Month: March 2021

30
Mar
2021
What does the evidence tell us about keeping schools open safely – High level ministerial meeting UNESCO

What does the evidence tell us about keeping schools open safely – High level ministerial meeting UNESCO

As the world enters a second year living with the COVID-19 pandemic, half of the global student population is still affected by full or partial school closures. To mobilize and support learning continuity, UNESCO established the Global Education Coalition which today counts 160 members working around three central themes: Gender, connectivity and teachers.

On 29 March 2021, UNESCO convened a high-level ministerial meeting “One year into COVID: Prioritizing education recovery to avoid a generational catastrophe” to take stock of lessons learnt, the greatest risks facing education today and strategies to leave no learner behind. During this meeting, Professor Didier Jourdan, chair holder of the UNESCO Chair and head of the WHO Collaborating Center Global Health and Education, was invited to present a state-of-the-art review of the evidence about keeping schools open safely.

Professor Jourdan presented three solid facts:

  • schools should be among the last places to close and first to reopen
  • school reopening, with comprehensive infection prevention and control measures in place, and when the community infection levels were low or moderate, did not increase community transmission
  • the mechanisms of implementation in schools involve institutional, contextual and personal factors

Read the transcript of the presentation

More information about the high level ministerial meeting

Posted by Didier in News
25
Mar
2021
Call for Chapters International handbook of teaching and learning health promotion: practices and reflections from around the world

Call for Chapters International handbook of teaching and learning health promotion: practices and reflections from around the world

This call is intended to identify experiences that produce a dialogue between teaching and learning practices carried out locally and the possibilities of application and transformation from local to global reality. The book is to be published by Springer Publisher and launched at the 24th IUHPE World Conference on Health Promotion, in Montreal, Canada, 2022.

The book is about teaching and learning health promotion in the health professions undergraduate and postgraduate courses, bearing in mind the Health Promotion approaches, according to WHO and the five strategies of Ottawa Chapter. In addition, chapters on how health promotion is taught in related fields such as architecture, urban planning, and social protection, as well as various areas of public policy and international affairs etc. are welcome.

Proposals must be sent by April 15, 2021
For more information see the call for chapters or the promotional video

Posted by Didier in News
23
Mar
2021
Development and evaluation of educational resources produced in response to the COVID-19 crisis

Development and evaluation of educational resources produced in response to the COVID-19 crisis

In this recently published French article “Élaboration et évaluation de l’utilité, de l’utilisabilité et de l’acceptabilité de ressources éducatives produites en réponse à la crise de la COVID-19[i]” (in English: ‘Development and evaluation of the usefulness, usability and acceptability of educational resources produced in response to the COVID-19 crisis’) the authors reflect on the development and evaluation of the “Succeed, be well, be together” health promotion programme in New Caledonia in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The programme uses a co-construction approach to health education teaching materials that takes into account cultural diversity, builds on existing practices, shares them and enriches them with research contributions. It was implemented in order to develop with the actors, in a very short time, a set of tools for primary schools in order to ensure pedagogical continuity during the COVID-19 crisis. The evaluation of these tools with professionals in practice and in training (n = 50) shows that they are usable in reference to existing classroom practices (score of 8.2 out of 10) and to the needs of pupils (score of 8 out of 10), useful for the development of skills and knowledge in health education (score of 8.4 out of 10), and acceptable in relation to pedagogical approaches, contextualised materials and their implementation (score of 8.3 out of 10). The study shows that health promotion as an approach can provide a framework for the development of appropriate intervention tools in times of health crises.

Read the full article

[i] Tessier N, O’Callaghan N, Fernandez Da Rocha Puleoto C, Jourdan D. Élaboration et évaluation de l’utilité, de l’utilisabilité et de l’acceptabilité de ressources éducatives produites en réponse à la crise de la COVID-19. Global Health Promotion. March 2021. doi:10.1177/1757975921996133

Posted by Didier in News
23
Mar
2021
Webinar – Exploring Global Inequalities in Adolescent Health and Healthcare

Webinar – Exploring Global Inequalities in Adolescent Health and Healthcare

On 25 March 2021 from 13.00 – 14.00 CET, the interactive webinar “Exploring Global Inequalities in Adolescent Health and Healthcare” will take place. The webinar is organised by the UNESCO Chair and WHO Collaborating Center Global Health & Education as part of the International Adolescent Health Week, in collaboration with the International Association for Adolescent Health, the EUPHA section on Child and Adolescent Public Health. The webinar will be held in English.

Our world is home to the largest generation of adolescents ever. Our future global success and prosperity depends on their sustained health and wellbeing. And yet the amount of investment in adolescent health is traditionally very low. This forms the backdrop to a range of health inequalities, and yet the adolescent population has arguably had the least attention of all age groups on this topic. For many disadvantaged, deprived and discriminated youth, health system accessibility and utilization are substantially and unacceptably lower compared to the general population. To increase health system accessibility and utilization in underserved communities, barriers must be removed. In this webinar, examples of underserved communities are presented, as well as possible solutions to make global health systems available, acceptable and affordable for every adolescent.

The webinar will start with an introduction from Professor Sir Michael Marmot, Professor of Epidemiology, University College London; Director of the UCL Institute of Health Equity. The experts Professor Susan Sawyer, president International Association for Adolescent Health, The University of Melbourne, Australia and Associated professor Danielle Jansen, immediate past president EUPHA Section on Child and Adolescent Public Health, University Medical Center Groningen (UMCG), the Netherlands, will then address the following questions:

  1. What do we know about global inequalities in adolescent health outcomes?
  2. Which health service barriers linked to health inequalities do adolescents experience in Europe?
  3. How can we use this knowledge to redesign healthcare systems to minimise adolescent health inequalities?

Link to join the webinar

More information

Posted by Didier in News
23
Mar
2021
International Adolescent Health Week

International Adolescent Health Week

International Adolescent Health Week, celebrated the 3rd full week in March yearly, is a grass-roots initiative for young people, their health care providers, their teachers, their parents, their advocates and their communities to come together and celebrate young people and with an ultimate goal of working collectively towards improving the health and well-being of the over 1 billion adolescents across the globe today.

The Mission of International Adolescent Health Week is to inspire adolescents and their communities to advocate for a successful transition into adulthood.​ It is based on the idea that small actions by many people working together create big changes.

Lime green is the official colour of International Adolescent Health Week.

International Adolescent Health Week is supported by members of the Society of Adolescent Health and Medicine and the International Association of Adolescent Health.

The UNESCO Chair supports and participates in the International Adolescent Health Week, with the organisation of two events

Posted by Didier in News
23
Mar
2021
One year into COVID: Prioritizing education recovery to avoid a generational catastrophe

One year into COVID: Prioritizing education recovery to avoid a generational catastrophe

Monday 29 March, 14:00 CET, a high-level Ministerial on-line event

As the world enters a second year living with the COVID-19 pandemic, UNESCO will convene a high-level ministerial event on 29 March to take stock of lessons learnt, the greatest risks facing education and strategies to leave no learner behind, building on the actions of the Global Education Coalition (GEC) established in March 2020 that marks its first anniversary.

The meeting will provide the global education community with a space for policy dialogue to assess lessons learnt and the most pressing current challenges, informed by the presentation of key data sets. Main participants will be Ministers of Education, high-level representatives of partners within the GEC and of sister agencies. The debate will be framed around three key topics related to:

  • School dropout & learning loss: what are the top policy measures taken to mitigate against school drop out? What remedial actions have been most successful so far to make up for learning loss?
  • Keeping schools open, prioritizing and supporting teachers: how to keep schools open as a priority and ensure a safe learning environment? How to ensure that teachers are safe, considered as frontline workers and supported to adapt to a new learning reality?
  • Digital transformation and the future of education:  what are the key strategies for digital transformation of education systems? How can public-private partnership contribute to advancing the digital transformation? How has COVID-19 impacted the future of education?

Professor Didier Jourdan, chair holder of the UNESCO Chair Global Health & Education will deliver an opening presentation about emerging evidence on safe school reopening.

Posted by Didier in News