Knowra Global health Global health Global health is the collaborative effort to improve health and achieve health equity across populations worldwide, addressing challenges that cross national borders and disparities within and between countries.
Health equity : The absence of avoidable, unfair differences in health among population groups. It is the central fairness goal that distinguishes global health from health improvement alone.
World Health Organization : A United Nations agency that directs and coordinates international health work. It sets global guidance and coordinates responses to health emergencies.
COVID-19 pandemic : The worldwide outbreak of COVID-19, caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus, beginning in 2019. It exposed gaps in preparedness, cooperation, and fair access to vaccines and treatments.
Sustainable Development Goals : Seventeen United Nations goals adopted in 2015 to guide sustainable development through 2030. Goal 3 makes health a shared development commitment, linked to wider social and environmental aims.
Health security : An approach that treats threats to health as risks requiring protection, preparedness, and rapid response. Its focus on acute threats can compete with equity-centered investment in routine care.
Social determinants of health : The conditions in which people are born, grow, live, work, and age, together with forces shaping those conditions. Global health treats these conditions as major causes of population health gaps.
International Health Regulations : A legally binding framework requiring countries to detect, assess, report, and respond to specified public health risks. They establish shared duties for managing threats that can cross borders.
Smallpox eradication : The worldwide elimination of naturally occurring smallpox through vaccination and surveillance, certified in 1980. It remains the clearest example of a disease eliminated through coordinated international action.
Declaration of Alma-Ata : A 1978 international declaration that identified primary health care as central to achieving health for all. It helped establish equity and community-based care as international policy principles.
Structural adjustment : Economic reform programs, often tied to lending, that require changes such as spending cuts and market liberalization. Debates persist over how these policies affected public services and health-system capacity.
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