The UNICEF table of education looks at the gross and net ration of male and female between 2000 to 2006 in primary and secondary school enrolment and attendance for different countries. It also illustrates the literacy rate of female and male (2000-2006) while also comparing Number of phone and internet users per 100 of the population of the year 2005.This table of education can be use to compare the following
-literacy rate of youth (14-24 year) from 2000-2006 of different countries
-number of phone and internet users per 100 of a population of different countries
-both net attendance ratio for both male and female for primary school and secondary school.(with this you actually get the number of children that actually attended primary school from 2000 to 2006 to those who attended secondary school in those same years) of each country
-we can also compare male and female primary school enrolment ration (both gross and net) for primary and secondary school levels.
-From the table it is also easy to compare level of drop out at both primary and secondary school (both male and female) to those who actually attended at both levels
-also the table is able to provide us with information of % of primary school entrants reaching grade 5 from both administrative and survey data
From these tables one is able to see the gender differences between female and male in their level of enrolment and attendance at both primary schools and secondary school levels. These gender differences is seen clearly between countries of the developed and less developed. The gender disparities between male and female in developed countries are more or insignificant, but whereas in developing countries the disparity rate is significant. The following examples clearly show this disperities.Belgium has and gross enrolment ratio of 104 for both male and female and a 99 net enrolment ratio for both male and female for primary schools. It has a gross secondary school enrolment ratio of 112 for male and 108 for female and a net enrolment ratio of 97 and 98 for both male and female respectively. Same goes for Austria with a gross enrolment ration of 104 for both male and female, with a net enrolment ratio of 96/97 for male and female respectively. The gross enrolment ration for secondary school for male is 152 and 145 for female and a net enrolment ratio of 86 and 87 respectively for male and female.norway ,Finland and Denmark have equal net and gross enrolment ratio for both male and female at both secondary and primary school. If you compare these rations with that of less developed countries like Benin which has a gross primary enrolment ratio of 107 and 85 for male and female net ratio of 70 and 60.with a gross secondary school enrolment ratio of 41 and 23 and a net ratio of 23 and 11 for both male and female another example is Nigeria with a gross ratio of 111 and 95 and a net ratio of 72 and 64 for primary school enrolment for male and female respectively, while gross and net enrolment ratio for secondary school is 37 and 31 and 29 and 25 for male and female the same goes for Burkina faso,Niger etc.
From the above examples cited we can see a gender inequality gab, these can be seen between less developed countries and those of the developed world. Religious and cultural belief are some of the factors that affect these inequality among gender in education in some of these areas, take the examples of Pakistan and Afghanistan religion plays a very important rule in the inequality that is found in the primary and secondary school attendance and enrolments. Also in some areas cultural norms this disparities eg where I come from people did not normally send girl children to school because they were considered as other “people properties” ,and so investing on their education was more or less unprofitable since normally she is expected to leave and go get married in another family. This therefore created a situation where the female child was left at home to take care of the home and the other children. This is a practice condemn the girl child to continue poverty and she could not be empowered and this greatly affected her health. These cultural and religious beliefs create the marginalization of the female child thus depriving her of opportunities later on in life. When that is compared to countries of the developed world one can observe that both female like male attend school on equal bases. In some cases the ratio of female to male is greater unlike in less developing whole where these ratio are smaller and as you get to the secondary school level it reduces further illustrated the type of society .The fact that developed countries are more democratic and secular permit and facilitate gender equality. Countries with higher primary schooling and a smaller gap between rates of boys’ and girls’ schooling tend to enjoy greater democracy (http://web.worldbank.org/)
If you also look at countries that are in continues conflict situation, war, natural disaster such as Democratic republic of Congo, Afaganistan etc sending children to school is difficult this is because of lack of stability and security. In this cases education and quality education is a distant dream, those a cycle is being observe that leaves these people in a continue state of poverty and lack of peace.
Poverty is one of the factors that also cause these differences in school enrolment and school attendance at both primary and secondary school levels. Poverty has negative implications and keeps children out of school. In developing countries, it is one child out of two who is poor (Minujin et al. 1999; UNICEF, 2000). Poverty that starts with childhood and carries the seed of its own reproduction (Heidel K., 2004). Poverty mortgages the future of the children that undergoes it and condemns them to relive it in adulthood. Making it impossible for them to go to school or to attend school. That is why a difference can be seen at the level of enrolment and attendance, Children are enrol in both primary and secondary school but yet cannot afford to actually attend as such the difference in attendance ratio.Striking difference in gross and net ratio is the fact that at in most developing countries the number of children that actually do attend after enrolment always falls. Reasons that can be advanced for this is the fact that schools may be located very far from where this children leave or lack of resources to buy school stationeries like books and pens and also the fact that some children have to help out at home or have to provide for their families financially and as such they are unable to attend school even after enrolment. Another reason that could be advance is the presence of structural violence, thus structures have continued to create a cycle of inequality which affects gender, race and ethnicity etc.
Another sticking thing is the number of phone users and internet uses .It can be seen that countries with high primary school and secondary school enrolment ratio have higher number of phone and internet users. Which proves that the more expose people are the more there interact with other people from different parts of the world and the more knowledge is gain. These countries are knowledge base societies
To summaries statistics show that the children account for a large proportion of the poor in the world (nearly half). Poverty starts with childhood; it is at this level that we should begin the fight and the best way to do this is to educate children. Education is essential in fighting poverty from the root since it provide skills for lifelong learning and professional success. The society has the obligation to correct the inequalities undergone by children who cannot be held responsible for the poverty situation they inherit (Cerc Association, 2004) and inorder to empower and strengthen the nation there is a need to educate children so that both the nation and the individual can be lifted from poverty. Education of the girl child is vital to the development of the society and as perfectly put educating a girl is educating a nation. Thus the need for gender sensitive education
References
- Cerc Association (2004). «Les enfants pauvres de France». Rapport de travail du Cerc Association.
- Heidel, K. (2004). «Reduction strategy papers: blind to the rights of the (working) child?». Kinderno- thilfe and Werkstatt Ökonomie, Heidelberg.
- Minujin, A. (1999). «Putting children into poverty statistics». Paper presented at the Third Meeting of the Expert Group on Poverty Statistics, INE, Lisbon.
- UNICEF (2000). «Poverty reduction begins with children». UNICEF, New York.
-http://web.worldbank.org/
Friday, October 22, 2010
Thursday, October 14, 2010
Poverty
The concept of structural violence and distal and proximal intervention are the two concepts I choose from Farmer's article.
Structural violence are arrangements or structure that are in place that cause harm to the population or that impairs human lives. These structures may be political, economical or social. Structures and institutions are central to this analysis. These structures are either at the domestic level or at the international level. Although John Galtung theory of structural violence was first and foremost related to peace research, his concept of structural violence is widely applicable and has extended to fields such as anthropology, clinical medicine, and sociology (Essex Human Rights Review Vol. 4 No. 2 September 2007) .That is why Farmer can use this concept to explain health and poverty in a society.
Health and poverty can be explained by using structural violence. The fact that unjust and exploitative social, economic and social system structures are in place and facilitate physical or psychological harm is said to impact health and poverty. Health and poverty are markers of structural violence because it focuses on the underlying causes of poverty and health. Those disparities that cause more than 2.7 billion people to leave on less than 2.7 dollars a day why there is a 30 years difference between people living in Africa and those in the rich nations (http://www2.helsekompetanse.no). “Structural violence erases the history and consciousness of the social origins of poverty, sickness, hunger, and premature death, so that they are simply taken for granted and naturalized so that no one is held accountable except, perhaps, the poor themselves” (Scheper-Hughes 2004:14).Considering that in the world, health and poverty are shaped by social, political and economic conditions (Irwin et al. 2006) these factors go a long way to decipher if people have access to health services.
Structural violence gives us that opportunity to be able to understand some basic human contemporary phenomenon. In understanding these we are able to implement solutions to areas that need them
This can be exemplifies by the disparities that accord in HIV care that is why Africa American are said to be more likely to contract HIV and also among patients infected with HIV, blacks are significantly less likely than whites to have received ART same goes in the case of Rwanda and Haiti. (http://model.pih.org).It is therefore required that social causes of ill health should be looked in to.
Since people can be killed or harmed through sociopolitical and economic structures there affect the health and poverty level of societies or communities. This thus leaves certain groups of the community prone to the social injustices of these machineries thus an observation of health disparities or differences in health status between wealthy elites and the poor in stratified societies (Evolution and Prehistory: The Human Challenge 2007).
Wealthy states, corporations are using their power to structure world system which in effect leave them at a competitive advantage thus the existence of structural violence especially when such powers undermine the well being of others as populations of less developed countries continue to languish in poverty and the health state of the populations of these countries continue to deteriorate since there are on the disadvantage. It is thus logical to say that when an agency is constrained to the extent that fundamental human needs cannot be attained, structural violence becomes a structural violation of human rights (Essex Human Rights Review Vol. 4 No. 2 September 2007).
John Galtung asserts that in structural violence there may not be any person who directly harms another person and that violence is built into the structure and shows up as unequal power and consequently as unequal life chances. Thus take the case of inequality in a society, racism, where for example a particular race is at a systematically disadvantage and as such unequal life changes thus it the structures that are in place that perpetrates these constrain and not a person thus making it possible for poverty, ill health to be an issue of concern in these populations. Institutionalized social structure lowers the level of actual fulfillment of one’s fundamental needs, such as healthcare and thus according to Farmer these structures then creates an unequal distribution of power then these distribution of power then systematically disadvantages those who do not hold as much if any power (Farmer, Pathologies of Power 2005).It can be seen that structural violence is embedded in inequality,
Only poverty will cause children to play in such dirty and drink such dirty water
Poverty on the other hand actually create conditions where to meets ones fundamental human needs are obstructed thus poverty can be said to create violence that makes it actually impossible to meets basic fundamental needs of some people .Thus it is poverty that makes it possible for 815 million people to be undernourished while 1.1 billion lack access to safe drinking water and 880 million lack asses to basic health care (Pogge 2003,)
The concept of distal and proximal intervention tries to remove some of the basic obstacle at the point of care. These levels of care are given at both the distal and proximal level. All these level of intervention are important. The distal and the proximal intervention go hand in glove and as such complement each other. These two levels of interventions both tackle health crisis and poverty. From my understanding these two sorts of interventions can effectively illustrate the level of health and poverty in a community. When one is at the state of ill health (sick) it is very necessary that distal intervention be carried out because it will increase their chances of surviving and also lessen the risk of whatever disease they may be suffering from, medical personnel’s are trained to carry out this level of intervention then the proximal level which is more or less like a preventive level.
It can be said while both are important but depending on the society in question one can take precedence. Take the case of most Scandinavian countries, individuals or people are more concern with the distal level of intervention, in case of any ill health or sickness they individual know that have to go to the hospital and let the medical personnel carry out diagnoses of their illness and prescribe drugs for them. Proximal level of intervention in these societies can be said to be already established since structures that are in places have already made sure that there are in place facilitating this level of intervention. Most third world countries mostly due of structural violence still have to take both these level of intervention seriously, because most often one without the other will not work effectively. In poor health they population worries about having the possibility of having distal care ,already they are meant with obstacles firstly due of the unavailability of medical practitioners and also the fact that they cannot afford for health care services. In cases where they manage to have these distal intervention they are still face another delimer,how to maintain these state of health such as lack of clean water ,basic sanitation and most especially lack of possibility to effect a change in the being and also how to prevent these deceases from occurring . Thus proximal intervention becomes very important because it requires the available of certain necessities before distal intervention can be effective. Yes one can be provided with anti retro-viral drugs but if they have no food to eat, lack access to clean drinking water, sanitation is poor it actually becomes difficult to fight the disease.
This is exemplified in the voices of the poor, where it states that poor places keep people poor and also poor places kill if this statement is extrapolated we can as well say that this situation has very much created a situation where it is difficult to provide for proximal intervention, thus these poor places will kill you before you even have the opportunity to have distal intervention. Thus a lack of these basic necessities which is cause by poverty leads to ill health. Therefore it can be suggested that “good health” and “well-being” must be a combination of distal and proximal intervention. It is said poverty and ill-health are inseparable thus in Voices of the Poor” ill-health is perceived both as a cause of increased poverty and as an obstacle to escaping it (Voices of the Poor, a project led by Deepa Narayan, 2000).
It raises the awareness that poverty and ill-health are inseparable and that due to structures that are in place poverty and health can either be ameliorated or they can deteriorate .It brings to light the issues of denied opportunities and these opportunities are being denied to people who need them by socio economic and political structures. Thus rising both ethical and moral values that basic human rights should not be neglected. He illustrates how structural violence violates people’s basic human right.
By linking structural violence to poverty and health he opens up a discourse .This discourse allows for the re-thinking of the concept of poverty .By illustrating how structural violence create disparities between groups of people he does not just create an awareness but brings to light how structures can be part of the worlds poverty and ill health issues.
Farmer also makes it clear that despite the presence of this violence, problems created can still be solved by using both distal and proximal intervention. He outlines the fact that these distal and proximal interventions can be attainable if we wish. Because he considers that these violence in the first place are avoidable. Thus structural intervention should be made available.
In Farmer's article he clearly point how structural violence have created inequality, gender issues,racism,social injustice etc.These then allows for poverty which then create conditions that allows for human rights to be violated be it at the global level or at the community level.
To conclude Farmers articles allows me to evaluate and to appreciate the fact that although structures may be very much be part of why poverty exist I can understanding at what point individuals should take responsibility .Thus for me it is a mixture of the presents of structures that facilitate poverty and individuals that do not take responsibility .
References
- Essex Human Rights Review Vol. 4 No. 2 September 2007)
-Farmer, Paul, Pathologies of Power (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005).
-Galtung, John, ‘Cultural Violence’ (1990) 27.3 Journal of Peace Research
-Irwin A, Valentine N, Brown C, Loewenson R, Solar O, Brown H, Koller T, Vega J (2006). The Commission on Social Determinants of Health: tackling the social roots of health inequities. PLoS Med
-Poggs, Thomas, ‘Priorities of Global Justice’ in David Held and Anthony McGrew (eds.),
The Global Transformations Reader, (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2003).
- Scheper-Hughes N (2004). Dangerous and endangered youth: social structures and determinants of violence. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences
- William A. Haviland, Dana Walrath, Harald E. L. Prins, Evolution and Prehistory: The Human Challenge (2007) Wadsworth Publishing
-Voices of the Poor, a project led by Deepa Narayan, World Bank, published 2000.
www.worldbank.org/poverty/voices.)
- Dying for Change .Poor people’s experience of health and ill-health http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTPAH/Resources/Publications/Dying-for-Change/
- http://www2.helsekompetanse.no
-(http://model.pih.org).
Structural violence are arrangements or structure that are in place that cause harm to the population or that impairs human lives. These structures may be political, economical or social. Structures and institutions are central to this analysis. These structures are either at the domestic level or at the international level. Although John Galtung theory of structural violence was first and foremost related to peace research, his concept of structural violence is widely applicable and has extended to fields such as anthropology, clinical medicine, and sociology (Essex Human Rights Review Vol. 4 No. 2 September 2007) .That is why Farmer can use this concept to explain health and poverty in a society.
Health and poverty can be explained by using structural violence. The fact that unjust and exploitative social, economic and social system structures are in place and facilitate physical or psychological harm is said to impact health and poverty. Health and poverty are markers of structural violence because it focuses on the underlying causes of poverty and health. Those disparities that cause more than 2.7 billion people to leave on less than 2.7 dollars a day why there is a 30 years difference between people living in Africa and those in the rich nations (http://www2.helsekompetanse.no). “Structural violence erases the history and consciousness of the social origins of poverty, sickness, hunger, and premature death, so that they are simply taken for granted and naturalized so that no one is held accountable except, perhaps, the poor themselves” (Scheper-Hughes 2004:14).Considering that in the world, health and poverty are shaped by social, political and economic conditions (Irwin et al. 2006) these factors go a long way to decipher if people have access to health services.
Structural violence gives us that opportunity to be able to understand some basic human contemporary phenomenon. In understanding these we are able to implement solutions to areas that need them
This can be exemplifies by the disparities that accord in HIV care that is why Africa American are said to be more likely to contract HIV and also among patients infected with HIV, blacks are significantly less likely than whites to have received ART same goes in the case of Rwanda and Haiti. (http://model.pih.org).It is therefore required that social causes of ill health should be looked in to.
Since people can be killed or harmed through sociopolitical and economic structures there affect the health and poverty level of societies or communities. This thus leaves certain groups of the community prone to the social injustices of these machineries thus an observation of health disparities or differences in health status between wealthy elites and the poor in stratified societies (Evolution and Prehistory: The Human Challenge 2007).
Wealthy states, corporations are using their power to structure world system which in effect leave them at a competitive advantage thus the existence of structural violence especially when such powers undermine the well being of others as populations of less developed countries continue to languish in poverty and the health state of the populations of these countries continue to deteriorate since there are on the disadvantage. It is thus logical to say that when an agency is constrained to the extent that fundamental human needs cannot be attained, structural violence becomes a structural violation of human rights (Essex Human Rights Review Vol. 4 No. 2 September 2007).
John Galtung asserts that in structural violence there may not be any person who directly harms another person and that violence is built into the structure and shows up as unequal power and consequently as unequal life chances. Thus take the case of inequality in a society, racism, where for example a particular race is at a systematically disadvantage and as such unequal life changes thus it the structures that are in place that perpetrates these constrain and not a person thus making it possible for poverty, ill health to be an issue of concern in these populations. Institutionalized social structure lowers the level of actual fulfillment of one’s fundamental needs, such as healthcare and thus according to Farmer these structures then creates an unequal distribution of power then these distribution of power then systematically disadvantages those who do not hold as much if any power (Farmer, Pathologies of Power 2005).It can be seen that structural violence is embedded in inequality,
Poverty on the other hand actually create conditions where to meets ones fundamental human needs are obstructed thus poverty can be said to create violence that makes it actually impossible to meets basic fundamental needs of some people .Thus it is poverty that makes it possible for 815 million people to be undernourished while 1.1 billion lack access to safe drinking water and 880 million lack asses to basic health care (Pogge 2003,)
The concept of distal and proximal intervention tries to remove some of the basic obstacle at the point of care. These levels of care are given at both the distal and proximal level. All these level of intervention are important. The distal and the proximal intervention go hand in glove and as such complement each other. These two levels of interventions both tackle health crisis and poverty. From my understanding these two sorts of interventions can effectively illustrate the level of health and poverty in a community. When one is at the state of ill health (sick) it is very necessary that distal intervention be carried out because it will increase their chances of surviving and also lessen the risk of whatever disease they may be suffering from, medical personnel’s are trained to carry out this level of intervention then the proximal level which is more or less like a preventive level.
It can be said while both are important but depending on the society in question one can take precedence. Take the case of most Scandinavian countries, individuals or people are more concern with the distal level of intervention, in case of any ill health or sickness they individual know that have to go to the hospital and let the medical personnel carry out diagnoses of their illness and prescribe drugs for them. Proximal level of intervention in these societies can be said to be already established since structures that are in places have already made sure that there are in place facilitating this level of intervention. Most third world countries mostly due of structural violence still have to take both these level of intervention seriously, because most often one without the other will not work effectively. In poor health they population worries about having the possibility of having distal care ,already they are meant with obstacles firstly due of the unavailability of medical practitioners and also the fact that they cannot afford for health care services. In cases where they manage to have these distal intervention they are still face another delimer,how to maintain these state of health such as lack of clean water ,basic sanitation and most especially lack of possibility to effect a change in the being and also how to prevent these deceases from occurring . Thus proximal intervention becomes very important because it requires the available of certain necessities before distal intervention can be effective. Yes one can be provided with anti retro-viral drugs but if they have no food to eat, lack access to clean drinking water, sanitation is poor it actually becomes difficult to fight the disease.
This is exemplified in the voices of the poor, where it states that poor places keep people poor and also poor places kill if this statement is extrapolated we can as well say that this situation has very much created a situation where it is difficult to provide for proximal intervention, thus these poor places will kill you before you even have the opportunity to have distal intervention. Thus a lack of these basic necessities which is cause by poverty leads to ill health. Therefore it can be suggested that “good health” and “well-being” must be a combination of distal and proximal intervention. It is said poverty and ill-health are inseparable thus in Voices of the Poor” ill-health is perceived both as a cause of increased poverty and as an obstacle to escaping it (Voices of the Poor, a project led by Deepa Narayan, 2000).
Value that Farmer’s articles brings to discussion on poverty and health.
It raises the awareness that poverty and ill-health are inseparable and that due to structures that are in place poverty and health can either be ameliorated or they can deteriorate .It brings to light the issues of denied opportunities and these opportunities are being denied to people who need them by socio economic and political structures. Thus rising both ethical and moral values that basic human rights should not be neglected. He illustrates how structural violence violates people’s basic human right.
By linking structural violence to poverty and health he opens up a discourse .This discourse allows for the re-thinking of the concept of poverty .By illustrating how structural violence create disparities between groups of people he does not just create an awareness but brings to light how structures can be part of the worlds poverty and ill health issues.
Farmer also makes it clear that despite the presence of this violence, problems created can still be solved by using both distal and proximal intervention. He outlines the fact that these distal and proximal interventions can be attainable if we wish. Because he considers that these violence in the first place are avoidable. Thus structural intervention should be made available.
In Farmer's article he clearly point how structural violence have created inequality, gender issues,racism,social injustice etc.These then allows for poverty which then create conditions that allows for human rights to be violated be it at the global level or at the community level.
To conclude Farmers articles allows me to evaluate and to appreciate the fact that although structures may be very much be part of why poverty exist I can understanding at what point individuals should take responsibility .Thus for me it is a mixture of the presents of structures that facilitate poverty and individuals that do not take responsibility .
References
- Essex Human Rights Review Vol. 4 No. 2 September 2007)
-Farmer, Paul, Pathologies of Power (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005).
-Galtung, John, ‘Cultural Violence’ (1990) 27.3 Journal of Peace Research
-Irwin A, Valentine N, Brown C, Loewenson R, Solar O, Brown H, Koller T, Vega J (2006). The Commission on Social Determinants of Health: tackling the social roots of health inequities. PLoS Med
-Poggs, Thomas, ‘Priorities of Global Justice’ in David Held and Anthony McGrew (eds.),
The Global Transformations Reader, (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2003).
- Scheper-Hughes N (2004). Dangerous and endangered youth: social structures and determinants of violence. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences
- William A. Haviland, Dana Walrath, Harald E. L. Prins, Evolution and Prehistory: The Human Challenge (2007) Wadsworth Publishing
-Voices of the Poor, a project led by Deepa Narayan, World Bank, published 2000.
www.worldbank.org/poverty/voices.)
- Dying for Change .Poor people’s experience of health and ill-health http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTPAH/Resources/Publications/Dying-for-Change/
- http://www2.helsekompetanse.no
-(http://model.pih.org).
Monday, October 11, 2010
Wednesday, October 6, 2010
Concerns on global health
It is true we live in a global community and it is also a fact that globalization is real and here,but it makes me wonder in as much as globalization has impacted our life so too is nationalism.We should not forget that even though everything is becoming much more closer nations that make up the global village are still individual states or nation consequently when decisions are made at the global level ,each and every nation will be doing so with a mind frame of "what is in this for my country and my people"
In as much as we want to think that global public health should be consider at a global context there are all this issues that makes it difficult to implement all this.Enormous challenges exist in global health especially at the operational levels and at the accountability level.Although the amount of money has increased but the operational gap and the accountability gab is still very significant.
The following question i ask.
-Are people really prepared to leave their nationalist views over global views?
-Are poorer people helped out of pity or is it because it is their fundamental human rights to to have assess to public health ?
-What is in for every nation or country when public health is at a global level?
-Is global public health attainable (especially when some people in countries such as American do not see a reason for a free health care for it own citizens)?
-Is the global community turning in to a giant social system (especially when it comes to global public health)?
With these questions and concerns in mind attaining the millennium development goal by 2015 is something closer to impossible.
In as much as we want to think that global public health should be consider at a global context there are all this issues that makes it difficult to implement all this.Enormous challenges exist in global health especially at the operational levels and at the accountability level.Although the amount of money has increased but the operational gap and the accountability gab is still very significant.
The following question i ask.
-Are people really prepared to leave their nationalist views over global views?
-Are poorer people helped out of pity or is it because it is their fundamental human rights to to have assess to public health ?
-What is in for every nation or country when public health is at a global level?
-Is global public health attainable (especially when some people in countries such as American do not see a reason for a free health care for it own citizens)?
-Is the global community turning in to a giant social system (especially when it comes to global public health)?
With these questions and concerns in mind attaining the millennium development goal by 2015 is something closer to impossible.
Tuesday, October 5, 2010
Reasons to consider health at the global level
As clearly put by Marshall McLuhan “Today, after more than a century of electric technology, we have extended our central nervous system itself in a global embrace, abolishing both space and time as far as our planet is concerned ". (Marshall McLuhan, Understanding Media, 1964.) In his concept of the "global village" he clearly started how events in one part of the world could be experienced in other parts in real-time. Although in this case he was talking about the media, we can see that this concept is extended to globalization. We are leaving in an era of globalization where the world is gradually becoming one "giant village" and as such we are force by want to be interested in what happens in other parts of the world. This globalization process has brought closes regional economies, societies, cultures,religions etc. Borders are being broken and thus by has facilitated the flow of goods,capital,labour.These effects are bound to be observe in the fields of industrial,financial,economic,health policy,political,informational,language,competition,ecological,culture,religious, legal/ethical, education, technical and social sphere.Due to all these changes it is but normal that health should be treated at a global level.
Health has become a commodity and according to Kickbusch (2004) it can be refers to as a global public good and as such should not be left only in the hands of particular nations or in the hands of the private sector . Being in a “global village” it has become more or less imperative that public health should be promoted because if these good (commodity) is left in the hands of the private sector it may become too expensive for the poor and they will be deprive of preventive health. It is therefore a collective responsibility to focus on population and a need to prevent deceases as such lives are being improved through prevention. Public health therefore should not just be deal with at governmental or public health agencies level rather health should be consider at a global level .Furthermore since health is a commodity it therefore means it has been allocated a price and these price can be too expensive for the people. The health systems has become fragmented and privatized thus the sector is crowded with many players who have different private interest. Leaving everything in the hands of private sector will be giving more value to privatized care for the wealthy and less value to the public or the poor. If health as a commodity is left in the hands of the private sector then the poor will not benefit or have access to preventive health care.
In this era of globalization not just good are moving people are too. These global mobility which is said to be characterized by a major increase in the extensive, intensity and velocity of movement and by a wide variety in 'types' of mobility as such deceases are also being transported from one part of the world to another thus the adage microbes know no borders. Take the recent case of the 2009 H1N1 pandemic which spread so fast. On June 11, 2009, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared that a pandemic of 2009 H1N1 flu was underway. This is exemplified in a study, led by Dr. Weizhong Yang and Dr. Hongjie Yu from the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention in Beijing which noted that in 2009 the fast-spreading influenza A (H1N1) virus killed more than 18,000 people in over 200 countries (http://www.businessweek.com. As such there is a global vested interest for health to be considered at a global level in this case.
According to the European commission on the EU role in global health it is about worldwide improvement of health, reduction of disparities, and protection against global health threats.
The Charter of Fundamental Rights further stipulates that everyone has the right of access to preventive health care and the right to benefit from medical treatment under the conditions established by national laws and practices (Article 35 OJ C 303/7, 14.12.2007, and p.1). Thus ethically and morally every human being or population deserves to be protected against any health threats. As such it is ethically right that health should be considered at a global level rather than at governmental or individual level for this reason.
Public health care is very a complex and interwoven issue. It is said that today more money is being a directed toward the world’s poor and sick then ever before. But still we see a great gap .This is because health in “general” is not being targeted. Which means focus should not just be centered on specific diseases but on other issues which relates to health. These may be availability of infrastructures; development etc.These can be sum up as attaining the “Millennium Development Goals” which are measured by indicators. This cannot therefore be a task for individual countries but for the entire human population, race, culture and religion. Therefore a more global and urgent action must be taken or is required for this to happen at a global level
Health has become a commodity and according to Kickbusch (2004) it can be refers to as a global public good and as such should not be left only in the hands of particular nations or in the hands of the private sector . Being in a “global village” it has become more or less imperative that public health should be promoted because if these good (commodity) is left in the hands of the private sector it may become too expensive for the poor and they will be deprive of preventive health. It is therefore a collective responsibility to focus on population and a need to prevent deceases as such lives are being improved through prevention. Public health therefore should not just be deal with at governmental or public health agencies level rather health should be consider at a global level .Furthermore since health is a commodity it therefore means it has been allocated a price and these price can be too expensive for the people. The health systems has become fragmented and privatized thus the sector is crowded with many players who have different private interest. Leaving everything in the hands of private sector will be giving more value to privatized care for the wealthy and less value to the public or the poor. If health as a commodity is left in the hands of the private sector then the poor will not benefit or have access to preventive health care.
In this era of globalization not just good are moving people are too. These global mobility which is said to be characterized by a major increase in the extensive, intensity and velocity of movement and by a wide variety in 'types' of mobility as such deceases are also being transported from one part of the world to another thus the adage microbes know no borders. Take the recent case of the 2009 H1N1 pandemic which spread so fast. On June 11, 2009, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared that a pandemic of 2009 H1N1 flu was underway. This is exemplified in a study, led by Dr. Weizhong Yang and Dr. Hongjie Yu from the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention in Beijing which noted that in 2009 the fast-spreading influenza A (H1N1) virus killed more than 18,000 people in over 200 countries (http://www.businessweek.com. As such there is a global vested interest for health to be considered at a global level in this case.
According to the European commission on the EU role in global health it is about worldwide improvement of health, reduction of disparities, and protection against global health threats.
The Charter of Fundamental Rights further stipulates that everyone has the right of access to preventive health care and the right to benefit from medical treatment under the conditions established by national laws and practices (Article 35 OJ C 303/7, 14.12.2007, and p.1). Thus ethically and morally every human being or population deserves to be protected against any health threats. As such it is ethically right that health should be considered at a global level rather than at governmental or individual level for this reason.
Public health care is very a complex and interwoven issue. It is said that today more money is being a directed toward the world’s poor and sick then ever before. But still we see a great gap .This is because health in “general” is not being targeted. Which means focus should not just be centered on specific diseases but on other issues which relates to health. These may be availability of infrastructures; development etc.These can be sum up as attaining the “Millennium Development Goals” which are measured by indicators. This cannot therefore be a task for individual countries but for the entire human population, race, culture and religion. Therefore a more global and urgent action must be taken or is required for this to happen at a global level
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