Presentation given during the public forum "Global Health - Why Bother?" in commemoration of the Asia-Pacific Regional Meeting of the International Federation of Medical Students' Associations (IFMSA), Hospital Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur, September 11, 2012

1. Ramon Lorenzo Luis Rosa Guinto, MD
Regional Coordinator for the Asia-Pacific and
Founding Coordinator, Global Health Equity Initiative
International Federation of Medical Students‟ Associations (IFMSA)
Youth Commissioner, Lancet-University of Oslo
Commission on Global Governance for Health

5. Global Health
an area for study, research, and practice
that places a priority on improving health
and achieving health equity for all people
worldwide
Koplan, et al. 2009

6. Global Health
those health issues that transcend national
boundaries and governments and call for
actions on the global forces that determine
the health of people
Ilona Kickbusch, 2006

7. Global Health
collaborative transnational research and
action for promoting health for all
Beaglehole and Bonita, 2010

8. Global Health
Can be thought of as
• A notion (the current state of global health)
• An objective (a world of healthy people, a condition of
global health)
• A mix of scholarship, research, and practice (with many
questions, issues, skills, and competencies)
Koplan, et al. 2009

9. STATE OF WORLD’S HEALTH

10. Alma Ata, 1978
The International Conference on Primary
Health Care calls for urgent action by all
governments, all health and development
workers, and the world community to protect
and promote the health of all the people of
the world by the year 2000.

11. From Beaglehole and Bonita, 2012

12. Life expectancy at birth (men)
Glasgow, Scotland (deprived suburb) 54
India 61
Philippines 65
Korea 65
Lithuania 66
Poland 71
Mexico 72
Cuba 75
US 75
UK 76
Glasgow, Scotland (affluent suburb) 82
(WHO World Health Report 2006; Hanlon,P.,Walsh,D. & Whyte,B.,2006)

16. Source: Dr. Ramon Paterno, University of the Philippines

17. 21st Century Global Health Challenges:
Five Trends that Shape the Future
1 and 2: Demographic – we are getting older and living in
cities
3: Environmental – the earth is heating up
4: Economic – the economic center is shifting eastward
5: Epidemiologic – we are sick with noncommunicable
diseases
(Center for Global Development)

18. Broad cause of death in countries,
by World Bank income groups, 2008

22. Globalization
• Economic; trade
• Cultural diffusion
• Knowledge and technology
transfer
• Global village/family
• Interdependence versus
inequalities
• Globalization of risk factors

24. Champagne Glass

25. GLOBAL HEALTH TODAY

26. From Fran Baum

27. Disease-Oriented
Interventions

29. Millennium Development Goals
eradicate extreme improve maternal
poverty and health
hunger
achieve universal combat HIV/AIDS,
primary malaria and other
education diseases
promote gender equality ensure environmental
and empower women sustainability
reduce child develop a global
mortality partnership for
development

30. Health Systems Strengthening

31. Universal Health Coverage

33. "Universal coverage is the ultimate
expression of fairness."
"Universal coverage is the single most
powerful concept that public health has to
offer."
Dr. Margaret Chan
WHO Director-General
65th World Health Assembly 2012

34. Social Production of Disease
Do we not always
find the diseases of
the populace
traceable to defects
in society?
Dr. Rudolf Virchow
Father of Social Medicine

35. Social Determinants of Health
• Conditions in the social, physical, and economic
environment in which people are born, grow, live, work,
and age, including access to health care
• Policies, programs, and institutions

37. “Unequal distribution of health-damaging
experiences is not in any sense a „natural'
phenomenon, but is a result of the toxic
combination of poor social policies and
programs, unfair economic arrangements
and bad politics.”
WHO Commission on Social
Determinants of Health, 2008
Photo: WHO/Chris Black

38. The Global Health
System and the
link to other
Sectors

39. WHERE DO WE START?

40. POOR GLOBAL HEALTH
SICK WORLD
HEALTH INEQUITY
within and among nations
SOCIAL, POLITICAL, ECONOMIC,
CULTURAL, AND ENVIRONMENTAL
Determinants of Health

41. Reorient the health sector to adopt
global health perspective and
social understanding of health

42. Transformative scale-up of medical
education – integrate global health

43. The 21st century physician
thinking globally, acting locally

44. “The doctor of the
future will give no
medicine, but will
interest his patients in
the care of the human
frame, in diet, and in
the cause and
prevention of disease.”
Thomas Alva Edison

45. The Power of Medicine
"Medicine… has the
obligation to point out
problems and to attempt
their theoretical
solution…The physicians
are the natural attorneys
of the poor…”
Dr. Rudolf Virchow
Father of Social Medicine

46. The Power of Young People
“The youth are
the hope of the
Fatherland.”
Dr. Jose Rizal
National Hero of the Philippines

47. Fathers of Social Medicine

48. Health for All!
Alma Ata, USSR, 1978 Almaty, Kazakhstan, 2008
Thank You Very Much!