Why Global Health Matters

Global health represents an integration of multi-causal problems, and as such, it must be considered by a diverse set of professions and humanitarian actors. Disasters of nature as well as of war and conflict are exacerbated by sustainability issues, lack of resources, poverty, and illness.

Problems of global health will never be solved by healthcare professionals alone. Political science, agriculture, engineering, military intervention, and policy experts are needed as well.

So, I wanted to create a book addressing it.

My intention of “Why Global Health Matters ” is to inform and inspire readers in bringing new and novel approaches to making the world a better place by learning from some of the greatest minds, thought leaders, and ambitious workers in the field. I am in awe of the work being done by the contributing authors, they are indeed an inspiration and demonstrate such brilliance in their work and approaches.

It seems there is a growing interest in such matters as well. In Chicago, the top three medical schools, University of Illinois (where where I am on faculty and serve as an advisor to their center), Northwestern University, and University of Chicago all have centers for global health. In fact, many other healthcare training programs include global health as either part of their curriculum or provide actual clinical experience. Back to the University of Illinois at Chicago as an example, the schools of nursing, dentistry, public health, as well as medicine, all have such involvements.

Graduate programs have developed with some overlapping aspects to global concerns, many of which include health matters. For example, the University of Denver offers a master’s degree in International Disaster Psychology. The Chicago School of Professional Psychology offers a PhD in International Psychology. There is a Disaster Mental Health program at the University of South Dakota. Brandeis University offers master’s level training in Conflict and Coexistence. There is an International Trauma Studies Program at New York University; and Lehigh University has programs in both International Counseling Psychology, and Comparative and International Education. State University of New York at New Paltz has the Institute for Disaster Mental Health, a free-standing institute that offers two academic programs:?an undergraduate minor in Disaster Studies and a graduate certificate in Trauma and Disaster Mental Health. My Center for Global Initiatives offers a Certificate Program in a variety of global health aspects.

The overlap with global health matters and humanitarian relief are obviously great. Disasters of nature as well as war and conflict lead to subsequent illness and increased morbidity and mortality. Such events have displaced more than 60 million people today—on par with World War II. While there are many significant problems in the processes of providing humanitarian aid, in contrast, I am encouraged by the smaller-in-scale but larger-in-results leverage of the work and programs of my authors.

The book is rather organically derived as there are four sections. First, there is a context set for the various problems in global health, along with a bit of background and current trends. Next we delve into solutions. This is divided into distinct (but overlapping) categories of those that are clinical and therapeutic, and those that are focused on structural solutions involving education and training, peacebuilding, and other such approaches as applied to global health. The fourth and final area is that of sustainability—moving forward with solutions as well as leadership to maintaining gains and momentum.

As readers will see, it is a difficult task to differentiate these chapters as most all of these topics have a great deal of overlap. This also speaks to the complexity of what is involved in working in the sphere of global health.

As an old friend and World Economic Forum pal, Joshua Cooper Ramo said in his book, The Age of the Unthinkable (p. 198),

…we are now tied to one another in ways we can’t see, through webs of finance or disease or information, and—here’s the dangerous paradox—the more closely we’re bound, the less resilient we become. (And) as they become more densely linked they also become less resilient; networks after all, propagate and even amplify disturbances. Worse, the more efficient these networks are, the faster they spread those dangers. Interconnections such as the ties between brokers and banks, or between the health of every passenger on a long-distance airplane flight are vehicles for sharing risk and triggering hysteresis.

Thankfully, there is a growing number of experts focusing their work on dealing with these complexities, and the world owes them a debt of gratitude.

Global health represents an interesting integration of multi-causal problems being worked on by a diverse set of professions and humanitarian actors. This has also served as a draw to me in my work. Global health concerns can span not only healthcare, per se, but also political science, engineering (clean water plants), health sciences (labs), agricultural sciences, military intervention, veterinary medicine, and policy, to name a few. All such factors are considered with the connecting thread of sustainability.??

The difficulty of sustainability is amplified and destabilization leads to a self-perpetuating cycle of state-instability, poverty, and illness. “Of the forty nations at the bottom of the UN’s Human Development Index—a statistical measure of life expectancy, education, income and other factors—65 percent have experience recurrent war and disaster ” (p. 38). These “complex humanitarian emergencies” all involve health and illness aspects. The impact on civilians and displaced refugees also worsens as food or water becomes scarce and contagious and infectious disease spread in iatrogenic mini-epidemics.?

As VanRooyen notes, humanitarian intervention is not just bringing in bags of grain and bottles of medication, but rather a tool of diplomacy. Global health matters as it straddles the fields of emergency humanitarian intervention and development work. Global health concerns involve the building of the dam not only for access to a potable water source for drinking and agriculture, but also as a prevention from the disaster of flooding and subsequent cholera outbreaks. It is very difficult to distinguish or differentiate such overlap. Likewise was our challenge in the organization of this book. And that is as it should be in my opinion.

My personal path to working in global health – starting the non-profit Center for Global Initiatives , and co-founding the Consortium for Humanitarian Intervention – has all been somewhat of a wonderful accident. I’ve frequently written and presented on my being an “Accidental Humanitarian ,” and my goal to open-source humanitarian intervention. I think there is a remarkable amount of innovation in the non-profit/non-governmental organization (NGO) arena. Much of this opinion is informed by other projects such as The New Humanitarians: Inspiration, Innovations, and Blueprints for Visionaries , and this optimism continues as new projects unfold and other NGOs proceed with their work.

Why Global Health Matters aims to address multiple global health issues in multiple regions of the world from multiple perspectives. Admittedly, it’s an ambitious effort – but when tackling global crises, it would be a mistake to expect anything else.

Why Global Health Matters is divided into four sections: backgrounds and trends, approaches and clinical solutions, approaches and structural solutions, and sustainability. Whether you’re an academic looking for classroom material, a policymaker researching an issue, or a boots-on-the-ground humanitarian, there is something in this book for you.

Readers should use the table of contents to find the chapters they are most interested in, but should also explore chapters they might not otherwise be personally drawn to – oftentimes an unexpected perspective or an unanticipated voice is the most eye-opening.

The hope is that this book will both inspire new projects and improve existing ones, and that readers will not only be informed by this book but motivated by it.

Click here to learn more about the book.

#???#???#

If you'd like to learn more or connect, please do at?https://DrChrisStout.com . You can follow me on?LinkedIn , or find my?Tweets ?as well. And goodies and tools are available via?https://ALifeInFull.org .

If you liked this article, you may also like:

Healthcare Innovation: Are there really Medical Unicorns?

Can (or Should) We Guarantee Medical Outcomes?

A Cure for What Ails Healthcare's Benchmarking Ills?

Can A Blockchain Approach Cure Healthcare Security's Ills?

Why Medicine is Poised for a (Big) Change

Is This the Future of Medicine? (Part 5)

Bringing Evidence into Practice, In a Big Way (Part 4)

Can Big Data Make Medicine Better? (Part 3)

Building Better Healthcare (Part 2)

Is Technology the Cure for Medicine’s Ills? (Part 1)

Access to Healthcare is a US Problem, Too

Disclosures and Fine-print