Giving Compass' Take:

• Brookings compiled a list of facts that pertain to the state of global health. This list is a good reminder of the issues of health security abroad and the need for closer attention to these issues. 

• How can we strengthen awareness and bring more funding to global health problems?

• On a positive note, the United Nations reported that eleven countries have pledged donations to the World Health Organization.

April 7th was World Health Day, a day designated by the World Health Organization to promote health for all people across the globe. This is a serious issue facing the international community. Half of the world’s population lacks access to vital health services and over a hundred million people worldwide have been pushed into poverty due to high health care costs.

This year, World Health Day is celebrated with the slogan “Universal Health Coverage: Everyone, Everywhere.” At Brookings, experts across the institution have analyzed and highlighted aspects of health domestically and internationally:

  • There are 800 million undernourished people worldwide. Even in high-income countries, around 10 percent, or 100 million people, deal with food insecurity. One of the internationally agreed upon Sustainable Development Goals aims to completely get rid of hunger by 2030.
  • In the U.S., the opioid crisis takes 175 lives daily. As a whole, the opioid epidemic takes about 33,000 American lives each year, almost matching the over 30,000 lives that gun violence and car accidents each claim yearly.
  • Both dementia and tuberculosis kill about 1.5 million people worldwide annually.  In the United States, life-threatening diseases such as dementia and Alzheimer’s receive a lot of attention, but tuberculosis, a bacterial disease that affects the lungs, kills the same amount of people globally and does not receive the same level of response.
  • $5.6 billion out of $157 billion in research and development funds go to developing countries. In their report, “Health Governance Capacity: Enhancing Private Sector Investment in Global Health,” Darrell West, John Villasenor, and Jake Schneider unpack how low- and middle-income countries around the world effectively utilize external investment in global health research and development (R&D).
  • 0.22 percent of the US 2016 budget was devoted to global health. As seen in the pie chart below, the United States contributes to almost one-third of Development Assistance for Health (DAH) spending.

Read more about global health facts by Brennan Hoban at Brookings.