Achieving Global Health Equality Within a Generation

Wednesday, January 22, 2014

We are on the cusp of a once in human history achievement.

When looking at the broad sweep of human history, people’s health status was relatively similar across the world. Death rates for mothers and children were high, life expectancy was short, and health status was poor. This was the universal condition.

Only in the past two centuries have we seen the world diverge.

Advancements in science and investments in public health have brought vastly improved health conditions to citizens in the rich, Western world, leaving those in the poorest countries behind. The result was “a great divergence” in global health — reaching a point now where only one in 150 children in the United States or Britain dies before the age of five versus a rate of one in 10 children in the world’s poorest counties.

Source: Huffington Post Impact (link opens in a new window)

Categories
Education, Health Care
Tags
infectious diseases, reproductive health, vaccines