Health at a Glance (8th December 2009)New internationally comparable indicators on quality of care show progress in treating serious conditions such as cancer. However, despite increasing rates of chronic diseases such as asthma and diabetes, care for these conditions falls short of good practices in too many countries, resulting in deteriorating health and higher medical costs.
Press Release
Global Health Risks. Mortality and burden of disease attributable to selected major risks (27th October 2009)Global health risks is a comprehensive assessment of leading risks to global health. It provides detailed global and regional estimates of premature mortality, disability and loss of health attributable to 24 global risk factors.
Press release
Report
Disparities in health expenditure across Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries: Why does the United States spend so much more than other countries? (30th September 2009)The United States spent 16% of its national income (GDP) on health in 2007, which is by far, the highest share in the OECD and more than seven percentage points higher than the average of 8.9% in OECD countries. This presentation was given by Mark Pearson, Head of OECD Health Division, to the U.S Senate Special Committee on Aging.
Document Health: Improving Policy Coherence for Development (Policy Brief) (7th October 2009)The cost of treating disease is vastly greater than the cost of controlling or preventing disease. In a time of global recession, the disparity in health outcomes between developed and developing countries will most likely widen. The rapid expansion in trade, foreign investment and international travel mean that infectious diseases can have adverse effects not only on health but also on economic growth and security.
Brief
62nd World Health Assembly (22nd May 2009)
The 62nd session of the World Health Assembly took place during 18-22 May 2009. A number of public health issues were discussed, including:
- pandemic influenza preparedness
- implementation of the International Health Regulations
- social determinants of health
- monitoring the achievement of the health-related Millennium Development Goals
Documents
World Health Organization: UK institutional strategy 2008-13 (24th February 2009)The UK Government has recently agreed the first cross-Government Institutional Strategy (IS) with the World Health Organization (WHO). The overall aim of the strategy is to set out how the UK and WHO will work together, and to provide a basis for multi-year (2008-2013) core funding relationship with WHO.Strategy
Government Response to the House of Lords Select Committee on Intergovernmental Organisations Report - Diseases Know no Frontiers: How effective are Intergovernmental Organisations in Controlling their Spread? (22nd October 2008)
Cross-Government response to the recommendations of the Select Committee. There are a number of areas where the UK Government can contribute even more effectively to global efforts to control infectious diseases.
Government Response
The Committee’s Report
World Health Report 2008 (14th October 2008)
The World Health Report 2008, launched today, critically assesses the way that health care is organized, financed, and delivered in rich and poor countries around the world. The WHO report documents a number of failures and shortcomings that have left the health status of different populations, both within and between countries, dangerously out of balance.
Full Report
Summary
Introduction & Overview
Health is global: a UK Government strategy 2008-13 (30th September 2008)
Health is global is the first cross-government strategy to highlight the breath of challenges that face us in the area of global health. The strategy outlines a set of principles and actions that the UK Government will focus on over the next five years to improve the health of across the world, including the UK. The strategy highlights the importance of coherence and consistency in government policy and identifies ways to work even more effectively with our partners to deliver better health outcomes.
Strategy
Summary
Annexes
Impact Assessments
Closing the gap in a generation. Health equity through action on the social determinants of health (August 2008)
A child born in a Glasgow, Scotland suburb can expect a life 28 years shorter than another living only 13 kilometres away. A girl in Lesotho is likely to live 42 years less than another in Japan. In Sweden, the risk of a woman dying during pregnancy and childbirth is 1 in 17 400; in Afghanistan, the odds are 1 in 8. Biology does not explain any of this. Instead, the differences between - and within - countries result from the social environment where people are born, live, grow, work and age. These "social determinants of health" have been the focus of a three-year investigation by an eminent group of policy makers, academics, former heads of state and former ministers of health. Together, they comprise the World Health Organization's Commission on the Social Determinants of Health.
Report
Executive Summary
Global health partnerships: the UK contribution to health in developing countries – the Government response (15th March 2008)
This document is the formal Government response to Lord Crisp's report on the UK contribution to health in developing countries.
Click here for the Document
Global Tuberculosis Control 2008. Surveillance, Planning, Financing (17th March 2008)
The Global tuberculosis control 2008, released today by WHO, finds that the pace of the progress to control the tuberculosis (TB) epidemic slowed slightly in 2006, the most recent year for which data were available. The new information documents a slowdown in progress on diagnosing people with TB. Between 2001 to 2005, the average rate at which new TB cases were detected was increasing by 6% per year; but between 2005 and 2006 that rate of increase was cut in half, to 3%.
Click here for the Full Report (large file)
Click here for the Summary
Click here for the individual Chapters
