As there are many proverbs related to health, such as 'The greatest wealth is Health.', health plays one of the most important parts in our lives, and keeping healthy lives has been a goal of life for many people. However, due to environmental factors and economical factors, many people cannot guard their own health. Reflecting this situation, the concept 'Global Health' emerged. Global Health, which means research and practice that places a priority on improving health and achieving equity in health for all people worldwide, has been the center talking point among nations and global organizations. However, as global health issues are spreaded extensively and need active cooperation of all nations, it is hard to solve. To solve this issue and guarantee health of all citizens, global leaders should take global health as their primary concern.
As everyone knows, health problems are quite different between developing countries and developed countries. Also, health problems in developing countries are usually more serious than those in developed countries.
Developing countries, which are nations with lower standard of living, are still suffering from the health problems that already disappeared in developed countries. About 14 million people die each year due to infectious diseases, and many of them are preventable or treatable, such as acute respiratory infections, diarrhoeal diseases, malaria and tuberculosis, taking 45% of deaths in Africa and South-East Asia. This health crisis is caused by several factors such as poverty, lack of access to health services, water and inaccessibility of effective medicine. For example, more than 95% of HIV infections are in developing countries, two-thirds of them in sub-Saharan Africa, where over 28 million people are living with HIV. AIDS medicine is estimated at US$10,000-15,000 (the Guardian, 12 February 2001). This price level puts such treatment out of reach of most people in the developing world. Malnutrition is also serious in developing countries while it almost disappeared in developed countries. The vast majority of the world's hungry people live in developing countries, where 13.5 percent of the population is undernourished. Asia is the continent with the most hungry people which takes two thirds of the total. Sub-Saharan Africa is the region with the highest percentage of hunger. One person in four there is undernourished. When malnutrition comes to children, the problem becomes more severe since it can directly lead to death. One out of six children, which is roughly 100million, in developing countries is underweight. While One in four of the world's children are stunted, the proportion can rise to one in three in developing countries.
Many diseases are emerging in developed countries too. Ironically, as developing countries continue their efforts to reduce hunger, some in those countries are also facing the opposing problem of obesity. As Prakash Shetty, the chief of FAO's(Food and Agricultural Organization of United Nations) Nutrition Planning said "We believe obesity is a significant problem that needs to be dealt with, along with the problem of the underfed", Obesity is also a serious problem in developing countries along with malnutrition and other developing countries' health diseases. This result is due to dietary imbalance. While obesity rate in developed countries is turning a cornor (The rate of obesity in preschool-age children dropped about 40% over the past decade, according to data from a comprehensive federal survey published Tuesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association), obesity rate is drastically increasing in developing countries. For example, in China, the number of overweight people jumped from less than 10 percent to 15 percent in just three years. Brazil and Colombia, the figure hovers around 40 percent, a level comparable to a number of European countries. Sub-Saharan Africa, where has the highest number of hungry people, is showing an increase in obesity, especially among urban women.
Solving developing countries' health problems and promoting global health are urgent issues and many efforts are needed. If not, health problems will keep bothering all disadvantaged people.
Then, why should global health should be primary concern for future global leaders? Why should people in the United States of America, the United Kingdom, and Australia should also concern about global health that might seem unrelated to them although they will be the ones who should pay the most for it? Actually, for a number of critical reasons, the global health should be concerns for not only developing nations, but developed nations.
First, everyone deserves an equal opportunity for health. Many member states of the United Nations signed on to Article 25, which says:
'Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.'The world community has so many tools to make people healthy today, allowing them to contribute to their families and their communities. However, many children in poor countries get sick and die needlessly from malnutrition of from diseases that are curable and preventable. Many adults in developing countries are dying due to their lack of access to medicines that are available to people in rich countries. Is this just? Is it right to accept such deaths without steps to prevent them?
Second, diseases do not respect boundaries. In other words, developing countries also can get diseases of developed countries. This is especially true for epidemic disease. Human immunodeficiency virus(HIV), has spread worldwide. A person with tuberculosis can infect 15 people a year. Actually, in the United States as a whole, 39% of all tuberculosis cases are in foreign-born individuals; in California, this proportion is 69%. Clearly, the health of each of us is increasingly depending on the health of others.
Some economists might insist that promoting global health is not important. They can insist that solving other urgent issues such as economic recession is much more important and essential for enhancing the quality of life. That's partly true. It is also important to solve other urgent issues. However, promoting global health is much more important and if people cannot guard their health, efforts to enhance other aspects of the society are useless. In an highly interdependent world, health is closely liked with other fields especially economic and social development. In 2008, Lancet studied brain of two children. One was supplied adequate nutrition and another was neglected. He found out that the one who was neglected and was deeply malnourished had about 40 percent smaller brain than the one who had adequate nutrition. Also, the neurons and the synapses of the brain didn't form sufficiently. He concluded that the earning potential of these children is cut in half in their lifetime due to the stunting that happened in early years. It will eventually affect economical and social status. Also, adults who are suffering from infectious diseases lose income while they are sick and out of works, which is a major contributor to keeping their families in an endless cycle of poverty.
If really concerned about their citizens and global peace, future global leaders should try their best to promote global health. Though it might look strange and unrealistic to developed countries' citizens, it is true that people in other parts of the globe are still dying because they don't have a dollar, because they even cannot have a meal a day. Solving this problem and promoting health conditions of everyone is important, not only for developing nations which are directly influenced, but also for developed nations since the world is interdepenednt. If we let citizens of developing countries die and just think about temporary benefits of our own countries, they will keep dying due to curable diseases and it will also influence the health our countries, and other aspects such as economy. Future global leaders should know what will benefit their country in a long term and what will contribute to global well-being. If they have these abilities, they must focus on promoting global health as I insisted.
