Critical Issues In Global Health

This compendium of essays written by international health experts describes the opportunities and hazards in improving the health of the world's people. Included is a chapter by Harvard's Jessica Stern on extremist terrorism as a global threat.

“I can easily see this book being the ‘go-to’ text for students of global health. It provides a comprehensive overview of globalisation’s impact on health and wellbeing.” Professor David McCoy, United Nations University - International Institute for Global Health, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. “This book, which is based on rich and diverse empirical case-studies, highlights the importance of understanding global health as a multi-disciplinary field.” Haim Yacobi, Professor of Development Planning, Bartlett Development Planning Unit, University College London, UK “This book is relevant for everyone that would like to have an overview of current issues of global health in the context of the globalization era.” Ari Probandari, Professor of Public Health at Universitas Sebelas Maret, Indonesia Global health challenges are evolving profoundly. Today public health practitioners must recognize the importance of global changes for human health and health policy at all levels. Fully revised and restructured, this ground-breaking title returns in its third edition to offer students and practitioners an accessible and contemporary exploration of globalization and global health. The book includes critical reflection on global changes, with practical learning activities which help you explore the central debates. Chapters cover key issues, and emerging trends in global policy, such as: •Social change in the 21st century, including social media and technology •The emergence of global health governance and its colonial heritage •Trade and its implications on health, policy, and disease •Global environmental change including climate, biodiversity, and global policy responses •Infectious disease including pandemic trends and global policy responses •Non-communicable diseases and the risks of alcohol, food, and tobacco •Governance and the state, including non-governmental actors The third edition of Globalization and Global Health is an ideal resource for students of public health and health policy, public health practitioners and policy makers. Contributors: Carolyn Stephens, Benjamin Hawkins, Marco Liverani, Don Brown, Chris Holden, Aloisa Katsande, Neil Spicer, Preslava Stoeva Understanding Public Health is an innovative series published by Open University Press in collaboration with the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, where it is used as a key learning resource for postgraduate programmes. It provides self-directed learning covering the major issues in public health affecting low, middle and high income countries. Series Editors: Rosalind Plowman and Nicki Thorogood.

In 2015, building on the advances of the Millennium Development Goals, the United Nations adopted Sustainable Development Goals that include an explicit commitment to achieve universal health coverage by 2030. However, enormous gaps remain between what is achievable in human health and where global health stands today, and progress has been both incomplete and unevenly distributed. In order to meet this goal, a deliberate and comprehensive effort is needed to improve the quality of health care services globally. Crossing the Global Quality Chasm: Improving Health Care Worldwide focuses on one particular shortfall in health care affecting global populations: defects in the quality of care. This study reviews the available evidence on the quality of care worldwide and makes recommendations to improve health care quality globally while expanding access to preventive and therapeutic services, with a focus in low-resource areas. Crossing the Global Quality Chasm emphasizes the organization and delivery of safe and effective care at the patient/provider interface. This study explores issues of access to services and commodities, effectiveness, safety, efficiency, and equity. Focusing on front line service delivery that can directly impact health outcomes for individuals and populations, this book will be an essential guide for key stakeholders, governments, donors, health systems, and others involved in health care.

In an era of rapid and extensive globalisation, the world faces a wide range of transboundary problems that require effective collective action. Key among these are threats to human health that do not recognise national borders, and include emerging and re-emerging infections, rising rates of chronic diseases, inadequate access to affordable and safe medicines, spreading anti-microbial resistance and the health effects of climate change. These threats require a transnational response and thus pose significant challenges to global health governance, as well as to long established notions of national sovereignty. This book investigates the neglected question of the impact of a rising Asia on the management of transboundary health problems. The chapters examine the role played by Asia in the governance of a range of global health issues, from development assistance in health, to global health instruments dealing with tobacco control and disease outbreaks, to health research and knowledge products, and the book concludes by examining the broad themes of a rising Asia’s role in the complexity of global health governance. The various analyses are tied together by a common focus on Asian countries’ use of the sovereignty principle, and seek to understand how traditional notions of national sovereignty can both clash with, and enhance, governance objectives in global health. In addition, the contributors examine the interaction between global, regional and domestic institutions, and present current ideas in Asia on the challenge of governing global health. With an inter-disciplinary approach that combines international relations, public policy and public health, this book will be invaluable to both scholars and policy makers working in these fields, as well as Asian politics, social policy and governance more generally.

What can be done about the poor state of global health? How are global health challenges intimately linked to the global political economy and to issues of social justice? What are our responsibilities and how can we improve global health? Global Health and Global Health Ethics addresses these questions from the perspective of a range of disciplines, including medicine, philosophy and the social sciences. Topics covered range from infectious diseases, climate change and the environment to trade, foreign aid, food security and biotechnology. Each chapter identifies the ways in which we exacerbate poor global health and discusses what we should do to remedy the factors identified. Together, they contribute to a deeper understanding of the challenges we face, and propose new national and global policies. Offering a wealth of empirical data and both practical and theoretical guidance, this is a key resource for bioethicists, public health practitioners and philosophers.

A people-centered approach to global health When People Come First critically assesses the expanding field of global health. It brings together an international and interdisciplinary group of scholars to address the medical, social, political, and economic dimensions of the global health enterprise through vivid case studies and bold conceptual work. The book demonstrates the crucial role of ethnography as an empirical lantern in global health, arguing for a more comprehensive, people-centered approach. Topics include the limits of technological quick fixes in disease control, the moral economy of global health science, the unexpected effects of massive treatment rollouts in resource-poor contexts, and how right-to-health activism coalesces with the increased influence of the pharmaceutical industry on health care. The contributors explore the altered landscapes left behind after programs scale up, break down, or move on. We learn that disease is really never just one thing, technology delivery does not equate with care, and biology and technology interact in ways we cannot always predict. The most effective solutions may well be found in people themselves, who consistently exceed the projections of experts and the medical-scientific, political, and humanitarian frameworks in which they are cast. When People Come First sets a new research agenda in global health and social theory and challenges us to rethink the relationships between care, rights, health, and economic futures.

The Handbook of Global Health Policy provides adefinitive source of the key areas in the field. It examines theethical and practical dimensions of new and current policy modelsand their effect on the future development of global health andpolicy. Maps out key debates and policy structures involved in allareas of global health policy Isolates and examines new policy initiatives in global healthpolicy Provides an examination of these initiatives that captures boththe ethical/critical as well as practical/empirical dimensionsinvolved with global health policy, global health policy formationand its implications Confronts the theoretical and practical questions of ‘whogets what and why’ and ‘how, when andwhere?’ Captures the views of a wide array of scholars andpractitioners, including from low- and middle-income countries, toensure an inclusive view of current policy debates

This contributed volume motivates and educates across fields about the major challenges in global health and the interdisciplinary strategies for solving them. Once the purview of public health, medicine, and nursing, global health is now an interdisciplinary endeavor that relies on expertise from anthropology to urban planning, economics to political science, geography to engineering. Scholars and practitioners in the health sciences are seeking knowledge from a wider array of fields while, simultaneously, students across majors have a growing interest in humanitarian issues and are pursuing knowledge and skills for impacting well-being across geographic and disciplinary borders. Using a highly practical approach and illustrative case studies, each chapter of this edited volume frames a particular problem and illustrates how interdisciplinary problem-solving can address the greatest challenges in global health today. In doing so, each chapter spurs critical and creative thinking about emergent and future problems. Topics explored among the chapters include: Transforming health and well-being for refugees and their communities Governing to deliver safe and affordable water The global crisis of antimicrobial resistance Low-tech, high-impact interventions to prevent neonatal mortality Communicating taboo health subjects Alternative housing delivery for slum upgrades Transforming Global Health: Interdisciplinary Challenges, Perspectives, and Strategies is a vital and timely compendium for any reader invested in improving global health equity. It will find an audience with researchers, practitioners, policymakers, and program implementers, as well as undergraduate and graduate students and faculty in the fields of global health, public health, and the health sciences.