International Public Health

“Health problems, issues, and concerns that transcend national boundaries, may be influenced by circumstances or experiences in other countries, and are best addressed by cooperative actions and solutions”(Skolnik p.7) is best defined as global health by the Institute of Medicine. With its primary focus on low and middle-income countries, challenges of international public health continue to change and grow depending on the interest of the membership. In order to participate in cooperative actions and have successful solutions, one must understand the progress made so far, the challenges that remain, and what must be done to address them most effectively. With the adoption of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), issues concerning global health were interconnected to the poverty of developed and developing countries, along with several reasoning links. After addressing the challenges of women’s and children’s health, water and development, communicable and non-communicable diseases, health systems and workforces, recommendations for what should be focused on in the next decade are suggested.

To begin with, one of the biggest challenges of global health is the effort to improve women’s and children’s health. With just five years left to achieve the MDGs, the world has failed to invest enough in the health of women, adolescent girls, newborns, infants, and children. As a result, millions of preventable deaths occur each year, thus making less of a progress than any other in goal five of the MDGs, improving maternal health. Due to the biological and social determinants of women’s health, there is a high burden of health conditions for females. “Simply being a woman puts you at risk” is best put by professor Amaya-Fernandez. A fe...

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