Global Health Flashcards
What is the HDI and when is it used?
Human Development Index (HDI) takes into three measures to quantify development and is a composite continuous value (between 0.001 - 0.999 3d.p.) Used mainly for statistical comparison.
How does the HDI measure development?
- Knowledge - based on education and literacy
- Healthy life - based on life expectancy
- Standard of living - based on income adjusted for local circumstances (purchasing power parity)
What are the World Bank Country Classifications? What and how are they measured?
LMIC - low middle income countries
HIC - high income countries
Distinguish countries based on objective measure (wealth) rather than subjective judgement. Country classification (made by World Bank) and based on gross national income per capita (GNI).
What is the Global South?
- Denotes countries where: 1) income is low, 2) recently industrialising
- Can be south but not necessarily (tend to be around tropics)
- DO NOT include AUS/NZ
What does WASH stand for?
Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH)
Water - safe water for drinking, washing and domestic activities
Sanitation - safe removal of waste (including toilets and waste disposal)
Hygiene - A range of health promotion activities that encourage protective healthy behaviours and practices
What is maternal death?
Maternal death - death of a woman, while pregnant or within 42 days of termination of pregnancy (incl. birth), or from pregnancy related causes or its management but not from accidental or incidental causes.
What is maternal mortality?
Maternal mortality:
- Global health indicator of a country - ~300,000 each year, 95% in LMICs
What is MMR?
Maternal mortality ratio (MMR)
- Important epidemiological indicator, of human and social progress - (number of maternal deaths/number of live births) * 100,000
What does MMR indicate?
- System wide indicator of both 1) a health system, 2) country’s development
- As an indicator, it is a proxy measure of baseline health status among women of childbearing age
- Further measures: in a health system how
○ Accessible
○ Responsive
○ Effective
○ The degree it is responsive to women’s health - Therefore also measures how politically invested a country is in achieving equal health outcomes for men and women
- However, looking at country level hides inequalities within countries
- e.g in USA, although officially ‘low’ MMR, actually extremely high for a HIC. During a study they found, overall 16.7 MMR, but this became 13 for white women, 30 for native american women, 41 for black women
What is planetary health?
Planetary Health - the health of our planet.
Look at:
- Balance between human consumption and planetary sustainability
- Teaches us about how we are connected to everyone on the planet
- Disparity between those who consume (the wealthy) and those who suffer the consequences (the poor)
- We have been mortgaging the health of future generations to realise economic and development gains in the present.
What is AMR?
Antimicrobial Resistance - when antibiotics/antivirals/antifungals/antiparasitics become less effective over time as pathogens evolve
(Large proportion of antibiotics are used in agriculture)
What are some risks/impacts/consequences of AMR?
Increasing incidence of multi-drug resistant bacteria
If nothing is done – may become almost impossible to do routine surgery
Will hit those who have the least resources the hardest
What are some solutions for AMR?
Understand science behind resistance
Reduce availability of all antibiotics + introduce more safeguards for broad spectrum Abx
Involve more people, AMR affects more than just human health - veterinarians, agriculture, business, politicians. –> global effort
What is Global Health?
Global health = an area for study, research, and practice that places a priority on improving health and achieving health equity for all people worldwide
Aim of WHO?
‘the attainment by all peoples of the highest possible level of health’
