As the world becomes more globalized, so does the health of its population. The fast-growing pace of globalization over the past few decades has elicited increases in the free and rapid movement of people, capital, information, services and cultural values across national borders. This, in turn, has led to global scale-up of industrialization, urbanization, economic and political liberalization, and social and ecological transformations that have provided abundant benefits for the global population. However, they also have created a host of side effects, including risk factors that negatively affect determinants of the global population's health, such as - environmental pollution, climate change, bio-terrorism, military conflicts, humanitarian catastrophes and antimicrobial resistance, to name a few.
From the late 1990s, awareness of the impact of globalization on health shifted the focus from the existing field of international health to the emerging field of global health.
- International health addresses health problems mainly in developing countries and manages the transfer of resources and knowledge from the developed to the developing world.
- Global health, in contrast, addresses health issues and concerns that transcend national and political boundaries of all countries, and creates a relationship built on global, mutual interdependence.
Thus, global health focuses on the health needs of the entire planet's population, above and beyond the concerns of particular nations, and emphasizes the shared susceptibility to, experience of, and responsibility for health, which is best addressed through cooperation among all nations.
Global health challenges require effective trans-national actions based on mutually reciprocal responsibilities between all countries to achieve commonly agreed-upon health objectives that should be addressed through internationally agreed-upon coordination mechanisms.
This is precisely what global health is all about: It sets a framework for conceptual, technical and operational understanding of what countries and key global health actors should do to better preserve human health in the globalized world.
Global health is a complex field, spanning across medicine, public health, international relations, politics, economics, trade, finance, management, demography, ecology, sociology, anthropology, behavioral sciences, nutrition and other disciplines. It is also a rapidly growing profession with ever-increasing importance in the decades to come. But above all, global health is a fascinating world of discoveries with a noble mission: to contribute to the well-being of mankind.
We at IOGH firmly believe that all countries and societies should have sufficient professional capacity in global health to effectively collaborate and jointly contribute to this common cause. Our organizational mission - advancing global health through education, research and practice - is a reflection of this belief.
