to explore the preparedness and willingness of adolescent gay, MSM and transgender women to use Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis (PrEP) as an additional prevention method to protect themselves from HIV. The online survey was disseminated in Bangkok, Ho Chi Min, Jakarta and Manila through online platforms and the FGDs were conducted in the same cities with 5–7 gay, MSM and transgender female adolescents between the ages of 15–19. 83% of the adolescents who participated in the online survey mentioned that they are willing to use PrEP as an additional prevention method to protect themselves from HIV. The output of FGDs revealed similar insights. The factors that contribute to PrEP acceptability among adolescents include the ability to engage in safer sex with PrEP, cost-free provision of PrEP, community and family support and friendly and confidential sexual health services. As challenges to using PrEP to avoid HIV infections, the participants of the online survey and the FGDs recognized lack of awareness of PrEP among adolescents, disapproval from parents, stigma and discrimination associated with key populations, unfriendly sexual health services, general lack of personal health-seeking behaviors, and difficulties in adhering to a daily pill. The adolescents recognized two key sources of accessing information on PrEP. These include (1) Internet – social media platforms and websites and (2) Community organizations. They also recognized community service delivery points including community led clinics as their preferred point of accessing PrEP and other required testing for PrEP.  

Far too often, millions of uprooted children and young people are invisible in data. They face discrimination and isolation as they seek to make new lives for themselves. Many do not have access to national or local services and fall through the cracks of child protection systems as they cross borders. Indeed, data are scarce, and little is known about their health, their education, or how migration affects their futures. Too often, they are talked about, but rarely are they listened to. This new poll provides an opportunity to listen.

The present Strategy for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (2018–2021) establishes the first institutional framework on gender equality for the United Nations Office at Vienna/United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNOV/UNODC). One of its aims is ensuring that United Nations standards to promote and achieve gender equality are met. It provides a systematic framework that sets institutional standards and defines commitments on gender equality and the empowerment of women for the period 2018–2021.

This report summarizes the final recommendation and the process for developing the guideline on home-based records for maternal, newborn and child health. The primary audience for the guideline is policy makers and health programme managers of MNCH and immunization programmes in ministries of health where decisions are made and policies created on the use and implementation of homebased records. The guideline is also aimed at health providers who use home-based records as a tool for recording information and providing health education or communicating key information. Development and international agencies and non-governmental organizations that support the implementation of home-based records will also find this guideline of use.

Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people experience targeted homophobia and transphobia at every level – including legal, political and social. For sex workers who are LGBT, discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation and gender identity adds to and intensifies the discrimination they experience as sex workers. This Briefing Paper written in collaboration with NSWP documents the stigma and discrimination experienced by LGBT sex workers and highlights differences in their experiences when compared with other members of their respective communities.

In this brief, we define reproductive empowerment and present a conceptual framework of reproductive empowerment, based on an extensive literature review and consultations with experts in the fields of sexual and reproductive health, rights-based family planning and women’s empowerment. As a part of this process, a more extensive background white paper was developed, including a review of existing empowerment measures in the reproductive realm, which this brief is based on.

Male involvement in relation to abortion services remains a largely understudied area, more so in instances of unintended premarital abortions. Abortion care is an important area for involvement of men. In addition to the potential benefit for individual women, male involvement may at a broader level improve women’s access to safe abortion and quality care since men are partners, brothers, fathers and friends, their experiences with abortion services affect how women are treated and how abortion is perceived in society. In case of an unintended pregnancy before marriage the role played by men becomes more crucial because social stigma associated with premarital sex, particularly in a context like India, heightens a woman’s vulnerability, isolation and alienation.

This publication on the Malaysia National Health Accounts (MNHA) contains twenty years national health expenditure data from 1997 to 2016, estimated using standardised and internationally acceptable National Health Accounts (NHA) methodology. The reporting format follows closely the MNHA Framework and is kept almost similar to previous reporting format with the addition of a few editorial improvements for ease of reading and new sections.

This is the 34th edition of the “Indicators for Monitoring and Evaluation of The Strategy Health for All” since the first Common Framework for Evaluation (CFE) was carried out in 1985. The global indicators have remained unchanged ever since. These indicators represented the essential minimum for member countries of WHO to evaluate their own national strategy towards HFA goals. Following each alternating cycle of monitoring and evaluation by the member countries and by the six regional coordinating centres, the Executive Board of the WHO and the World Health Assembly was able to evaluate the HFA strategy globally. With each global monitoring and evaluation, the list of indicators was modified to ensure that it was adequate.