Addressing Diseases Of Poverty

"Many countries in the Asia Pacific region continue to show impressive economic growth and development despite the turmoil facing much of the world, raising the standard of living for millions of people. However, amid this growth, more than a billion people remain left behind because of widening disparities and unequal access to opportunities for health, development and prosperity. These are the people who are most vulnerable to diseases resulting from poverty, including neglected tropical diseases (NTDs). Common NTDs trap communities in a cycle of malnutrition and anaemia, poor learning, lower productivity and poor maternal and child health outcomes and, depending on the type of NTD, complications and disabilities such as blindness, swelling of limbs, organ failure or brain damage. NTD elimination and control efforts are recognized as one of the most cost-effective interventions in global health today. In addition to preventing and reducing disease and disability, NTD elimination and control efforts help maximize the impact of cross-sectoral programmes. These programmes include education, water and sanitation, food safety, nutrition and climate change adaptation. It is critical to work across sectors and leverage integrated approaches at a time when donors, policy-makers and programme managers must improve efficiency to achieve scale and impact with limited resources. This publication underscores the importance of tackling NTDs in order to help alleviate suffering, reduce poverty and ensure the continued social and economic growth of the region. As a joint production by the World Health Organization Regional Offices for South-East Asia and the Western Pacific, the Asian Development Bank and the Global Network for Neglected Tropical Diseases at the Sabin Vaccine Institute, this publication highlights the need for greater crosssectoral partnership and additional investments. The Asia Pacific region has achieved remarkable success in tackling these debilitating diseases under the leadership of governments in endemic countries and with the support of partners worldwide. Lymphatic filariasis has been eliminated in three countries and 10 others are awaiting verification of elimination or are in the surveillance stage before verification by 2016. WHO targets for deworming school-age children have been reached in five countries, and trachoma elimination is expected to be achieved in six countries by 2016."--Page iv

As the culminating volume in the DCP3 series, volume 9 will provide an overview of DCP3 findings and methods, a summary of messages and substantive lessons to be taken from DCP3, and a further discussion of cross-cutting and synthesizing topics across the first eight volumes. The introductory chapters (1-3) in this volume take as their starting point the elements of the Essential Packages presented in the overview chapters of each volume. First, the chapter on intersectoral policy priorities for health includes fiscal and intersectoral policies and assembles a subset of the population policies and applies strict criteria for a low-income setting in order to propose a "highest-priority" essential package. Second, the chapter on packages of care and delivery platforms for universal health coverage (UHC) includes health sector interventions, primarily clinical and public health services, and uses the same approach to propose a highest priority package of interventions and policies that meet similar criteria, provides cost estimates, and describes a pathway to UHC.

In the United States, some populations suffer from far greater disparities in health than others. Those disparities are caused not only by fundamental differences in health status across segments of the population, but also because of inequities in factors that impact health status, so-called determinants of health. Only part of an individual's health status depends on his or her behavior and choice; community-wide problems like poverty, unemployment, poor education, inadequate housing, poor public transportation, interpersonal violence, and decaying neighborhoods also contribute to health inequities, as well as the historic and ongoing interplay of structures, policies, and norms that shape lives. When these factors are not optimal in a community, it does not mean they are intractable: such inequities can be mitigated by social policies that can shape health in powerful ways. Communities in Action: Pathways to Health Equity seeks to delineate the causes of and the solutions to health inequities in the United States. This report focuses on what communities can do to promote health equity, what actions are needed by the many and varied stakeholders that are part of communities or support them, as well as the root causes and structural barriers that need to be overcome.

Public discussion of global healthcare issues is dominated by those who believe that top-down, government-driven interventions are the solution to the myriad health problems suffered by people in less developed countries. This thinking is responsible for a plethora of harmful policies, ranging from a drive towards socialized healthcare systems, to calls for the centralization and semi-nationalization of pharmaceutical research and development, to impractical but grandiose UN-sponsored schemes for tackling HIV/AIDS and malaria. In spite of the abysmal track record of top-down approaches, non-governmental organizations and UN agencies continue to promote them, to the detriment of the private sector, economic development, and human health. The resulting politicization of diseases such as HIV/AIDS has led to a diversion of resources away from more easily treatable diseases that affect more people. Meanwhile, cost-effective and simple interventions such as vaccination are being subordinated to other more politically correct diseases. This centralizing mindset has also resulted in many governments in less developed countries attempting to plan and control universal healthcare systems, which has encouraged rationing, inequitable access, and entrenched corruption. It has also seriously undermined the effectiveness of overseas development aid. Moreover, the politicization of diseases such as HIV/AIDS has led to a diversion of resources away from more easily treatable diseases that affect more people. As a result, cost-effective and simple interventions are neglected by donors. There has to date been little public discussion of the role of markets and their underlying institutions--property rights and the rule of law--in improving human health. Economic growth and globalization has led to unprecedented improvements in human health. The challenge is to enable the poorest countries to take part more fully in this process. This work demonstrates how current thinking is flawed and proposes practical ways of improving health in lower income countries.

In Poverty and Neglected Tropical Diseases in the American Rural South, Christine Crudo Blackburn and Macey T. Lively study regions of the United States rarely acknowledged by the average American. These are regions of extreme poverty in the rural American South where a mixture of historical discrimination, structural discrimination, lack of opportunities, and decaying infrastructure conspire to create an environment conducive to chronic, debilitating diseases known as Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTDs). Blackburn and Lively explore the conditions that allow NTDs to thrive in a wealthy nation like the United States when such diseases are typically associated with the poorest communities in Africa, Asia, and South America. Poverty and Neglected Tropical Diseases pulls back the curtain on the reality of poverty and disease in America and tell the story of failing sanitation infrastructure, the lack of clean water, the inability to access healthcare, and the lack of financial security through the eyes of those living it every day.

Why do diseases of poverty afflict more people in wealthy countries than in the developing world? In 2011, Dr. Peter J. Hotez relocated to Houston to launch Baylor’s National School of Tropical Medicine. He was shocked to discover that a number of neglected diseases often associated with developing countries were widespread in impoverished Texas communities. Despite the United States’ economic prowess and first-world status, an estimated 12 million Americans living at the poverty level currently suffer from at least one neglected tropical disease, or NTD. Hotez concluded that the world’s neglected diseases—which include tuberculosis, hookworm infection, lymphatic filariasis, Chagas disease, and leishmaniasis—are born first and foremost of extreme poverty. In this book, Hotez describes a new global paradigm known as “blue marble health,” through which he asserts that poor people living in wealthy countries account for most of the world’s poverty-related illness. He explores the current state of neglected diseases in such disparate countries as Mexico, South Korea, Argentina, Australia, the United States, Japan, and Nigeria. By crafting public policy and relying on global partnerships to control or eliminate some of the world’s worst poverty-related illnesses, Hotez believes, it is possible to eliminate life-threatening disease while at the same time creating unprecedented opportunities for science and diplomacy. Clear, compassionate, and timely, Blue Marble Health is a must-read for leaders in global health, tropical medicine, and international development, along with anyone committed to helping the millions of people who are caught in the desperate cycle of poverty and disease.

"The presence, or absence, of neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) can be seen as a proxy for poverty and for the success of interventions aimed at reducing poverty. Today, coverage of the public-health interventions recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO) against NTDs may be interpreted as a proxy for universal health coverage and shared prosperity - in short, a proxy for coverage against neglect. As the world's focus shifts from development to sustainable development, from poverty eradication to shared prosperity, and from disease-specific goals to universal health coverage, control of NTDs will assume an important role towards the target of achieving universal health coverage, including individual financial risk protection. Success in overcoming NTDs is a "litmus test" for universal health coverage against NTDs in endemic countries. The first WHO report on NTDs (2010) set the scene by presenting the evidence for how these interventions had produced results. The second report (2013) assessed the progress made in deploying them and detailed the obstacles to their implementation. This third report analyses for the first time the investments needed to achieve the scale up of implementation required to achieve the targets of the WHO Roadmap on NTDs and universal coverage against NTDs. INVESTING TO OVERCOME THE GLOBAL IMPACT OF NEGLECTED TROPICAL DISEASES presents an investment strategy for NTDs and analyses the specific investment case for prevention, control, elimination and eradication of 12 of the 17 NTDs. Such an analysis is justified following the adoption by the Sixty-sixth World Health Assembly in 2013 of resolution WHA6612 on neglected tropical diseases, which called for sufficient and predictable funding to achieve the Roadmap's targets and sustain control efforts. The report cautions, however, that it is wise investment and not investment alone that will yield success. The report registers progress and challenges and signals those that lie ahead. Climate change is expected to increase the spread of several vector-borne NTDs, notably dengue, transmission of which is directly influenced by temperature, rainfall, relative humidity and climate variability primarily through their effects on the vector. Investments in vector-borne diseases will avoid the potentially catastrophic expenditures associated with their control. The presence of NTDs will thereby signal an early warning system for climate-sensitive diseases. The ultimate goal is to deliver enhanced and equitable interventions to the most marginalized populations in the context of a changing public-health and investment landscape to ensure that all peoples affected by NTDs have an opportunity to lead healthier and wealthier lives."--Publisher's description.

One-in-seven adults and one-in-five children in the United States live in poverty. Individuals and families living in povertyÊnot only lack basic, material necessities, but they are also disproportionally afflicted by many social and economic challenges. Some of these challenges include the increased possibility of an unstable home situation, inadequate education opportunities at all levels, and a high chance of crime and victimization. Given this growing social, economic, and political concern, The Hamilton Project at Brookings asked academic experts to develop policy proposals confronting the various challenges of AmericaÕs poorest citizens, and to introduce innovative approaches to addressing poverty.ÊWhen combined, the scope and impact of these proposals has the potential to vastly improve the lives of the poor. The resulting 14 policy memos are included in The Hamilton ProjectÕs Policies to Address Poverty in America. The main areas of focus include promoting early childhood development, supporting disadvantaged youth, building worker skills, and improving safety net and work support.