Overview of Global Health

Definition

Global health is a broad term that entails promoting health and preventing and treating diseases for all people throughout the globe. It transcends geographical, national and cultural boundaries by targeting populations in all countries. Global health differs from public health in that it focuses on the entire global community versus a specific country or community. Its goal is to protect the world's population against threats to health while delivering cost-effective services. Global health aims to seek broad solutions including partnerships, frameworks, policies, regulations and laws that can be implemented through government and communities.

Issues within global health have a global impact with the goal of seeking a global solution. With economic growth, rapid and uneven paced globalisation and technological development, more health issues are having a global impact. Some examples include, health disparities, internet abuse, spread of sedentary lifestyle, lack of physical activity, rates of substance abuse, obesity, depression and mental health issues. Global solutions are not in the form of medical interventions, but in the form of policies, frameworks, laws and regulations are needed for these global issues.

According to The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, the following are the top current issues within global health:

1. Long COVID
2. Mental health
3. Impact on climate change
4. Cardiovascular disease
5. Lower respiratory infection
6. Poverty's role in health
7. Health systems strengthening
8. Diabetes
9. Road injuries
10. Dementia
11. Population aging

Low-Resource Countries

The ultimate goal of global health is to promote health, improve health equity and reduce health disparities. Research shows the lower the individuals' socioeconomic position, the worse their health outcome is. Because of this, lower resource countries are particularly susceptible to poor health outcomes. Some staggering statistics on low-resource countries are listed below:

• over 2 billion people lack access to clean water

• over 4.2 billion people lack access to safely managed sanitary services
• over 3 billion people lack basic handwashing facilities
• 41 million people die each year from noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) (equal to 74% of global deaths)
  • 77% of all NCDs deaths are in low-and middle-income countries

• Most common NCDs
  1. Cardiovascular disease (17.9 annually)
  2. cancers (9.3 million)
  3. chronic respiratory disease (4.1 million)
  4. diabetes (2.0 million)

• Of all NCD deaths, 77% are in low- and middle-income countries.

Determinants of Health

Health outcomes of individuals and communities result from a combination of many factors. The environment and circumstances that people live play a large role in whether they are healthy or not. These factors are referred to as the determinants of health and can be grouped into the following categories:

1. the social and economic environment
2. the physical environment
3. the individual's characteristics and behaviours

The following list expands on these categories and demonstrates how each relate positively or negatively to health outcomes.

• Income and social status:
  • higher social status and high income correlated to better health
  • larger the gap between the wealthiest and poorest people, the greater the differences in health
• Education:
  • lower education levels are correlated with poorer health, less self-confidence and more stress
• Physical environment;
  • safe water/houses/communities/roads all attribute to good health
  • clean air, healthy workplaces, employment lead to healthier outcomes
• Social support networks:
  • more support from families, friends and communities relates to better health
  • customs, beliefs and traditions affects health
• Genetics:
  • plays a role in determining likelihood of developing certain illnesses

• Personal behaviour:
  • healthy eating, staying active, smoking and drinking all affect health

• Health services:
  • access and the use of services that prevent and treat disease influences health
• Gender:
  • different types of diseases affect men and women differently and at different stages of life

SDG

its heart are the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which are an urgent call for action by all countries - developed and developing - in a global partnership. They recognize that ending poverty and other deprivations must go hand-in-hand with strategies that improve health and education, reduce inequality, and spur economic growth – all while tackling climate change and working to preserve our oceans and forests.

The SDGs build on decades of work by countries and the UN, including the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs

https://sdgs.un.org/goals