Importance of Global Health Research

Describe about global health and the 10/90 gap?

The concept of Global Health can be explained as the area of practice, research and also a study in the particular places which mainly focuses on improving the health conditions and also in the achievement of equality of health to all the people around the world. Many Human Rights declare that all the individuals have a right to live a standard with adequate health facilities for himself as well for his family. But due to the vast disparity which exists between the high-income countries and the low-income countries and also between the individuals of a country many people are left living in extremely unhealthy surroundings and also very insufficient access to health care facilities (Keusch et al (2006). Many of the developing countries bear almost 90% of the global diseases and only 10% of funding is given to take care of the health care facilities. Therefore there is a need to encourage the capacity of all the researches that need to take place in the developing countries through a combine effort made in national and also international collaborations. Many of the government organizations like the World Health Organization, Commission on Health Research for Development etc have been working hard to address the inequity issues of global health research which is commonly known as the 10/90 gap. These organizations are trying to develop various solutions to overcome the difficulties face by the communities like the problem of lack of finance as well as low intellectual available to the communities all over the world. This would help in giving rise to a more solid research community and also help in gaining attention to the research needs of the developing world which are being neglected.

It is very essential to understand that global health researches not only help to generate knowledge but also teaches to make these changes into action. In the other hand the research also helps in guiding its policies and programs that help in the development and also in delivering better health services. Hence different cultures have different perspectives about the various diseases and healthcare services. For instance in the developing countries there are many stigmas that are attached to the diseases which as a result contributes to the different beliefs which are most commonly seen in the Western world. Therefore this stigma causes a barrier that comes along with the diseases and makes the people unwilling to seek any treatment which also results in low delivery of healthcare services that need to be used in order to eliminate the diseases (Boulle A (2007). When there is an implementation of public health intervention then the research must be conducted to examine all the social factors that may increase the quality of the delivery of healthcare services. The main aim of the field of global health for the populations worldwide is to focus on the issues related to the global, economic and political significance and also aims at improving the wellbeing and health related factors face by the vulnerable, undeserved and impoverished people around the globe. These initiatives include various factors like the promotion of equality of the genders, a raise in the policies for the environmental standards of lives, efforts to improve the food security and nutrition, poverty reduction strategies and also measures to prevent diseases like HIV/AIDS, malaria or tuberculosis. There should also be an understanding of the culture of a community so that the health workers do not fail in their research programs although they put in their best efforts and also in using the advanced technologies (Norris et al (2009). Therefore to avoid such mishaps the health workers must conduct researches mainly to understand the cultural perceptions of the different diseases that a community faces and help in further developing culturally sound approaches and techniques to deliver health care services to them.

Obstacles in Global Health Research

Many of the researches have claimed that only 10% of the global health is focusing on the conditions which in turn accounts for the 90% of the burdens of the global diseases, this is referred to as the 10/90 gap where they argue that all the diseases are neglected in the low-income countries and also that the pharmaceutical industries have not invested much in the researches for the development of these diseases and provide good health care facilities (Elisle et al (2009). A lot of the section of illness in the low-income countries can be treated and also avoided by the interventions of researches and medicines as most of the diseases in these low-income countries emerge out of poverty, poor nutrition, lack of access to good sanitation, indoor pollution of air and a lack of good knowledge of health education. The organization WHO states that most of the diseases are associated with the problem of poverty which is on an average of 45% of the diseases in these poor countries but however all of these deaths are mostly treatable and preventable by the existing medicines and healthcare services. However the populations of these poor socio-economic societies suffer from a lack of access to these healthcare facilities and medicines available and this results in the failure of the public health policies which focus on the rate of the global mortality. Therefore most of the preventable diseases like malaria, measles and diarrhea are caused due to malnutrition.

Conclusion:

In conclusion it can be said that global health research is very important to eliminate or remove the different cultural, logical as well as the social obstacles that exist with the efforts made by the different global health programs. Therefore the research should aim at the many concerns which are brought out by most of the developing countries to help not only close the 10/90 gap in health related areas but also to close the gap of attaining knowledge regarding global health among the developed and the developing countries in the world (Labonte et al (2009). Furthermore, the researchers also must be very sensitive in dealing with the various cultures of a particular community and also it can be said that the global health research field continues to grow and the researchers have a great potential to make an impact in the area of global health and also make very important contributions worldwide

References

Boulle, A and N Ford ” Scaling up antiretroviral therapy in developing countries: what are the benefits and challenges?” British Medical Journal 19 Nov 2007

Elisle, Helene, Janet Hatcher Roberts, Michelle Munro, Lori Jones and Theresa W Gyorkos “Health Research Policy and Systems” 21 Feb 2005 Web.25 Jun 2009

Keusch, Gerald T, Joan Wilentz, and Arthur Kleinman “Stigma and global health: developing a research agenda.” The Lancet Feb 2006 525-527.

Labonte, Ronald and Jerry Spiegel “Setting global health research priorities Burden of disease and inherently global health issues should both be considered” British Medical Journal 05 Apr 2003 722-723. Web 24 July 2009.

Norris, Jeremiah. “Global health research: don’t ignore achievements so far” The Lancet Vol. 317, Issue 961506 Mar 2008 810-811. Web 24 Jul 2009.

“Trial Summary” Arrow: Anti-retroviral Research for Watoto. UK Department for International Development & Medical Research Council of UK 24 Jul 200.