Learn more about Global Health

What is global health?

Health is a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.¹ Much research and funding within global health is geared toward the prevention and treatment of diseases, such as malaria, HIV/AIDS, malnutrition, and tuberculosis. Prevention involves education and vaccination; higher levels of education have been shown to improve health by creating better access to health services, better jobs, and knowledge of health issues.² Treatment involves healthcare and medicine that allows the patient to recover.

Who is most affected?

When we look at the health of populations in developed and developing countries, we see significant inequalities. For example, in North and South America in 2007, men had an average life expectancy of 73 and women 78. In Africa, due to the impact of disease and malnutrition, the average life expectancy for men was only 51 and for women only 54.³ That is more than a 20 year difference!

Another example is vaccination rates. These vary among countries, but the lowest vaccination rates occur in some of the poorest countries in the world. Niger has a measles vaccination rate of 47% of all children, while Somalia has a rate of 34%. The world average is 82%.⁴

Find out more about vaccinations and why they can be life-saving by watching Why do kids need shots?, below.

Where are the consequences felt?

The Global Health Atlas is a great place to start learning more about areas of the world that are impacted by global health issues.

Malaria: Niger has the highest overall malaria mortality rate in the world, with more than 2 of every 1,000 people in its population dying of the disease. A Nigerian is almost 20 times more likely to have malaria than someone from Madagascar, and more than 50 times more likely than a Cambodian. ⁵ In fact, 80% of all malaria cases occur in tropical Africa. The cost of malaria treatment per patient is between $0.08 and $5.30.⁶

HIV/AIDS: Swaziland has the highest rate of HIV/AIDS in the world, with almost 25% of the population infected.⁷ Almost 70% of people around the globe living with HIV/AIDS are in sub-Saharan Africa.⁸ Treatment with generic pills generally costs $300 per patient per year in the developing world.⁹

Malnutrition: More than one-third of all child deaths are a result of malnutrition. Especially when it affects children under the age of 2, malnutrition can lead to stunted growth and decreased brain capacity.¹⁰

Tuberculosis: Sierra Leone has the highest rates of tuberculosis with 1.2% of its overall population infected. A person from Sierra Leone is more than 7 times more likely to get tuberculosis than a person living in Thailand, and is 800 times more likely than a person in Germany.¹¹

Why is global health important?

Health issues have serious consequences for a huge amount of the world’s population. Over 11 million children in sub-Saharan Africa were orphaned by HIV/AIDS in 2007 alone.¹² Tuberculosis kills 5,000 people every day and nearly 2 million people each year.¹³

Aside from human costs, there are environmental costs related to disease. In order to control malaria, for example, some developing countries have used DDT, a powerful insecticide that can cause serious health problems for both humans and wildlife. DDT was a major reason for the decline in the population of birds such as the bald eagle, the brown pelican, and the peregrine falcon in North America in the 1950s and 1960s.¹⁴

Citations

¹ http://apps.who.int/gb/bd/PDF/bd47/EN/constitution-en.pdf

² http://www.prb.org/pdf/ImprovingtheHealthWorld_Eng.pdf, page 17

³ http://www.who.int/whosis/whostat/EN_WHS09_Full.pdf, page 44

⁴ http://go.worldbank.org/D6X55ERO40

⁵ http://www.who.int/whosis/whostat/EN_WHS09_Full.pdf, page 26

⁶ http://www.microbiologybytes.com/introduction/Malaria.html

⁷ http://www.who.int/whosis/whostat/EN_WHS09_Full.pdf, page 22

⁸ http://www.avert.org/hiv-aids-africa.htm

⁹ http://www.avert.org/generic.htm

¹⁰ http://www.worldhunger.org/articles/Learn/world%20hunger%20facts%202002.htm

¹¹ http://www.globalhealthfacts.org/topic.jsp?i=17

¹² http://data.unaids.org/pub/GlobalReport/2008/JC1511_GR08_ExecutiveSummary_en.pdf, page 21

¹³ http://www.pih.org/issues/tb.html

¹⁴ http://www.fws.gov/contaminants/Info/DDT.html