Week 2: Global Health ~6

Global health is the understanding and promoting of health in a cross-cultural and interdisciplinary context.

Goal: Improving health for all people in all nations by promoting wellness and eliminating avoidable disease, disability, and death.

It includes the study, research, and health care practice with a focus on improving health and health equity for populations worldwide.

Outside of health care; epidemiology, sociology, economic disparities, public policy, environmental factors, cultural studies, anthropology, engineering, etc.

• Stresses the commonality of our humanity and an approach to health which requires a collective (partnership-based) action.

• Historically: Global “north” provided health care to people in the Global “south” usually -by those with means and power- for those in need. (Medical missions, colonial perspectives)

• In Ecuador our partners call us ‘blancos’- not necessarily because of skin color as our groups is usually quite diverse, because of education and power.

• The global north has systematically contributed to economic disempowerment of many countries/peoples.

• Goals now include a focus on improving the upstream determinants of health, health equity and solidarity.

- organization for economic co-operation and development

- cancer survival

- heart attack, and stroke survival

- medicating those with long term chronic conditions

- tool to quantify health loss from hundreds of diseases, injuries, and risk factors

- health systems can be improved and disparities eliminated

- prevalence of given disease or risk factor and the relative harm it causes

- compare the effects of different diseases to prioritize prevention, research, and funding

- pandemic and communicable diseases

- environmental factors

- economic disparities and access to health care

- political factors

- noncommunicable disease

- animal health, food sourcing, supply

1) provide for universal coverage and remove barrier costs

2) invest in primary care systems to ensure high value services are equitably available in all communities

3) reduce administrative burdens that divert time, efforts, and spending from health improvement efforts

4) invest in social services, especially for children and working-age adults

- measures the amount of life lost in a population as a result of premature death or disability, the gap between current health status and an ideal health situation

- DALYs were used in the global burden of disease study to enable mortality and morbidity comparisons made across countries

- 1 DALY= one lost year of healthy life (YLL- years lost of life) -- due to premature mortality (YLD)- Years Lost due to Disability