Q&A on UHC Intervention Compendium
11 July 2019 | Q&A
Essential service packages vary across countries depending on current capacity, resource availability, and priorities. Expanding service provision in the context of UHC may entail starting with a smaller guaranteed package and then expanding the number of services covered.
WHO provides guidance and tools to support priority setting and planning within a local context. See http://who.int/choice
This may be for a number of reasons: (i) WHO may have examined the evidence for the intervention but a decision was made not to recommend it (ii) WHO may have recommended the intervention a long time ago but has not issued recent recommendations (iii) WHO has not yet examined the evidence base for the intervention (iv) the intervention is considered a policy or system level investment and is thus not covered directly in the Repository database, but will be included in the accompanying inventory on facility and system investments.
The data within the Repository will be updated on a regular basis to reflect updates in WHO published recommendations on interventions, to ensure the most up to date information is reflected.
WHO produces different types of guidance documents. The Guidelines review committee (GRC) and its Secretariat support guideline developers and ensure the quality of a certain type of guidance document produced by WHO, via an internal, peer-review process. In addition, WHO produces a wide range of publications that contain guidance on clinical and public health interventions and policies, many of which are not suitable for review by the GRC. When such guidance is linked to an intervention in the Compendium it is referred to as “other WHO reference documents” within the database . The importance of an intervention is not determined by the type of guidance document listed in the Compendium. Rather, Member States should select interventions prioritized to their needs, from across the items in the Compendium.
When WHO has not published specific guidance on a listed intervention, the intervention is labelled “Reference document under review”. This means that the intervention is considered important to include, but there is currently no WHO guidance published.
The current version of the database includes selected information on intervention tags, target populations and service delivery platforms. WHO is currently working to expand the database both in terms of breadth (number of interventions) and depth (information shown for each intervention). Updates will be published later in 2020.
Please follow the following information to cite the Repository: UHC Intervention Repository (Internet), World Health Organization. Available from --- URL. Accessed on [Date].