Adamson S. Muula1-3
- Head-Department of Community and Environmental Health, School of Global and Public Health, Kamuzu University of Health Sciences, Malawi
- President- ECSA College of Public Health Physicians
- Editor-in-Chief, Malawi Medical Journal, Malawi
Email address: amuula@kuhes.ac.mw
Global health is that area for study, research, and practice that places priority on improving and achieving equity in health (not just in healthcare) for all people worldwide, i.e. globally. Global health puts a premium on cross-, multi- and transnational health issues, social and other determinants. There is involvement of multiple disciplines within and beyond the traditional and emerging health sciences, thus promoting interdisciplinary collaboration. Global health deals with both population-based disease prevention, promotion of wellness as well as interventions for individual-level clinical care. Global health is not anti-medicine.
Better Health
Although we repeat this, it has been a while when health was thought of only in the physical or health care context. The World Health Organisation’s (WHO’s) definition refers to not only the absence of illness, but “a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being.” This definition has stood the test of time. Perhaps, we can argue that the WHO’s definition was rather utopic when it made reference to the health state being “complete”. I tend to look at health not absolute terms, but in relative terms. The point however is that health is not synonymous with medical care. Global health concern medical or clinical care, population health and the whole world.
Equity
The principle of equity suggests that everyone should have the opportunity to live a life that supports good health. Often however differences in people’s environments, resources, and social statuses affect the choices available to them as well as what happens to them. Politics, economics and others -ics, racism, tribalism and other -isms, affect the social and environmental determinants that promote disparities in health systems and health care access.
A world without borders
Many communicable diseases cross borders. Global health was designed to deal with health concerns and determinants that are transnational, meaning they affect multiple countries. Covid-19 was such a health issue that transcended borders; much more so with international increased travel and commerce. Non-communicable diseases, although by definition do not get transmitted from one person to the other, affect many populations around the world. Climate change and pollutions in all its forms (air, water, soil) are health determinants that affect everyone, especially the poor and vulnerable. Planetary health, is global health. One-Health, is global health.
Trans-disciplinarity
Global health issues involve a complex interplay of factors. These factors need to be addressed from multiple angles: cultural (its importance often overplayed just as it is pervasive), sociological, economic (often made worse by politics), environmental, infrastructural and technological. The involvement of many disciplines and their frameworks, proponents and distractors, both within and beyond the health sciences, brings the perspectives needed to achieve comprehensive and hopefully, effective solutions.
Collaborations and Partnerships
Global health means the participation for all (in all its definition) is encouraged. The complexity of the problems involved requires alliances that bring together different perspectives, competences, organizations, and frameworks. By building partnerships that exchange knowledge and capabilities among countries and stakeholders, including those most affected by these problems, more effective solutions are likely to be achieved.
Global Health is being tested
The world in 2025 is substantially different from what it was in December 2024 and years earlier. Global Health as we knew it is facing substantial challenges in funding, commitment, appeal and implementation. There is heavy anxiety and uncertainty as to the continued availability of funds to support research, pandemic preparedness and response, multi-country collaboration and partnerships and the global vaccine supply chain and global health leadership. How Global Health emerges from the current and yet to come uncertainties, will be studied for millennia.