Case-Discussion: Global Health Concerns

Case-Discussion: Global Health Concerns

Week 8 discussion Future Directions Reflect on what you have learned in this course. What future concerns are likely to impact public health? How do you see global health concerns impacting your community? How can you apply what you have learned in this course to your current practice?

Around the world, millions of people are at an increased risk of illness or death from taking poor-quality medicines used to prevent or treat devastating illnesses. With funding from partners like the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), USP strengthens medicines quality assurance systems, increases the supply of quality-assured medicines, and develops capacity to detect and remove poor-quality medicines from the market. By sharing scientific expertise and providing technical support and leadership, we help local regulators improve and sustain local health systems, and enable manufacturers to supply quality-assured essential medicines for years to come. Through these efforts, we’re able to help prevent and treat diseases like HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria, and neglected tropical diseases, and improve maternal, newborn and child health.

Goal
Improve public health and strengthen U.S. national security through global disease detection, response, prevention, and control strategies.

Overview
The health of the U.S. population can be affected by public health threats or events across the globe. Recent examples of this include the Ebola Virus outbreak that began in 2014, the 2003 SARS epidemic, and the 2009 spread of novel H1N1 influenza. Improving global health can improve health in the United States and support national and global security interests by fostering political stability, diplomacy, and economic growth worldwide.Why Is Global Health Important?
Global health plays an increasingly crucial role in both global security and the security of the U.S. population. As the world and its economies become increasingly globalized, including extensive international travel and commerce, it is necessary to think about health in a global context. Rarely a week goes by without a headline about the emergence or re-emergence of an infectious disease or other health threat somewhere in the world. The 2007 World Health Report 1 notes that, “since the 1970s, newly emerging diseases have been identified at the unprecedented rate of one or more per year.” The Institute of Medicine’s 2003 report Microbial Threats to Health 2 stresses that the United States should enhance the global capacity for responding to infectious disease threats and should take a leadership role in promoting a comprehensive, global, real-time infectious disease surveillance system.