Primary care can tackle health inequalities
We have some great blogs lined up for you this week, starting today with the release of The World Health Report 2008 , which focuses again on global health inequalities and how these can be tackled. The report is our Lancet Student Recommends and well worth a read. Thursday sees the launch of Global Health Watch 2 and we look forward to telling you all about this in our blog on Friday! In the meantime, please keep sending us your blogs. We would love to hear from you. Vanessa and Hannah
(Photograph courtesy of the World Health Organization)
“The World Health Report sets out a way to tackle inequities and inefficiencies in health care, and its recommendations need to be heeded,” WHO Director-General Dr Margaret Chan.
Today saw the launch of The World Health Report 2008 by the World Health Organization, in Almaty, Kazakhstan. The report is entitled ‘Primary Health Care – Now More Than Ever’ and commemorates the 30th anniversary of the Alma-Ata International Conference on Primary Health Care held in 1978. It contains a critical assessment of the organisation, financing and delivery of healthcare in rich and poor countries around the world, advocating a horizontal, health systems approach to tackling health inequalities and emphasising the importance of primary care provision. WHO claim that striking worldwide inequities in healthcare could be improved through integrated primary healthcare.
“Primary health care, including integrated services at the community level, can help improve health and save lives.” Ann M. Veneman, UNICEF Executive Director.
(photograph courtesy of Oakhurst Medical).
The reports findings build upon those in Michael Marmot’s report on the Social Determinants of Health, citing differences in life expectancy, maternal mortality and healthcare costs as markers of health inequity. The report notes that inequalities in health outcomes and access to care are much greater today than they were in 1978.
One way of strengthening health systems is to ensure there are sufficient staff to deliver health services. At the G8 Summit in July, UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown agreed to help to fund in 36 African countries a target of 2.3 health workers per 1,000 people; this would require an additional 1.5 million new doctors, nurses or health workers. In September Mr. Brown restated his commitment to strengthening health systems by launching a global plan to recruit a million doctors, nurses and midwives in poor countries at an emergency session of the UN in New York in September, and in the Department of Health report ‘Health is Global’, which promises to address the global shortage of health workers, a deficit that is estimated by WHO to be over four million.
The 15by2015 campaign calls for donor organisations to allocate 15% of their vertical (disease-focused) funding towards sustainable comprehensive primary health care that is accessible and affordable in all regions of the world; ‘Primary health care and prevention are the best and most affordable ways to save the most lives and improve overall health’. WHO estimates that better use of existing preventive measures could reduce the global burden of disease by as much as 70%.