Attachments<\/p>\n
Advancing Self-Care in Uganda\u2019s Health System Self-care is increasingly recognized as a vital component of health systems. The World Health Organization (WHO) defines self-care as \u201cthe ability of individuals, families and communities to promote health, prevent disease, maintain health, and cope with illness and disability with or without the support of a healthcare provider\u201d. WHO released its first consolidated guideline on self-care interventions in 2019 (focused on sexual and reproductive health and rights) and updated it in 2022 to encompass health and well-being broadly. These guidelines emphasize that self-care interventions are critical for achieving universal health coverage (UHC). Currently, an estimated 3.6 billion people \u2013 half the world\u2019s population \u2013 lack access to essential health services, and WHO recommends self-care as a key strategy to bridge this gap. By empowering people to take charge of their own health, self-care approaches can expand coverage, improve health outcomes, and relieve overburdened health facilities. Uganda has been at the forefront of adopting self-care in policy and practice. In 2020, the Ministry of Health (MOH) established a multi-stakeholder Self-Care Expert Group to adapt the WHO guidelines to Uganda\u2019s context. With support from partners, Uganda developed a National SelfCare Guideline for Sexual, Reproductive and Maternal Health, which was officially launched in 2024, making Uganda one of the first countries in the world with a national self-care policy framework. Even before the guideline launch, Uganda piloted several self-care interventions over the past five years \u2013 including self-injectable contraceptives (DMPA-SC), HIV self-testing, and HPV self-sampling \u2013 demonstrating the feasibility and benefits of these approaches. The focus now is on scaling up these interventions and integrating self-care into health services nationwide. This policy brief, issued by WHO Uganda in collaboration with the Ministry of Health, is intended for a wide range of stakeholders \u2013 government health officials, district leaders, development partners, and cultural and religious leaders \u2013 who are gathering for an orientation on self-care interventions. It provides key messages on the importance of self-care and outlines recommendations to accelerate implementation. Strengthening self-care in Uganda\u2019s health system will require both technical action and advocacy, and the commitment of all stakeholders is crucial to success.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Attachments Advancing Self-Care in Uganda\u2019s Health System Self-care is increasingly recognized as a vital component of health systems.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":180878,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[59],"tags":[97,252,253],"class_list":["post-180877","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health-care","tag-health","tag-health-care","tag-healthcare"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180877","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=180877"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180877\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/180878"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=180877"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=180877"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=180877"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}