The State of Global Health Today

President Obama's recent announcement of the Global Health Initiative has brought renewed attention to the issues of global health.

What is global health? Global health is the health of populations around the world; the "global" refers to the idea that health is inter-related. In a world where disease crosses borders quickly, the health of each and every individual is of concern. With health, we cannot draw arbitrary borders.

What are some core values of global health community?

• Improving child and mother health
• Increasing access to healthcare for world’s neediest – the link between health and poverty
• Ensuring effectiveness of health efforts through monitoring and evaluation. Governments, multilateral institutions, and individual donors are increasingly concerned with how their dollars are being spent. They want results.

Approach:

• increasing involvement of the the private sector: creating incentives for private sector R & D and learning from the private sector about measuring results
• horizontal (integrated) vs. vertical (focus on a single disease) approaches
• collaboration

Potential partners:

• Multilaterals: United Nations (WHO, UNDP, UNFPA, UNAIDS, etc.)
• Large Philanthropy/Non-profits: Gates Foundation, Clinton Foundation, Kaiser Family Foundation
• Smaller NGOs: Frontline SMS, AMPATH, Carolina for Kibera
• private sector: pharmaceutical companies, financial/insurance companies, oil & gas: the economic (and political) benefits of investing in health
• International Partners: Aravind Eye Care System

Areas of Cooperation:

• building and strengthening partnerships globally
• increasing information and health awareness, especially in underserved communities and among the world's poorest citizens
• advocating increased attention to health issues and policy among donors
• health-focused Millennium Development Goals: child health, maternal health, combat HIV/AIDS (also, end poverty and hunger, global partnerships)

Areas of Contention:

• funding priorities: “vertical” vs. “horizontal” efforts
• “competition” among advocates for specific diseases -- who "owns" the cause of HIV? TB? Malaria?
• use of technology: help or hindrance? See Hans Rosling (statistics), ICT4D
• is health a right? Dr. Paul Farmer thinks so. Many countries (e.g., South Africa) have health enshrined as a right in their Constitutions, but others do not. Is the debate over whether health is a right diverting attention from practical priorities?