In this blog post, I will be summarizing the article "The Challenge of Global Health" by Laurie Garrett. Then, I will be discussing some of my thoughts and opinions on the article.
This article basically addresses the issues regarding global health and the effectiveness of the measures taken to deal with them. Nowadays, a lot of money from various organizations (WHO, NGOs, private donors) have generously been donating money to deal with the health problems in developing countries. However, due to the lack of organization and that most of the money is directed towards specific diseases rather than public health in general, it is likely that we will not reach our global health expectations. One major reason is that most of the proposed public health projects are created by wealthy nations, experimented on under a limited scope, and don't allow the developing communities being served say what they need. The author then starts giving a history of global health and the role that organizations play. The author claims that the surge in funding and donations to global health is a direct result of the HIV/AIDS pandemic. It all started towards the turn of the 21st century and has since involved numerous nations. Nations opt to take part in contributing to global health for various reasons such as moral duty, public diplomacy, and self-protection against the disease itself. Finally, the author talks about why global health problems are still a high priority despite the increasing amount of funds provided. Problems include the money not being used efficiently and effectively, lack of coordination amongst public health organizations, ignorance of the true needs of developing communities, and others.
In my opinion, the biggest reason why the surge in public health funds is still not enough to counter the issue of global health problems is that the money is not being utilized and distributed effectively. There are many reasons for this. Developing countries receiving the aid such as areas in Sub-Saharan Africa do not have the public health infrastructure (hospitals, clinics) to distribute these resources. Also, money leaks out to transportation costs, random employees, the black market, and other underground business since corruption is prevalent in these areas. Furthermore, the lack of a stable government in these countries means that there are flaws in the coordination of distributing the resources.
According to the article, the two markers for public health success in developing countries are increased maternal survival and increased overall life expectancy. Maternal survival is a key indicator of public health success because in order for a pregnant woman to survive, the environment, personnel, and equipment involved in the delivery needs to be as best as possible to ensure a high success rate. Therefore, if the country has these resources and personnel available, it means that the country has a good overall health care system. Overall life expectancy is an indicator of public health success because the average person in a country lives, the better the quality of health in that country. It means that the water is cleaner leading to less contamination, the mosquito population is low leading to low rates of malaria, and immunizations are available for prevalent infectious diseases.
The author indicates that some public health measures have caused more harm than good. For example, many of the hospitals and clinics in developing countries reuse syringes for vaccinations, inadequately sterilize surgical instruments, and lack testing for blood-bank systems, all of which could increase the spread of HIV to the patients that are vaccinated (for preventable diseases) and the general population. Another example of how public health measures may have caused more harm than good is the concern about influenza spreading across the world. Public health measures dealing with this issue include donating money and inventing methods to prevent the spread of influenza. However, the developing nations lack hospital personnel, public health experts, and research scientists to perform the preventive methods. Also, coordination requires the presence of public health infrastructure, which these countries also lack.
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