(with thanks to Global Health Now)
What are some of the most underreported issues in global health?
Devex spoke with top experts to gain insights into the most pressing, yet often overlooked, challenges shaping the future of global health worldwide.
From the critical need to secure sustainable funding amid global health shifts and to address the burgeoning mental health crisis, to rethinking the global health workforce and ensuring children’s needs are central in emergency responses, they highlighted a diverse array of concerns.
Calls also emerged for greater investment in noncommunicable diseases and for forging more inclusive global health governance, particularly as the world considers how to prevent future outbreaks from escalating into pandemics.
Responses included insights from Precious Matsoso, former director-general of South Africa’s National Department of Health, and Dr. Chikwe Ihekweazu, assistant director-general at the World Health Organization.
See the video here: https://www.devex.com/news/what-are-some-of-the-most-underreported-issue...
The seven speakers in the video refer to:
pandemic prevention
health workforce
funding crisis
underinvestment in NCDs
child health in emergencies
mental health
global health governance
What would you say?
I would repeat the words of three global health leaders who wrote in The Lancet around the time that HIFA was launched (2006):
'The Gates Foundation identified fourteen challenges but a fifteenth challenge stares us plainly in the face: The 15th challenge is to ensure that everyone in the world can have access to clean, clear, knowledge — a basic human right, and a public health need as important as access to clean, clear, water, and much more easily achievable.'
A 15th grand challenge for global public health. The Lancet 2006
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(06)68050-1/fulltext
To my knowledge the Gates Foundation has not responded to this paper. Yet access to relevant, reliable healthcare information remains as important as ever.
A few weeks ago I spoke with a staff member at the Gates Foundation and invited the Foundation to comment. I have been referred to their office for external relations and will let you know when I get a response.
It is overwhelmingly clear from all HIFA'S work over the past 20 years that universal access to reliable healthcare information can only be achieved by strengthening the global evidence ecosystem. This has been the driving purpose of HIFA. We are much too small to make a direct impact. And we have therefore focused on raising awareness to promote political and financial commitment.
Political commitment from WHO is starting to emerge since 2022 when we were admitted into official relations. We believe that WHO will soon explicitly champion the goal of universal access to reliable healthcare information, the #1 recommendation from our recent global consultation.
Financial commitment is also needed. Currently there is no funding agency that has explicitly committed to the goal of universal access to reliable healthcare information. Again we expect this to change, thanks to HIFA and our 20,000 members.
As and when we see political and financial commitment, we shall be able to work with WHO and partners to develop and implement a coherent strategy for its realisation.
Best wishes, Neil
HIFA profile: Neil Pakenham-Walsh is coordinator of HIFA (Healthcare Information For All), a global health community that brings all stakeholders together around the shared goal of universal access to reliable healthcare information. HIFA has 20,000 members in 180 countries, interacting in four languages and representing all parts of the global evidence ecosystem. HIFA is administered by Global Healthcare Information Network, a UK-based non-governmental organisation in official relations with the World Health Organization. Email: neil@hifa.org