New regular report will monitor global health issues
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《英国医生杂志》
A new regular report will monitor important global health issues and the actions of international health institutions, a coalition of three global health networks announced last week.
The scheme to produce the reports, called Global Health Watch, is being coordinated by the People抯 Health Movement, the Global Equity Gauge Alliance, and Medact, all non-profit organisations working to improve health across the world. The scheme will recruit authors and organisations from developed and developing countries to write the reports, which are planned to be published every two years. The first is due in May 2005. The reports will cover a range of international health issues, including the health needs of indigenous peoples, the "brain drain" of health workers from poor to rich countries, the privatisation of health care, and the role of global organisations in health, including the World Health Organization, the World Trade Organization, and the World Bank.
David McCoy, a member of the scheme抯 steering committee, said: "Health is influenced by many institutions, at the national and global level. The Global Health Watch, because it抯 a global level report, will primarily be aimed at trying to highlight some of the key issues arising from the policies and agreements made by some key international institutions, like the World Trade Organization. The policies of those institutions have to be monitored.
"An important feature of this report is that it deliberately brings a number of organisations from other sectors to discuss the problems of poor health. The report includes contributions from development groups on the state of global poverty reduction and from environmental campaigns on climate change."
The director of Medact, Mike Rowson, said: "Many parts of the world have seen health reversals rather than improvements in the last 20 years. We decided to launch this initiative to get decision makers to confront the issues that keep people poor and unhealthy."
The reports are aimed at national healthcare policy makers and systems. Mr McCoy explained: "We抮e not trying to reach policy makers sitting in existing global health institutions. We are trying to educate, inform, and mobilise the health community about the alternatives that exist in the health policy debate."
The scheme plans to obtain support from a wide alliance of independent groups and charities to help write and fund the reports. Fund raising is still in progress for the scheme, which has been budgeted at $200 000 (?10 000; �160 000).
"We抮e hoping to get smaller donations from a wide variety of non-governmental organisations to avoid being compromised by funding coming from only one or two sources," Mr McCoy said. He added: "This budget is tiny in comparison to the production of other major reports on global health, such as the Human Development Report or the World Health Report. Part of the reason why it抯 relatively small is that we are relying on the work of people who are already working on these issues."(BMJ Vittal Katikireddi)
The scheme to produce the reports, called Global Health Watch, is being coordinated by the People抯 Health Movement, the Global Equity Gauge Alliance, and Medact, all non-profit organisations working to improve health across the world. The scheme will recruit authors and organisations from developed and developing countries to write the reports, which are planned to be published every two years. The first is due in May 2005. The reports will cover a range of international health issues, including the health needs of indigenous peoples, the "brain drain" of health workers from poor to rich countries, the privatisation of health care, and the role of global organisations in health, including the World Health Organization, the World Trade Organization, and the World Bank.
David McCoy, a member of the scheme抯 steering committee, said: "Health is influenced by many institutions, at the national and global level. The Global Health Watch, because it抯 a global level report, will primarily be aimed at trying to highlight some of the key issues arising from the policies and agreements made by some key international institutions, like the World Trade Organization. The policies of those institutions have to be monitored.
"An important feature of this report is that it deliberately brings a number of organisations from other sectors to discuss the problems of poor health. The report includes contributions from development groups on the state of global poverty reduction and from environmental campaigns on climate change."
The director of Medact, Mike Rowson, said: "Many parts of the world have seen health reversals rather than improvements in the last 20 years. We decided to launch this initiative to get decision makers to confront the issues that keep people poor and unhealthy."
The reports are aimed at national healthcare policy makers and systems. Mr McCoy explained: "We抮e not trying to reach policy makers sitting in existing global health institutions. We are trying to educate, inform, and mobilise the health community about the alternatives that exist in the health policy debate."
The scheme plans to obtain support from a wide alliance of independent groups and charities to help write and fund the reports. Fund raising is still in progress for the scheme, which has been budgeted at $200 000 (?10 000; �160 000).
"We抮e hoping to get smaller donations from a wide variety of non-governmental organisations to avoid being compromised by funding coming from only one or two sources," Mr McCoy said. He added: "This budget is tiny in comparison to the production of other major reports on global health, such as the Human Development Report or the World Health Report. Part of the reason why it抯 relatively small is that we are relying on the work of people who are already working on these issues."(BMJ Vittal Katikireddi)