Annual review of public health
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Annu Rev Public Health · Jan 2011
ReviewClimate change, noncommunicable diseases, and development: the relationships and common policy opportunities.
The rapid growth in noncommunicable diseases (NCDs), including injury and poor mental health, in low- and middle-income countries and the widening social gradients in NCDs within most countries worldwide pose major challenges to health and social systems and to development more generally. As Earth's surface temperature rises, a consequence of human-induced climate change, incidences of severe heat waves, droughts, storms, and floods will increase and become more severe. ⋯ These two great and urgent contemporary human challenges-to improve global health, especially the control of NCDs, and to protect people from the effects of climate change-would benefit from alignment of their policy agendas, offering synergistic opportunities to improve population and planetary health. Well-designed climate change policy can reduce the incidence of major NCDs in local populations.
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Annu Rev Public Health · Jan 2011
ReviewAction on the social determinants of health and health inequities goes global.
Marked health inequities exist between regions, between countries, and within countries. Reducing these inequities in health requires attention to the unfair distribution of power, money, and resources and the conditions of everyday life. ⋯ The World Health Organization (WHO) Commission on Social Determinants of Health (CSDH) brought together a global evidence base of what could be done to reduce these health inequities, demonstrating that economic and social policy, if done well, can improve health and health equity. A global movement for health equity was reignited by the WHO Commission on Social Determinants of Health when it made a call to action upon delivering its final report.