Digitalized assessment tool of national early warning and response capacities

Project details

Year: 2023

Client: World Health Organization - Regional Office for Europe

Objectives:

Update the WHO EURO tools for assessing and strengthening early warning and response (EWAR) capacities at the national level.

• Include specific capacities required to early detect and respond to threats to human health during chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear events, and environmental hazards such as heat waves, fires or floods.
• Adapt the tool to be used in emergencies.

Digitalize the updated WHO EURO tools.

Deliverables:

• Evidence tables of specific EWAR capacities required in the following contexts: occurrence of a chemical, biological, radiological, or nuclear event; occurrence of an environmental hazard; emergency impacting the lives and well-being of a large number of people.
• Updated WHO EURO assessment tools for assessing and strengthening EWAR capacities at the national level both in routine and in an emergency.
• Digitalized WHO EURO assessment tools for assessing and strengthening EWAR capacities.
• User guides.

Performed activities

Three rapid scoping reviews were performed to identify specific capacities required to early detect and respond to threats to human health in the following contexts:

• Occurrence of a chemical, biological, radiological, or nuclear event.
• Occurrence of an environmental hazard, such as a heat wave, fire or flood.
• Emergency impacting the lives and well-being of a large number of people and requiring substantial multisectoral assistance. This includes humanitarian emergencies due to conflict, natural disasters, food insecurity, outbreaks, or famine.

The previously developed WHO EURO tool for assessing and strengthening EWAR was updated based on the results of the scoping reviews.

Two versions of the assessment tool are available:

• An assessment tool to be used in routine to perform an in-depth assessment of EWAR capacities at the country level.
• An assessment tool to be used in an emergency to assess EWAR capacities in an affected area. It can be used at the onset of an emergency to verify existing surveillance and response capacities and develop actionable recommendations to develop a system that is fit for purpose for a particular emergency and context.

The paper versions of the tool were complemented by a digital version composed of :

• An Android application for offline data collection.
• A custom-made WHO EURO EWAR digital assessment application which provides support and templates to the user for each assessment step. This application is an R-Shiny application that can be installed on the personal computer of the user.