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Global Health
Population Health Field
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The branch of public health concerned with the health of populations worldwide rather than within any single country. The World Health Organization's Health Promotion Glossary of Terms 2021 defines it as achieving health equity at a global level by addressing the transnational health issues, determinants, and the interventions and formal structures which are beyond the control of the institutions of individual countries. Its scope therefore reaches cross-border threats such as pandemics alongside the worldwide distribution of the conditions that shape health, and its defining commitment, on the WHO's framing, is that equity in health belongs to all people worldwide.
Facts
Central QuestionHow can the transnational determinants of health be addressed so that people everywhere, regardless of the country they live in, can attain equity in health? 1 Key DebateA single university-based research institute, the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, now produces the Global Burden of Disease estimates that guide much global health funding and policy, a role historically associated with the World Health Organization itself; whether an independent academic institute or the United Nations health agency should be the authoritative source for global health statistics is a live institutional debate. 2 Key DebateGlobal health is widely regarded as having grown out of the colonial era international health tradition, and scholars have called for its decolonization, describing the field's own ecosystem as functioning like a feudal structure serving a small group of high income country institutions. 3 Key DebateGlobal health's own defining methodological dispute is whether limited funding should run vertically, targeted at single diseases with easily measured results, or horizontally, strengthening the general health systems that every disease-specific program ultimately depends on. Vertical programs are easier to fund and to show dramatic results from, but critics hold that they create parallel funding and management structures, distort national health priorities and do little to strengthen the overall health system, which in turn has been blamed for slow progress on health goals such as maternal and child mortality that depend on strong general services. A proposed diagonal approach, pursuing disease-specific goals by means that also strengthen the wider health system, has been offered as a reconciliation, but the underlying tension over how global health money should be spent remains unresolved. 4 Cross-Tradition Connections
Associated With
The paper's definition is credited with marking global health's naming shift away from the older term international health.
In Branch
Includes
Sources
1. Health Promotion Glossary of Terms 2021
World Health Organization, 2021Entry: Global healthQuote, Entry: Global health
Achieving health equity at a global level by addressing the transnational health issues, determinants, and the interventions and formal structures which are beyond the control of the institutions of individual countries.
1. Health Promotion Glossary of Terms 2021
World Health Organization, 2021In Branch: Public Health, Entry: Global health, scopeView the Source 2. Wikipedia: Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation
WikipediaLead sectionQuote, Lead section
The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) is a public health research institute of the University of Washington in Seattle.
2. Wikipedia: Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation
WikipediaIncludes: Institute for Health Metrics and EvaluationView the Source 3. Wikipedia: Global Health
WikipediaHistory sectionQuote, History section
Global health as a discipline is frequently regarded to be of imperial origin, and there have been calls for its decolonisation.
4. The diagonal approach to Global Fund financing: a cure for the broader malaise of health systems? (Ooms et al., 2008)
Globalization and Health (BioMed Central), 2008Background section, openingQuote, Background section, opening
The potentially destructive polarisation between vertical and horizontal financing of health services in developing countries has found its way to the pages of Foreign Affairs and the Financial Times.
LSHTM Website
London School of Hygiene and Tropical MedicineAssociated With: London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, Introducing LSHTM, global health researchView the Source Wikipedia: Expanded Programme on Immunization
Wikipedia: Christopher J.L. Murray
Resolve to Save Lives: Dr. Tom Frieden Biography
The Lancet: Towards a Common Definition of Global Health (Koplan et al., 2009)
The LancetIncludes: Publication of Towards a Common Definition of Global HealthView the Source The Lancet: Towards a Common Definition of Global Health (Koplan et al., 2009)
The LancetAssociated With: Publication of Towards a Common Definition of Global HealthView the Source PMC: Welcome to Implementation Science (Eccles and Mittman, 2006)
Implementation Science (BioMed Central), via PubMed CentralAssociated With: Implementation ScienceView the Source Wikipedia: Health Emergencies Programme
WikipediaAssociated With: Public Health Emergency PreparednessView the Source Reader Challenges (0 open reader challenges)
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