The report, Health and the Millennium Development Goals, presents data on progress on the health goals and targets and looks beyond the numbers to analyse why improvements in health have been slow and to suggest what must be done to change this. The report points to weak and inequitable health systems as a key obstacle, including particularly a crisis in health personnel and the urgent need for sustainable health financing.
Equity in Health
Health and the MDGs
World Health Organisation
Health and the millennium development goals
This report from the World Health Organization (WHO) asserts that if trends established in the 1990s continue, the majority of developing countries will not achieve the health Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by 2015. None of the poorest regions of the developing world is on track to meet the child mortality target, while maternal mortality has only declined in countries where levels were already relatively low. Targets for reversing HIV and AIDS and reducing incidence of malaria, tuberculosis and other communicable diseases, remain a huge challenge in sub-Saharan Africa.
Health as the Pulse of the New Urban Agenda
World Health Organisation: United Nations Conference on Housing and Sustainable Urban Development, 2016
For the Third United Nations Conference on Housing and Sustainable Urban Development, Habitat III agenda for the next 20 years of urban development to succeed, the health of the nearly four billion people who dwell in cities today must be a central concern. Decisions related to urban planning and governance can create or exacerbate major health risks – or they can foster healthier environments and lifestyles, that in turn reduce the risks of both communicable and noncommunicable diseases. The New Urban Agenda adopted at Habitat III, clarifies that health is not only about the provision of health care services, recognising that the shape and form of urban development influences the health of city residents. Those who design, plan, build and govern cities exercise great influence over the basic ingredients of a healthy life, including access to decent housing, clean air and water, nutritious food, safe transport and mobility, opportunities for physical activity, and protection from injury risks and toxic pollutants. Cities that offer these fundamentals can dramatically reduce the incidence and associated costs of a wide range of diseases – from heart disease and stroke, to vector-borne diseases and childhood illnesses – while improving health equity for those most often exposed to such risks, such as children, older people, women, people with disabilities, and the poor. Cities that offer health-enabling environments and coordinated support for healthy lifestyles can ensure that their citizenry are not only healthier and happier, but more economically productive, with far lower costs to both families and societies due to work-related illnesses and injuries. This paper clarifies these and other critically important connections between health and urban policies. It also provides a detailed vision for integrating health into urban planning and governance, and offers practical guidance on health-promoting approaches for those tasked with implementing the New Urban Agenda in the years to come.
Health Care Reform and the Crisis of HIV and AIDS in South Africa
South Africa's transition to a democracy - characterized by a liberal constitution, a bill of rights, and attempts to pursue reconciliation rather than revenge - has been widely admired as a paradigm shift in human relationships from seemingly inevitable conflict to a negotiated peace. The challenge of narrowing racial disparities in health care is a formidable one for the new government. The high rates of infection with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and full-blown AIDS add another layer of complexity. This review evaluates health care reform and responses to the pandemic of HIV and AIDS during the first decade of the new democracy.
Health challenges in Africa and the way forward
Kirigia JM and Barry SP: International Archives Of Medicine, 18 December 2008
Africa is confronted by a heavy burden of communicable and non-communicable diseases. Cost-effective interventions that can prevent the disease burden exist but coverage is too low due to health systems weaknesses. This editorial reviews the challenges related to leadership and governance; health workforce; medical products, vaccines and technologies; information; financing; and services delivery. It also provides an overview of the orientations provided by the WHO Regional Committee for Africa for overcoming those challenges. It cautions that it might not be possible to adequately implement those orientations without a concerted fight against corruption, sustained domestic and external investment in social sectors, and enabling macroeconomic and political (i.e. internally secure) environment.
Health challenges in Africa and the way forward
Kirigia JM and Barry SP: International Archives of Medicine, 18 December 2008
Africa is confronted by a heavy burden of communicable and non-communicable diseases. Cost-effective interventions that can prevent the disease burden exist but coverage is too low due to health systems weaknesses. This editorial reviews the challenges related to leadership and governance; health workforce; medical products, vaccines and technologies; information; financing; and services delivery. It also provides an overview of the orientations provided by the WHO Regional Committee for Africa for overcoming those challenges. It cautions that it might not be possible to adequately implement those orientations without a concerted fight against corruption, sustained domestic and external investment in social sectors, and enabling macroeconomic and political (i.e. internally secure) environment.
Health civil society issues statement on the struggle for health
"Health civil society groups in Zimbabwe and east and southern Africa, recognising the initiative of health civil society in the region met in Harare on the 13th of October 2005 to discuss our struggles for health. We agreed on the following resolutions.
We are united, together with health civil society in the region, around the core principles and values of:
- the fundamental right to health and life
- equity and social justice
- people-led and people-centred health systems
- public over commercial interests in health (health before profits)
- people-led and grassroots-driven regional integration."
Further details: /newsletter/id/31174
Health disparities and the body politic: A series of international symposia
Harvard School of Public Health
What we today term "health disparities" launched the modern public health movement in the nineteenth century. Yet only in the past two decades have governments begun to focus explicitly on the deep-rooted social determinants of health and disease. What are governments' responsibilities to reduce these disparities? The last of the three symposia included input from a southern African country in examining how official statistics can shed light on modern health inequities.
Health Equity from the African Perspective: 2012 Hugh R. Leavell Lecture
Haimanot RT: 13th World Congress of Public Health, Addis Ababa, April 24, 2012
The World Federation of Public Health Associations honooured the author with the Leavell Lectureship Award and this paper is the speech given by the awardee on “Health Equity, from the African Perspective” at the Congress. He raises that addressing equity calls for African countries to break the vicious cycle of poverty and ill-health; to urgently address the water, sanitation and hygiene crisis; to mobilize adequate budget allocation to the health sector and provide social protection for poor people; to strengthen the capacity of health systems to provide effective and equitable quality health care services; to stabilise health personnel; to generate evidence and build transparency and accountability in the use of domestic and externally generated resources allocated for health. All these issues he noted need to be backed by political commitment to make health equity a priority.
Health equity information resource
"Awareness of health equity as an international issue has reached the point where sufficient momentum has built up to stimulate the types of collaborative action that are necessary to monitor and advocate for health equity worldwide." (Whitehead M, Dahlgren G, Gilson L. Developing the policy response to inequities in health: a global perspective. In: Evans et al (eds), 2001). Whitehead and Evans argue for practical initiatives including enlarging the health equity policy community, by building or strengthening networks of researchers and advocates. As a step along these lines an information resource has been published detailing organisations, people, networks and resources relevant to work on health inequities, covering those with a strong interest in health inequities, as well as outlining the health equity interest of some of the large international and funding organisations. The emphasis in this document is on low and middle income countries since work regarding health inequalities in the richer industrialised countries is advanced in comparison.