WHO Indicators for Monitoring the Implementation of the International Health Regulations (2005)

The 194 Member States (including the United States) of the World Health Organization (WHO) have signed the revised International Health Regulations 2005(IHR), a legal framework that aims to prevent and respond to acute public health threats with the potential for international spread. IHR strengthens WHO member states collective defences against the multiple and varied public health threats that today's globalized world is facing and which have the potential to rapidly spread through expanding travel and trade.  With the coming into force of the IHR on June 15, 2007, Member States are required to notify WHO of all events which may constitute a public health emergency of international concern; assess core alert and response capacities for the early detection, investigation, and response to these events; develop a plan of action for implementing the IHR; and to monitor and evaluate progress towards achieving these capacities.  WHO is required to support the assessment of the national surveillance and response capacities, the strengthening of the national systems, the monitoring of progress on the IHR implementation, and the evaluation of outcomes.  Monitoring of IHR implementation helps identify needed changes, provides information to guide program improvement, informs strategic and program planning, helps establish a feedback process for decision-making, provides WHO with status of IHR implementation, and targets WHO and partner support to countries.  Indicators ensure that monitoring and evaluation is a standards-based process and that the selected indicators are a tool to recognize valuable results among multiple, central outcomes.  This presentation will describe and discuss WHO developed monitoring framework and indicators, data collection tools, and data analysis and dissemination approaches.  The indicators cover 8 core capacities,  across 5  categories of hazards and at capacities at points of entry.