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Adolescent and Young Adult Health
The Adolescent and Young Adult Health Unit (AYH) leads and coordinates WHO-wide efforts to improve the health and well-being of adolescents and young adults.
Global Platform to monitor school health
Overview
The Global platform to monitor school health, developed by WHO, UNESCO, UNICEF and the World Food Programme, aims to support countries to obtain standardized evidence-based data to monitor their school health programmes and policies against the global standards for health-promoting schools, and selected indicators.
The platform uses inputs from the national level (based on the national level questionnaire called ANESH – Assessment of National Education Systems for Health – that collects data on relevant school health policies) and from schools (based on the Global School health Policies and Practices Survey (G-SHPPS that collects data on policies’ implementation).
The use of the platform will accelerate progress towards building health promoting education systems and “Making Every School a Health Promoting School” – an initiative launched in 2018 by WHO, UNESCO, UNICEF and other UN partners that was articulated in the Global Standards for Health Promoting Schools and their implementation guidance.
The “Making Every School a Health Promoting School” initiative will serve over 2.3 billion school-age children by promoting positive development, health-promoting school environments and healthy behaviours such as physical activity, physical fitness, recreation and play, balanced nutrition, and preventing substance use and bullying.
Why to use the platform?
The goal of the Global platform to monitor school health is to generate scientifically credible national- and school-level data that describe characteristics of school health policies and practices nationwide, and in selected schools (see the scenarios of using the platform).
The platform was developed to:
- help countries generate data to inform priorities for school health
- delivers metrics on the performance of school health programmes and initiatives
- inform actions for improvements by linking results with recommendations
- generate data to advocate for resources for school health policies and practices where gaps are identified;
- establish trends in school health policies and practices;
- allow countries, international agencies, and others to make comparisons across countries regarding school health policies and practices.
What are the advantages of using the platform to monitor school health?
The global platform to monitor school health provides a low-cost sustainable solution for governments and individual districts and schools to obtain evidence-based standardized data on the performance of their school health programmes and initiatives, aligned with Global Standards. Many countries will be using Global Standards for Health Promoting Schools to adapt and adopt them nationally. However, the measurement of standards, in an absence of digital solutions, is a time consuming and costly process. It might be difficult for school teams or district and national managers to regularly organize self-assessments or nationally representative surveys as a distinct activity from their routine duties.
The platform offers the following advantages:
- Time and Cost Efficiency: eliminates the need for printing, distributing, and manually collecting paper surveys, which can be time-consuming and costly. With the platform, national and school surveys can be distributed, and collected online, saving significant resources.
- Wider Reach and Accessibility: Digital surveys can reach a larger audience as they can be distributed via the platform to any school in any district in any country. Respondents can access and complete surveys at their convenience using devices like smartphones, tablets, or computers, making it more accessible for different demographics.
- Faster Data Collection and Analysis: The platform offer real-time data analytics, allowing analysis of the responses instantly as they are submitted. This eliminates the need for manual data entry and speeds up the analysis process, enabling faster decision-making.
- Improved Data Accuracy: The platform includes features like mandatory fields, response validations, and skip logic, which help ensure data accuracy and completeness. Additionally, automated data collection reduces the risk of human error during data entry.
- Flexibility and Customization: the platform provides greater flexibility as it is a living tool, offering the possibility to customize surveys’ questions in future, as new needs will appear.
- Advanced Reporting and Analytics: The platform offers built-in analytics and reporting features, allowing the users to visualize and analyze survey data more effectively. It generates charts, graphs, and summary statistics to gain insights quickly and identify key gaps, trends or patterns in school health.
- Easy Collaboration and Integration: The platform facilitates collaboration among school health stakeholders by enabling multiple users to work on surveys simultaneously. The platform integrates with recommendations for evidence-based implementation strategies for school health, making it easier to combine survey data with actions for improvement for comprehensive decision-making.
- Environmentally Friendly: By eliminating the need for paper, the platform contributes to reducing environmental impact and promoting sustainability.
Want to join?
To join, please connect to the platform from School health or contact us at schoolhealth@who.int
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