Global Health Treats
Plenary Session
Faculty of Public Health President, Professor Alan Maryon-Davis introduced the session by posing the question, “What can we do as public health professionals to address current global health threats?”
Describing it as a ‘slow burn emergency’ and the biggest threat to global health, Professor Mike Gill, Co-Chair of the Climate and Health Council, painted a powerful picture, not only of the challenges that we face in fighting climate change but also of the unique contribution that public health professionals can make to limiting climate change and its serious impacts on health. The message was clear, if climate change is properly addressed the positive health benefits, such as improved quality of life are potentially transformational. As public health professionals, we should be sharpening our advocacy, articulating the major health benefits of appropriate action and getting governments to sign meaningful deals at the forthcoming UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen in December.
With the world economy on track to post its greatest shortfall since the Great Depression, Dr Devi Sridhar, Director of the Global Health Governance Project at the University of Oxford, stated that the global health threat of the current financial crisis also provided us with an opportunity to re-assess and re-evaluate the system of financial aid to see how things can be done differently. Dr Sridhar argued that developing countries did not have the resources to respond to the recession but, increasingly, there was a need to ensure that the financial commitments given by the various G8 countries should be fulfilled and not compromised by the economic downturn. Global health had become a multibillion dollar industry with very little accountability and transparency from the donors themselves. There was therefore an opportunity to introduce measures which increased aid efficiency and transparency in the global health governance and architecture.
Professor Salman Rawaf, FPH Special Advisor on Global Public Health and Director of the WHO Collaborating Centre on Public Health Education and Training, gave a presentation on WHO’s recently published report Primary Health Care: Now More Than Ever which calls for the renewal of primary healthcare and identifies the need for clear leadership in this area. In the context of the current economic downturn, Professor Rawaf argued that primary healthcare reforms were more likely to respond to people’s expectations for a social safety net in health and posed the question: “Can we afford not to pursue an agenda of primary healthcare renewal?”
Dr Nick Banatvala, Head of Global Health at the UK Department of Health, stated that the first priority of any government had to be the safety of its people. In addition to climate change and the financial crisis, there was the ‘global health threats’ of food insecurity and fuel insecurity. Dr Banatvala made the well received point that none of these threats can be addressed in isolation. It is international cooperation that is needed. Domestic cooperation is also required between various government departments and offices to provide ‘clarity of strategy and coherence’. He added that the UK Government’s Health is Global strategy had highlighted global health security as a major area of work that would be addressed.