Defining community protection

At the 75th World Health Assembly in May 2022, WHO set out a harmonizing framework to strengthen the global architecture for health emergency preparedness, response, and resilience (HEPR). Under the proposed global architecture, the ability to effectively prevent, prepare for, detect, respond to, and recover from health emergencies at subnational, national, regional and global levels depend on the operational readiness and capacities in five interconnected systems: collaborative surveillance, community protection, safe and scalable clinical care, access to countermeasures, and emergency coordination.

This document defines the community protection system and sets out a comprehensive set of actions for impact at local levels. Community protection refers to community-centred actions that deliver impact to protect those who are at risk or affected by the health and social impacts of emergencies. Three core objectives intersect and work together in important ways. First, systems for well recognised technical areas including risk communication and communication need to be in place and strengthened. Second, evidence-informed population and environmental interventions need to be implemented, through co-design and co-delivery with local communities and the community workforce, and third, multi-sectoral action is needed to anticipate and mitigate social and economic impacts related to the health emergency event.