Month: April 2020

“A Health Promotion Focus on COVID-19. Keep the Trojan horse out of our health systems: Promote health for ALL in times of crisis and beyond!”.

Ongoing discussion about the range of actions needed during the SARS-CoV-2 outbreak and Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) is calling all of us to bring forward our thoughts and experiences about how best to cope with the multiple challenges we are facing regarding COVID-19. The Health Promotion section of the European Public Health Association, IUHPE and the UNESCO Chair Global Health & Education would like to share five talking points that could evolve into a more refined and targeted public health discussion on the implications of this pandemic, from a health promotion perspective.

As discussions worldwide bring topics such as health, equity, sustainability, solidarity or human dignity to a new level of implications, a systematic perspective is missing to bring these themes together with the disease prevention and curative efforts in the public health framework. This is where health promotion has the expertise to bring these extremely relevant issues together, to offer a comprehensive approach, in a common effort to support the medical care systems to face the sudden burden that was laid in their hands.

Authors: Luis Saboga-Nunes, Diane Levin-Zamir, Uwe Bittlingmayer, Paolo Contu, Paulo Pinheiro, Valerie Ivassenko, Orkan Okan, Liane Comeau, Margaret Barry, Stephan Van den Broucke, Didier Jourdan

Click here to download the document

OECD recently published a report which aims at supporting education decision making to develop and implement effective education responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. In most countries around the world school-based education will be disrupted for several months due to the social isolation measures as a response to the COVID-19 Pandemic. Without an effective strategy to protect learning opportunities during this period, this disruption will cause severe learning losses for students.

It is therefore highly important that education leaders take immediate steps to develop and implement strategies which reduce the educational impact of the pandemic. The report proposes that leaders of education systems and organizations develop plans for the continuation of education through alternative methods.

The report offers a framework to guide the development of context-specific education strategies. It includes a checklist of 25 points to support the development of an education strategy during the pandemic. This can be used by national, state or local education authorities or by leaders of education networks.

Based on a rapid assessment of education needs and emerging responses in ninety eight countries, the report identifies the most critical needs that should be addressed in these plans, as well as the areas likely to face more implementation challenges. The domains identified as highest priority are: ensuring academic learning for students, supporting students who lack skills for independent study, ensuring the wellbeing of students, providing professional support for teachers and ensuring wellbeing of teachers and medical attention to teachers. The identified priorities are closely related to the UNESCO Chair’s ambitions. The report describes the challenges facing various education systems to depend on online education as an alternative of school-based education.

Read the report.