Global health action
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Global health action · Jan 2011
Prevalence of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease in rural women of Tamilnadu: implications for refining disease burden assessments attributable to household biomass combustion.
Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is the 13th leading cause of burden of disease worldwide and is expected to become 5th by 2020. Biomass fuel combustion significantly contributes to COPD, although smoking is recognized as the most important risk factor. Rural women in developing countries bear the largest share of this burden resulting from chronic exposures to biomass fuel smoke. Although there is considerable strength of evidence for the association between COPD and biomass smoke exposure, limited information is available on the background prevalence of COPD in these populations. ⋯ The estimates generated in this study will contribute significantly to the growing database of available information on COPD prevalence in rural women. Moreover, with concomitant indoor air pollution measurements, it may be possible to increase the resolution of the association between biomass use and COPD prevalence and refine available attributable burden of disease estimates.
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Global health action · Jan 2011
Misalignment between perceptions and actual global burden of disease: evidence from the US population.
Significant funding of health programs in low-income countries comes from external sources, mainly private donors and national development agencies of high-income countries. How these external funds are allocated remains a subject of ongoing debate, as studies have revealed that external funding may misalign with the underlying disease burden. One determinant of the priorities set by both private donors and development agencies is the perceptions of populations living in high-income countries about which diseases are legitimate for global health intervention. ⋯ We found little correlation between the U. S. public's perception and the actual disease burden, measured as either mortality or disability-adjusted life years. While there is potential for reverse causality, so that donor programs drive public perceptions, these findings suggest that increasing the general population's awareness of the true global disease burden could help better align global health funding with population health needs.
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Global health action · Jan 2011
Climate change and environmental impacts on maternal and newborn health with focus on Arctic populations.
In 2007, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) presented a report on global warming and the impact of human activities on global warming. Later the Lancet commission identified six ways human health could be affected. Among these were not environmental factors which are also believed to be important for human health. In this paper we therefore focus on environmental factors, climate change and the predicted effects on maternal and newborn health. Arctic issues are discussed specifically considering their exposure and sensitivity to long range transported contaminants. ⋯ A number of environmental stressors are predicted to increase with climate change and increasingly affecting human health. Efforts should be put on reducing risk for the next generation, thus global politics and research effort should focus on maternal and newborn health.