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Begin New Search Topic World Health Organization Publication Year within 25 Years

21. WHO Technical Report on Cancer Pricing Misses the Mark—It Should Focus on the “Demand Side”

Author:
Kalipso Chalkidou, Adrian Towse, and Richard Sullivan
Publication Date:
04-2019
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Global Development (CGD)
Abstract:
Criticising cancer medicine pricing as too high is what football fans know as an "open goal"—a target that is hard to miss. Yet somehow the World Health Organization (WHO) Technical Report on Cancer Pricing manages to do just that with a paper to the WHO Executive Board calling for price and cost transparency. The assumption goes that transparency will reduce the prices and costs of cancer medicines, a mantra that has united the Trump administration, the US Congress, and the Italian health minister with many NGOs who have called for “greater cost and price transparency”—a sentiment echoed by KEI, which states that “international action is required to improve transparency in reporting the costs of R&D and production, including public sources of funding.”
Topic:
World Health Organization, Health Care Policy, Medicine, Cancer, and Price
Political Geography:
Global Focus

22. Health Literacy in South Asia: Clarifying the Connections between Health Literacy and Wellbeing in Pakistan

Author:
Muhammad Abdullah and Rubeena Zakar
Publication Date:
07-2019
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
South Asian Studies
Institution:
Department of Political Science, University of the Punjab
Abstract:
The objective of the present study is to explore the levels of health literacy among the rural and urban population of Pakistan and its connection with their subjective wellbeing because promoting health and wellbeing for all have been declared as a sustainable development goal by United Nations. The present study used qualitative methods conducting in-depth interviews with male and female population from two districts of the Punjab to achieve study goals. Findings indicated that a low levels of health literacy prevails in rural areas while the case is little different in Urban areas. Health literacy increases the wellbeing of the people while there are some factors like religious and cultural beliefs of the local community about health which affect the wellbeing of the people even in presence of the good health information. Comprehensive and tailored programs for community mobilization and advancing health literacy are recommended to promote health and wellbeing.
Topic:
Development, Health, United Nations, World Health Organization, and Health Care Policy
Political Geography:
Pakistan, South Asia, and Punjab

23. Global Health Security

Author:
Gro Harlem Brundtland
Publication Date:
09-2019
Content Type:
Video
Institution:
Columbia University World Leaders Forum
Abstract:
This World Leaders Forum program features an address on global health and preparedness by Dr. Gro Harlem Brundtland, followed by a moderated panel discussion and question and answer session with the audience. As we approach the five-year anniversary of the historic UN Security Council resolution on the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, the goal of this panel discussion is to assess global preparedness as the World Health Organization and World Bank deliver their first set of recommendations on the margins of UNGA 2019.
Topic:
Development, Health, United Nations, World Health Organization, and Health Care Policy
Political Geography:
New York, United Nations, and West Africa

24. A new funding approach could bring clean water to the world’s poorest households

Author:
Matthew Eldridge and Chloe Hauenstein
Publication Date:
09-2018
Content Type:
Commentary and Analysis
Institution:
Urban Institute
Abstract:
The World Health Organization estimates that more than 2 billion people lack access to safely managed drinking water services. At the current pace, the world will fall short of meeting one of the United Nations’ sustainable development goals (SDGs): to achieve universal and equitable access to safe and affordable drinking water for all by 2030. Accelerating to meet the SDGs for water and sanitation will cost as much as $166 billion a year for capital expenditures alone. Although critical to global efforts, utilities and municipalities serving the poorest households face three large hurdles, resulting in a funding gap that prevents them from meeting customers’ demand for clean water: They often cannot cover their operational and maintenance costs through existing tariffs and transfers alone. Higher tariffs, without improved service, would create an unsustainable burden for the poorest households, who may prefer not to connect to piped services at all. Operating at a loss, these utilities are not creditworthy and cannot tap private finance to make needed investments.
Topic:
Poverty, World Health Organization, Water, and Funding
Political Geography:
Global Focus

25. Epidemiological Insurgency: Polio Persistence on the Afghanistan-Pakistan Border

Author:
Rand Quinn
Publication Date:
07-2017
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Fletcher Security Review
Institution:
The Fletcher School, Tufts University
Abstract:
Despite a profound global impact over the first half of the twentieth century, polio is largely an afterthought throughout the developed world. Vaccines engineered in the late 1950s paved the way for a precipitous drop in global disease burden with the onset of the World Health Organization-led (WHO) Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI) starting in 1988. Recent indicators of the program’s success include a declaration of eradication in India[1] and a teeteringly low infection rate in Nigeria;[2] two of the disease’s last bastions. This progress, however, has been notably stifled by the steady persistence of a wild poliovirus reservoir centered in northern Pakistan along the Afghanistan-Pakistan (Af-Pak) border. Throughout significant portions of recorded history this region’s volatility has been well-documented, including a currently sustained network for the training of terrorist fighters dating back to the period of the 1979 Afghan-Soviet War.[3] These networks serve to both attract fledgling radical jihadist recruits and supply fighters globally, markedly providing many of the transnational fighters taking part in the Syrian Civil War. Their movement in and out of the Af-Pak region has provided a major disease vector for poliovirus. The location of a terrorist network transit hub in by far the world’s largest remaining reservoir of wild poliovirus poses a major challenge for policymakers. Due to several factors, including a decline in healthcare infrastructure throughout the western world, the situation presents a legitimate epidemiological threat. However, the issue is more importantly an exemplar of the morphing nature of multidimensional threats, which are likely to become more prevalent in an era of globalization, failed states, and an inability to effectively address social issues amidst the threat of kinetic warfare...
Topic:
Security, Environment, Health, Terrorism, World Health Organization, Infectious Diseases, and Borders
Political Geography:
Pakistan, Afghanistan, South Asia, Middle East, and United States of America

26. Ethnic Politics and Ebola Response in West Africa

Author:
Souleymane Soumahoro
Publication Date:
05-2017
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Global Development (CGD)
Abstract:
In this paper, I examine the effects of power sharing on vulnerability to adverse shocks in a multiethnic setting. Combining a unique dataset on the allocation of ministerial posts across ethnicities with the spatial distribution of Ebola, I provide evidence that ethnic representation mitigated the transmission of Ebola in Guinea and Sierra Leone. The findings suggest that one percentage point increase in proportional cabinet shares reduced Ebola transmission by five percent, as reflected in the total number of confirmed cases. I also provide suggestive evidence that this relationship goes beyond a simple correlation and operates through public resource capture and trust in political institutions.
Topic:
World Health Organization and Health Care Policy
Political Geography:
Africa

27. Compelling Priorities for Global Health

Author:
Tedros Adhanom, Lee C. Bollinger, Jeffrey D. Sachs, Elizabeth Cameron, Gavin Schmidt, and Wilmot James
Publication Date:
09-2017
Content Type:
Video
Institution:
Columbia University World Leaders Forum
Abstract:
A discussion featuring an address by Dr. Tedros Adhanom, Director General of the World Health Organization (WHO). The world today is trying to manage health risks associated with population growth, climate change, deforestation, institutional collapse, state failure, accidents, human error, war and terrorism. The full range of risks include infectious disease outbreaks, biological, chemical, radiological and nuclear spill-overs or attacks, multiple hazards, food insecurity, state fragility and cyber security failure or attacks. This is a breath-taking range of risks and no single institution can tackle it alone. It truly is humanity's common concern. As the UN agency responsible for global health, the World Health Organisation (WHO) is the organizational expression for humanity's common concern and we are honored to have the recently elected Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom address us on the priorities for his leadership. To discuss and debate with Dr. Tedros, we are delighted to have world leading experts in development, disease control and prevention and climate change and health dissect the opportunities and challenges in managing the health risks the world faces today. Welcoming remarks by Lee C. Bollinger, introduction by Jeffrey D. Sachs. Participants: Jeffrey D. Sachs, Elizabeth Cameron, and Gavin Schmidt. Moderator: Wilmot James
Topic:
Climate Change, Health, War, World Health Organization, Nuclear Power, and Food Security
Political Geography:
New York, Global Focus, and United States of America

28. High-Priced Medicines and Lack of Needs-Driven Innovation: A Global Crisis that Fuels Inequality

Author:
Oxfam Publishing
Publication Date:
09-2017
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Oxfam Publishing
Abstract:
On 14 September 14 2016, the UN Secretary-General’s High-Level Panel on Access to Medicines publicly released its final report entitled ‘Promoting innovation and access to health technologies’. One year after the release of the landmark report and building upon Oxfam’s September 2016 assessment, this paper provides an update on where the HLP report and its recommendations stand. It assesses the level of implementation by countries and institutions – especially the UN and the World Health Organization – and recommends ways to use the report to improve both innovation and access to medicines.
Topic:
Health, International Cooperation, United Nations, World Health Organization, Inequality, Innovation, Humanitarian Crisis, and Medicine
Political Geography:
Global Focus

29. Despite Gains, Barriers Keep Health Care High on Africa’s Priority List

Author:
Daniel Armah-Attoh, Edem E. Selormey, and Richard Houessou
Publication Date:
04-2016
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Afrobarometer
Abstract:
Access to health care gained the spotlight on national and international development agendas when the 1978 Alma Ata Declaration outlined a strategy for achieving universal access to primary health care by the year 2000 (World Health Organization, 1978). The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) set targets for improving health-care delivery by 2015, and the United Nations’ new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which took effect in January 2016, extend and supplement those with ambitious targets aimed at ensuring healthy lives for all. Despite significant gains under these initiatives, Africans fully support health care’s continued prominence on development agendas: In Afrobarometer surveys across 36 African countries in 2014/2015, citizens rank health as the second-most-important problem (after unemployment) that their governments need to address, as well as the No. 2 priority (after education) requiring additional government investment. While the proportion of Africans going without needed health care has decreased over the past decade, citizens’ perceptions highlight some of the challenges that still stand between current reality and “health for all,”
Topic:
Development, World Health Organization, Governance, and Health Care Policy
Political Geography:
Africa

30. Pandemic Declarations of the World Health Organization as an Exercise of International Public Authority: The Possible Legal Answers to Frictions Between Legitimacies

Author:
Pedro A. Villarreal
Publication Date:
06-2016
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Goettingen Journal of International Law
Institution:
The Goettingen Journal of International Law
Abstract:
The institutional decisions regarding the 2009–2010 influenza A(H1N1) pandemic displayed how the World Health Organization’s (WHO) role as the international organization in charge of coordinating the pandemic response amounts to an exercise of authority. Notably, the 11 June, 2009 Pandemic Declaration was grounded in the WHO’s guidelines that do not have a binding nature according to international law. However, this is not an obstacle for considering them as an act of authority, since their effects can constrain the decision-making of States. If these non-binding acts have an authoritative nature, then it is necessary to address various legitimacy issues that may be present. This is where the concept of international public authority (IPA) can prove useful, since it enables to combine the non-binding nature of Pandemic Declarations and the respective guidelines with broad legally-oriented figures such as transparency and accountability. The controversies surrounding the 2009 Pandemic Declaration illustrate how the strictly technical-scientific elements that led to such a decision were not necessarily harmonious with other aspects more related to political decision making in general, such as transparency and accountability. This can be considered as an example of how so-called ‘technocratic legitimacy’ sometimes generates friction with lato sensu ‘political legitimacy’. As the 2009–2010 pandemic period unraveled, it became clear that expertise-based legitimacy is not sufficient in itself to consider the act as generally legitimate. On the contrary, the strongest criticisms directed at the decision-making process of the WHO during this event were leveled against deficits of transparency and accountability. This article purports to discuss the issue of how both types of legitimacies, technical-scientific and political, are necessary components for deeming Pandemic Declarations as legitimate enough, since they amount to an exercise of international public authority.
Topic:
International Law, World Health Organization, Public Health, and H1N1
Political Geography:
Global Focus