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Tuesday, May 13, 2025

PAHO calls for strengthening public health capacities

by

26 days ago
20250416

The Pan Amer­i­can Health Or­ga­ni­za­tion (PA­HO) says there is an ur­gent need to strength­en pub­lic health ca­pac­i­ties in the in­sti­tu­tions of the re­gion of the Amer­i­c­as to en­sure uni­ver­sal ac­cess to health and re­spond ef­fec­tive­ly to cur­rent and fu­ture health chal­lenges.

PA­HO has pre­sent­ed its ”Im­ple­men­ta­tion of the es­sen­tial health func­tions in the Amer­i­c­as” Eval­u­a­tion and Strength­en­ing of ca­pac­i­ties” re­port based on eval­u­a­tions con­duct­ed be­tween 2021 and 2023 in 14 coun­tries of the Amer­i­c­as.

Sev­er­al Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty (CARI­COM)  coun­tries, name­ly An­tigua and Bar­bu­da, The Ba­hamas, Be­lize, Ja­maica, St. Kitts-Nevis, St. Lu­cia, and Suri­name, par­tic­i­pat­ed in the eval­u­a­tions.

The re­port un­der­scores the crit­i­cal role of the es­sen­tial pub­lic health func­tions (EPHF) as a strate­gic frame­work for im­prov­ing health sys­tems. These func­tions span 11 key ar­eas, in­clud­ing pop­u­la­tion health sur­veil­lance and as­sess­ment, de­vel­op­ment of health poli­cies and plans, and eq­ui­table ac­cess to care.

AHO said im­ple­men­ta­tion of the EPHF seeks to strength­en health gov­er­nance, re­duce in­equal­i­ties, and in­crease re­silience in the face of crises such as the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic.

“By pri­ori­tis­ing the EPHF, coun­tries can sig­nif­i­cant­ly im­prove the ca­pac­i­ties of their health sys­tems to re­spond to the needs of pop­u­la­tions and achieve more eq­ui­table and ef­fec­tive out­comes,” said PA­HO Di­rec­tor, Dr. Jar­bas Bar­bosa.

“This not on­ly strength­ens the ca­pac­i­ty to re­spond to emer­gen­cies but al­so en­sures a sol­id foun­da­tion for ad­dress­ing long-term health chal­lenges,” he added.

PA­HO said that there has been sig­nif­i­cant but un­even progress in the re­gion with 10 of the  14 coun­tries eval­u­at­ed hav­ing used the EPHF eval­u­a­tions to iden­ti­fy pri­or­i­ties and de­vel­op strate­gic ac­tion plans.

PA­HO said in gen­er­al, the eval­u­at­ed coun­tries have mod­er­ate ca­pac­i­ty to im­ple­ment the EPHF, rang­ing from 40 to 59 per cent of the es­tab­lished stan­dards.

How­ev­er, there are dif­fer­ences be­tween sub­re­gions.

It said Caribbean coun­tries show more lim­it­ed ca­pac­i­ty, while Latin Amer­i­can coun­tries achieve mod­er­ate lev­els. The av­er­age com­pli­ance rate for the re­gion as a whole re­mains be­low 60 per cent, re­flect­ing per­sis­tent chal­lenges such as frag­ment­ed health sys­tems, lack of fi­nan­cial and hu­man re­sources, and the ab­sence of in­te­grat­ed in­for­ma­tion sys­tems.

These lim­i­ta­tions hin­der coun­tries’ abil­i­ty to mon­i­tor health, plan ac­tions, and co­or­di­nate re­spons­es among dif­fer­ent sec­tors.

PA­HO said the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic high­light­ed the im­por­tance of the EPHF. It said coun­tries that have made greater progress in im­ple­men­ta­tion showed bet­ter pre­pared­ness and re­sponse dur­ing the pan­dem­ic, in­di­cat­ing the need to in­te­grate these func­tions in­to a ro­bust pri­ma­ry health­care mod­el.

PA­HO is rec­om­mend­ing that mem­ber states and part­ners to pri­or­i­tize in­crease fund­ing for the EPHF, with em­pha­sis on the de­vel­op­ment of hu­man re­sources and in­for­ma­tion tech­nolo­gies as well as es­tab­lish in­te­grat­ed plat­forms for the col­lec­tion, analy­sis, and use of health da­ta.

In ad­di­tion, PA­HO is call­ing on coun­tries to strength­en co­or­di­na­tion mech­a­nisms be­tween the pub­lic and pri­vate sec­tors and civ­il so­ci­ety, im­prove lead­er­ship and stew­ard­ship in pub­lic health to en­sure in­clu­sive and ef­fec­tive poli­cies.

In Sep­tem­ber 2024, the coun­tries of the Amer­i­c­as ap­proved the Strat­e­gy for Strength­en­ing the Es­sen­tial Pub­lic Health Func­tions to Ac­cel­er­ate Health Sys­tems Trans­for­ma­tion 2024–2034, a re­gion­al frame­work that com­bines the EPHF with pri­ma­ry health care to trans­form health sys­tems.

PA­HO said that this strat­e­gy helps coun­tries de­vel­op na­tion­al poli­cies and train lo­cal teams, fos­ter­ing a com­pre­hen­sive ap­proach that ad­dress­es dis­eases as well as their so­cial de­ter­mi­nants.

PA­HO said it is re­it­er­at­ing its com­mit­ment to pro­vide tech­ni­cal and strate­gic as­sis­tance to the coun­tries of the re­gion as they as­sess and strength­en their pub­lic health ca­pac­i­ties.

“The EPHF pro­vide a clear roadmap for mov­ing to­ward re­silient sys­tems that pro­tect the pop­u­la­tions of to­day and to­mor­row,” Dr. Bar­bosa said.

As part of this ef­fort, a re­gion­al net­work on gov­er­nance and the EPHF is be­ing cre­at­ed. This col­lab­o­ra­tive space seeks to pro­mote more re­silient and eq­ui­table health sys­tems in the Amer­i­c­as, fa­cil­i­tat­ing the ex­change of ex­pe­ri­ences and so­lu­tions to over­come com­mon chal­lenges.

WASH­ING­TON, Apr 16, CMC

CMC//ak/ir/2025


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