About Us
What is Global Health?
The Consortium of Universities for Global Health (CUGH), defines global health as, "an area for study, research, and practice that places a priority on improving health and achieving equity in health for all people worldwide."
| Topic | Global Health | International Health | Public Health |
|---|---|---|---|
| Geographical reach | Focuses on issues that directly or indirectly affect health but transcend national boundaries | Focuses on health issues of countries other than one's own, especially those of low-income and middle-income | Focuses on issues that affect the health of the population of a particular community or country |
| Level of cooperation | Development and implementation of solutions often requires global cooperation | Development and implementation of solutions usually requires binational cooperation | Development and implementation of solutions does not usually require global cooperation |
| Individuals or populations | Embraces both prevention in populations and clinical care of individuals | Embraces both prevention in populations and clinical care of individuals | Mainly focused on prevention programmes for populations |
| Access to health | Health equity among nations and for all people is a major objective | Seeks to help people of other nations | Health equity within a nation or community is a major objective |
| Range of disciplines | Highly interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary within and beyond health sciences |
Embraces a few disciplines but has not emphasised multidisciplinarity |
Encourages multidisciplinary approaches, particularly within health sciences and with social sciences |
*Kaplan, J., et al. "Towards A Common Definition of Global Health." Lancet 373 (2009)
Why is Global Health Important?
Global Health affects all of us.
- Travel and Migration
- You can reach any area of the globe within 24 hours, bringing infections.
- Over 500M cross national boundaries each year by plane alone.
- Inadequate Public Health Infrastructure
- Bioterriorism, Zika virus, ebola and other problems highlight challenges in the United States and many other systems to address catastrophic scenarios.
- Urbanization
- Global economy and migration to cities cause overcrowding, water and sanitation problems, pollution, and other health risks.
- Globalization of Trade
- Varied or absent regulations
- Increases risk from pesticides, industrial toxins, and hazardous wastes.
- Lack of strict export safety on foods and products.
- Varied or absent regulations
- Aging and Chronic Diseases
- By 2025, more than 800 million people will be over 65 and two-thirds will be in low-income countries.
- Chronic diseases associated with aging and the costs of treating these will deplete already limited health resources of poor and rich nations alike.