While much progress has been made on achieving the Millenium Development Goals over the last decade, the number and complexity of global health challenges has persisted. Growing forces for globalization have increased the interconnectedness of the world and our interdependency on other countries, economies, and cultures. Monumental growth in international travel and trade have brought improved access to goods and services for many, but also carry ongoing and ever-present threats of zoonotic spillover and infectious disease outbreaks that threaten all. Global Health and the Future Role of the United States identifies global health priorities in light of current and emerging world threats. This report assesses the current global health landscape and how challenges, actions, and players have evolved over the last decade across a wide range of issues, and provides recommendations on how to increase responsiveness, coordination, and efficiency â€" both within the U.S. government and across the global health field.

As populations throughout the world live longer, there is an increasing trend toward global commonality of health concerns. This trend mirrors a growing demand for health and access to new interventions to prevent, diagnose, and treat disease. The knowledge base required to meet these needs is not only of a technical kind, deriving from experiments of researchers, but must also draw from the experiences of governments in allocating resources effectively and efficiently to improve human health. This report from the Board on International Health of the Institute of Medicine focuses on the interest of the United States in these global health transitions. The report argues that America has a vital and direct stake in the health of people around the globe, and that this interest derives from both America's long and enduring tradition of humanitarian concern and compelling reasons of enlightened self-interest.

The world’s problems are indeed world problems: social and environmental crises, global trade and politics, and major epidemics are making public health a pressing global concern. From this constantly changing scenario, global health diplomacy has evolved, at the intersection of public health, international relations, law, economics, and management—a new discipline with transformative potential. Global Health Diplomacy situates this concept firmly within the human rights dialogue and provides a solid framework for understanding global health issues and their negotiation. This up-to-the-minute guide sets out defining principles and the current agenda of the field, and examines key relationships such as between trade and health diplomacy, and between global health and environmental issues. The processes of global governance are detailed as the UN, WHO, and other multinational actors work to address health inequalities among the world’s peoples. And to ensure maximum usefulness, the text includes plentiful examples, discussion questions, reading lists, and a glossary. Featured topics include: The legal basis of global health agreements and negotiations. Global public goods as a foundation for global health diplomacy. Global health: a human security perspective. Health issues and foreign policy at the UN. National strategies for global health. South-south cooperation and other new models of development. A volume of immediate utility with a potent vision for the future, Global Health Diplomacy is an essential text for public health experts and diplomats as well as schools of public health and international affairs.

The United States is among the wealthiest nations in the world, but it is far from the healthiest. Although life expectancy and survival rates in the United States have improved dramatically over the past century, Americans live shorter lives and experience more injuries and illnesses than people in other high-income countries. The U.S. health disadvantage cannot be attributed solely to the adverse health status of racial or ethnic minorities or poor people: even highly advantaged Americans are in worse health than their counterparts in other, "peer" countries. In light of the new and growing evidence about the U.S. health disadvantage, the National Institutes of Health asked the National Research Council (NRC) and the Institute of Medicine (IOM) to convene a panel of experts to study the issue. The Panel on Understanding Cross-National Health Differences Among High-Income Countries examined whether the U.S. health disadvantage exists across the life span, considered potential explanations, and assessed the larger implications of the findings. U.S. Health in International Perspective presents detailed evidence on the issue, explores the possible explanations for the shorter and less healthy lives of Americans than those of people in comparable countries, and recommends actions by both government and nongovernment agencies and organizations to address the U.S. health disadvantage.

Over the past fifteen years, people in low- and middle-income countries have experienced a health revolution—one that has created new opportunities and brought new challenges. It is a revolution that keeps mothers and babies alive, helps children grow, and enables adults to thrive. Millions Saved: New Cases of Proven Success in Global Health chronicles the global health revolution from the ground up, showcasing twenty-two local, national, and regional health programs that have been part of this global change. The book profiles eighteen remarkable cases in which large-scale efforts to improve health in low- and middle-income countries succeeded, and four examples of promising interventions that fell short of their health targets when scaled-up in real world conditions. Each case demonstrates how much effort—and sometimes luck—is required to fight illness and sustain good health. The cases are grouped into four main categories, reflecting the diversity of strategies to improve population health in low-and middle-income countries: rolling out medicines and technologies; expanding access to health services; targeting cash transfers to improve health; and promoting population-wide behavior change to decrease risk. The programs covered also come from various regions around the world: seven from sub-Saharan Africa, six from Latin America and the Caribbean, five from East and Southeast Asia, and four from South Asia.

Bringing together the experience, perspective and expertise of Paul Farmer, Jim Yong Kim, and Arthur Kleinman, Reimagining Global Health provides an original, compelling introduction to the field of global health. Drawn from a Harvard course developed by their student Matthew Basilico, this work provides an accessible and engaging framework for the study of global health. Insisting on an approach that is historically deep and geographically broad, the authors underline the importance of a transdisciplinary approach, and offer a highly readable distillation of several historical and ethnographic perspectives of contemporary global health problems. The case studies presented throughout Reimagining Global Health bring together ethnographic, theoretical, and historical perspectives into a wholly new and exciting investigation of global health. The interdisciplinary approach outlined in this text should prove useful not only in schools of public health, nursing, and medicine, but also in undergraduate and graduate classes in anthropology, sociology, political economy, and history, among others.

Since the 2014 Ebola outbreak many public- and private-sector leaders have seen a need for improved management of global public health emergencies. The effects of the Ebola epidemic go well beyond the three hardest-hit countries and beyond the health sector. Education, child protection, commerce, transportation, and human rights have all suffered. The consequences and lethality of Ebola have increased interest in coordinated global response to infectious threats, many of which could disrupt global health and commerce far more than the recent outbreak. In order to explore the potential for improving international management and response to outbreaks the National Academy of Medicine agreed to manage an international, independent, evidence-based, authoritative, multistakeholder expert commission. As part of this effort, the Institute of Medicine convened four workshops in summer of 2015 to inform the commission report. The presentations and discussions from the Governance for Global Health Workshop are summarized in this report.