Use of WHO documents to provide information support to decision makers
Tatyana V. Kaigorodova, MD, PhD
Head, WHO Documentation Centre, Public Health
Research Institute, Ministry of Health, Russian
Federation

The new politics and strategy pursued by the
WHO Regional Office for Europe for information products and services aim at providing healthcare policy makers in the European region and beyond with premium quality, relevant and valid information
WHO Documentation Centres - key instruments to disseminate WHO information among the member-states of the WHO European Region.

Target audiences of WHO documentation centers by priority:
•Governments and public officials
•Experts in medicine and health care
(researches, physicians and nurses, health leaders, healthcare NGO personnel)
•Mass media.

WHO Documentation Centre with the Central
Public Health Research Institute of the
Ministry of Health of Russia was established in 1994 by the Order of the Ministry of Health .

WHO publications available at the Centre
•More than 1700 documents issued by the WHO in Russian, English, French, and German, which have been received from the WHO Regional
Office for Europe in Copenhagen, and the WHO
Headquarters, Geneva;
•WHO Documentation Centre database in English and in Russian with summaries in Russian of all
WHO publications available at the Centre.

WHO publications available at the Centre
(continued)
1. Books (guidelines, monographs, etc.).
2. Proceedings of conferences, seminars, working-group workshops, and other WHO meetings on various problems of medicine and health care.
3. Documents of the World Health Assembly sessions, the WHO
Executive Board and the WHO Regional Committee for Europe.
4. Statistics collections, including the World Health Statistics
Annual, the Weekly Epidemiological Record and other.
5. Collected international laws.
6.Journals: Bulletin of the World Health Organization, World
Health Forum, World Health, Entre Nous in Russian and in
English.
7.WHO Technical Report Series of the main subjects of medicine and health care.

Decision makers collaborating with the WHO
Documentation Centre
National level:
- Ministry of Health
- State Duma (Parliament)
Regional level :
- Heads of Health Care Departments of the
Russian Regions
- Heads of Departments for Social Welfare of the
Russian Regions

Requests from the national level
•WHO official documents (resolutions and decisions of the World Health Assembly, the WHO
Executive Board and the WHO Regional
Committee for Europe) – 60-%
•Executive summaries on specific problems based on the main WHO publications (3 pages maximum)
– 15%
•Conferences and WHO Working Groups reports –
12.5%
•Analysis of legislative acts in different countries and WHO approach to develop health legislation –
12.5%

Requests from the regional level
•Executive summaries on specific problems based on the main WHO publications – 60%
•World health reports and the European health report (2002) published by WHO – 20%
•World health statistics – 10%
•Analytic papers on local legislation and WHO approach to health legislation – 10%

Generally requested problem areas at the regional level included:
•Financing of health care;
•Hospital care reform;
•Health for all - 21;
•Maternal and child health.