Global health relates
to global issues that affect
the way we think, build
health and healthcare systems.
And that could touch to the many dimensions of
society. from migrations to
economic determinants to the, the potential
of new technology such as information and communication technologies.
And all these will interact and influence the way health and health care is, is,
organized.
I think one of the interesting and important issues of
the emergence of information society, in the field of health
and health care, is really the potential to better connect
the patient, or the citizen, to health and healthcare issues.
And my feeling is that this is going to be
one of the major trends in the development of health
systems globally. >> I think that global health is is a
discipline which allows the collection of information
data related to health worldwide. It allows
collection of epidemiological data therefore information helping, the
understanding of health in different contexts, in different regions,
in different income countries, etcetera. and therefore
puts the basis for for understanding the better, the
best way to prevent diseases worldwide. I think that for
realizing global health the values that are needed are,
transparency, scientific rigor, multidisciplinarity,
and equity in sharing.
>> To me global health is something
that really emerge in relationship with globalization.
You know, at the time when social, political,
economic changes were taking place at a global level.
And that's when this global health as a broad, entity came up.
And that's important in the sense or so, because it means it's an, it's an issue.
global health must be really an interdisciplinary field to me.
And that's why, as a sociologist, I'm interested in it.
But it really refers to the fact that it's not only medical public health people,
but that the social sciences, anthropology, sociology, are
also important in this field of global health.
Because then they can provide
insights, knowledge about those issues at a global level.
>> My view of global health comes with the word global.
It's about the earth. It's about the globe.
It's about mankind living on this earth.
We should see this is a perspective of sustainable development, and not forget
that we live on an earth, we have to take care of that.
>> For me, the definition of global health really falls into two parts.
The first part is interdisciplinarity, and
how people working in the area of health can come from different disciplines.
sociology, economics, doctors.
Myself I'm not a doctor working in this area, so how can my expertise
in management, in health systems from an
organizational perspective, compliment the work of, of specialists?
In the areas of diabetes or chronic
conditions who, who deal with treating patients.
The second aspect
of, of the definition for me is global, is beyond borders.
In that, we live in a globalized world and health problems are also globalized.
And not only because they may be communicable, such as swine
flu, avian flu, or HIV AIDS, where these diseases know no boundaries.
But also, how do noncommunicable diseases, such as diabetes
or cardiovascular disease, how are they linked to globalization?
And issues of trade and, and the food markets, and
that one country alone can't deal with
these problems and that we need global solutions.
>> Well I think that for me the most
important are the three major challenge of today's global health.
The first is the unfinished agenda of
the infectious disease, reproductive health and malnutrition.
The second is actually the growing burden of noncommunicable disease.
And the third is the challenge of globalization by itself, with
all these changes linked to climate change or changing trade
policies. And with these resulting into complete
unfair distribution between health risks, and actually
resources to compensate or to address those health risk.
And to me, this is the most important that we have to cover today, meaning that we
have to have a global health change in the systems and in the global governments.
>> There is a cynical way to describe global health, is like a
pot and you put together everything that is closely or remotely related to health.
But there's also a constructive
way, much more constructive way to define it, is the once for all the acceptance
that health is a transnational issue. There is no border.
infectious diseases for long have spread from countries
to countries, carried by travelers, carried by migrants,
etcetera.
Carried by tourists, carried by conquistadors, etcetera.
But also now we see the chronic diseases, that we thought would be
only a disease that affects Western people in Europe or
in the United States, but, no, if affects everyone in every country of the world.
So there is no more
boundaries for illnesses. And the other very
important concept of global health, is the intersectorial
aspect. The biomedical approach, diagnosing,
treating, preventing, is, is, is not
sufficient. We need the involvement of other
stakeholders, politicians, specialists in the environment.
social workers, etcetera, etcetera.
So,
you see the food you eat, the water you drink, the air you
breathe, etcetera. so important to maintain health and
this is this transnational intersector approach that is
most interesting, but with the overall objective to promote,
maintain health, in whole population on this planet
in a sense of fairness, in a sense of equity, in a sense of justice.
>> Then global health is really to share worldwide the knowledge we have.
the treatment we know or to detect with our new methods ways
to treat people when they can have, cannot have a treatment today.
>> Well my personal definition of global health
includes a number of things.
First of all, that it is really
about those health issues that transcend boundaries.
And that is more and more of the health issues.
We used to think that was only infectious disease.
But, of course, now we know that it is also noncommunicable diseases.
Secondly, global health must include equity.
So any definition
that is about transboundary health also needs to
say Who benefits and who was left behind.
So the equity damaging is critical.
And thirdly, that global health is really concerned with determinants.
That is, what are the flows and what are the forces
that again are transboundary that will determine the health of people.
That's political decisions, that's economic flows, multinational companies.
That is also cultural flows.
And then of course, we have to see
that all those global flows are not just negative.
There are positive developments. We share knowledge, we share research,
we share ideas. And people and therefore global health
is really this very, very dynamic interface that
we need to take forward to promote more equity.
>> I, I would say that I have maybe two alternative views on global health.
One is, considering health from a general point of view, going beyond
the aspect of physical health to literally a state of feeling well.
That is a state of feeling at ease with one's
self, in terms of what one is individually, socially, culturally and
scientifically in whatever aspect that one thinks about of one's self.
That will be my first definition.
Second interpretation will be looking at aspects
of health that cut across various populations, cultures,
nations, ethnicities and social groups, to consider aspects
of health that are, that are really global.
>> That's a good question. for me, as for everyone else, global
health really refers to the health of all the people of the world.
The population of the world.
But when I refer in my presentation to improved global health outcomes,
then, what I want to say is, if the health of a few
people in the world improves by certain measures, then
you are improving the global health outcomes as a whole.
So even if there is a disease which is being suffered only by a
very few people in the world, even that if there are going to be
cures for that or there's going to be, there's going to be more better
access to medicines in that particular disease
condition, that means that our improved global
health outcomes.
So it, I'm using it in a polito optimal sense, as an economist would do.
>> Global health, for me, is anything that we can
contribute to in order to improve the well-being of human.
Whether this comes from infectious diseases specialists, as I
am, or any other specialists in medical specialties, or
politicians, or anything that could simply improve human well-being.
>> From the scientific point of view, which is
mine, global health should be the framework allowing all the
people of the world to receive the right medication,
prevention, in order to increase the quality of their life.
This is a scientific, or a definition
from a scientific person. This includes a lot of science
needed for achieving this aim. This includes, but
also, a lot of politics and willingness for achieving this aim.
Thereof, global health, where the framework is a part,
where science, politics, economics have talk together.
Those is a clear case of interdisciplinarity and that would extend
it as a intradisciplinary, because economics
and natural science, I would consider
that a communication between them being interdisciplinary.
>> Well, I think that a healthy population is
not just a population that is free of disease.
But there's also a population that is well
educated, has access to technology, healthcare and so on.
That two aspects in my opinion to to this issue.
And in this sense we are privileged
in the industrialized countries to have both education, access
to technology and access to reasonable, good healthcare, systems.
I think what is necessary already today, but in
a changing world, both in terms of demographics and
changing environments and, and climate, is that we need
to push this idea through also to the developing world.
Where the problems
associated with health are far more acute than
what we have here in the industrialized world.
And I think without this sort of awareness raising through education programs
in places like Africa, the rural parts of Asia, and so on.
I think these populations already today are at risk
and will increasingly be at risk in the future.
>> Well global health is really a science today that
looks at the health issues from a
perspective that goes beyond the national boundaries.
It's not anymore national public health, it's international public health.
And it implies automatically
that collaboration and cooperation internationally,
among countries, is necessary in order to solve these problems.
These problems of global health cannot be solved with a perspective that is purely
national, because the problems in this
globalized world are today fairly international.
>> For me, global health means evidence based.
It means practical innovative, cost effective
solutions to health problems around the world.
It means collaboration for me
collaboration is vital because many institutes,
many agencies have different comparative advantages so for me, the interdependence
of different partners in finding the right solutions to help problems.
And finally for me, it's also about empowering nations to find their
own solutions and their own approaches
to addressing health issues in their countries.
>> My interpretation is that this is a multidisciplinary area.
And that it is about implementation and also research,
off an approach that would place equity and
achieving equity in access to health as a priority to the global effort.
What it is not, it is not just public health, although it is
grounded in public health, and it is not, quote, international health.
It is multidisciplinary, global and uuu.
>> Well I think global health does not really fit within the academic programs.
Basically global health is not linked to any discipline.
Global health is an issue of society.
How much health issues concern our type of
societies or other types of societies, by the way?
And so this is why we need to have an interdisciplinary approach.
There are economic issues, there are ethical issues, there are legal issues.
There are issues which are linked to the development of medicine by man and so on.
Everything.
But basically this is an issue of society.
This is a wide, it is global and it
is health has a vector of this issue of society.
But basically aging is an issue of global health.
so, we have to deal with that on a very comprehensive, very large, approach.
And for me, this is what global health is all about.
>> From an historical perspective, the Western world want a true
[INAUDIBLE]
epidemiological transition from the edge of epidemics and
[INAUDIBLE].
To note the edge of, delay, of degenerative disease.
and we were able to adapt progressively to those challenges.
Why no intersuit into developing world, they have to first, all
the periods, all the edges together and this is extremely complicated
and costly for poor population and poor countries.
So, I believe that it is important to have a knowledge transfer
from the North to the South but also from the South to the North.
Because the situation in today, India, has few,
to do with the situation of 19th century Europe.
And we have to learn from each other.
>> I would say that global health refers to trans
boundary health challenges.
Such as we encountered in the past years with regard to the pandemic flu, or, this
SARS outbreak colona virus where you need the different health sectors
have to, to work together across a national boundaries and so it is in
fact necessary to, to, have an international
collaboration in, in order to counter these
global health threats.
And I think that is something we could that,
that would we could understand in the global health.
And that is what we will have to work on in the future.
>> We still lack a good definition of global health, I think.
Some people and I would, I would agree with these people.
Some people
say global health is just public health. The
instruments are about the same. The perspective is a little bit different.
Of course, in a global perspective,
we were talking about many countries, worldwide.
We're talking not about small communities, but the issues might be the same.
I like the definition of
[INAUDIBLE]
and Bonita, that proposal they make. A couple of years ago
I guess. Global health would be collaborative,
cross-national,
research and action and this, in order to promote the health of all.
Why collaborative? Because issues that transcend
national borders have to be tackled in a collaborative way.
Why research?
Because decisions should be taken on the evidence, on the scientific evidence.
Why action? It shouldn't only be collecting data,
writing scientific articles. There should be action.
There should be programs, public health
programs implemented in the communities or worldwide.
And why promotion of health for all? Where we are coming back
to the declaration of Alma-Ata, and the major contribution,
the declaration contributed to the health of the population way back 35 years ago.
So I like this definition or this proposal of definition.
It is quite action oriented.
It doesn't trigger it research.
It does have this transnational collaborative perspective.
Yeah.
But we are still at the beginning
of, understanding of what this global health involves.
>> For me, global health is about people's opportunities to
lead full and productive lives and to live in dignity.
But global health is also about promotion of equity and equality.
It's about promoting equity between men and women.
Between a, different age groups and between countries and regions.
>> Well, as for myself, I've come from a new public health background
in Australia, and moved to Geneva and working in a more global environment.
For me,
the focus is more on cross-sector issues, instruments and processes and particularly
multilateral, negotiation, multilateral solutions, health working
with other sectors in an international environment.
I also think it differs very much from international health, in that there's much
more of a, a partnership approach between developed and developing countries.
As well as between other newly emerging countires
such as the bricks countries and developing countries.
>> My interpretation of global health would start with the
interdisciplinary framework, that I advocate in my teaching and research.
From that respect, I'm concerned about
global being, extending beyond disciplinary confinement
to embrace different kinds of disciplinary knowledge and professional know-how in
order to do with this broader framework. And the complexity of public health today.