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Population Ageing & Global Health

February 10, 2019
Global Health, Human Development, Learn, Public Health, Writings
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Introduction

For the first time in history, our world is ageing. That is, the number of individuals 65 years and above in the world has caught up and will soon out number children under the age of 5 years.1  This poses a significant global health issue that threatens to impact the healthcare systems, economies, and social structures of nations worldwide.

We will explore the obstacles caused by global population ageing and highlight why this is global health issue that deserves attention and action.  But first, it is important to understand how we define a ‘global health’ issue.

Scholar Jeffery Koplan suggests that ‘global health’ has evolved from principals that overlap with ‘public health’—broadly defined as population-based efforts to protect and promote health and wellbeing within a society—and ‘international health’—the application of (public) health interventions within low- and middle-income countries.2  Although all three terms are intimately related by similar founding principals, ‘global health’ evokes a nuance that is necessary to articulate in order for parties to cohesively identify and act on issues.

The defining principal of global health, which separates it from public health and international health, lies within the concepts of ‘stakeholders’ and ‘investors’: whose health and wellbeing is under threat from insults—biological, psychological, or social—or benefiting from intervention; and who is providing the means for those beneficial interventions to be carried out.  In public health, both stakeholders and investors are widely domestic; in international health, stakeholders are low- and middle-income countries, but investors are largely high-income countries (e.g. foreign aid).2

However in global health, there is no single stakeholder or investor, and the relationship between the two is not linear. Rather, global health addresses issues surrounding health that affect or are affected by transnational (multinational) circumstances, so that low-, middle- and high-income countries are situated in a network of accountability as both stakeholders and investors.

This essay will attempt to demonstrate that population ageing is an important global health issue by:

  • Exploring current trends in population ageing
  • Establishing the impacts of global ageing
  • Discussing measures to address this issue

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Northern Surgical Skills Conference, UK

April 21, 2014
Live, Med School, Medicine, Science, Writings
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NSSC 2014 LogoThe Northern Surgical Skills Conference (NSSC) is a national conference held in UK in order to give medical students a better understanding of what a career path in surgery entails. The conference is an all-day event that features guest speakers from the field, opportunities to practice basic surgical skills, such as suturing and laparoscopy, and presentations from student researchers.

As a member of the 2014 NSSC Committee, I have had the rewarding experience of planning and coordinating this year’s event that is to be held on Saturday, May 17th. As we are drawing closer to the date and finalizing the last details, I stumbled upon a reflection that I wrote after attending last year’s conference as a first-year medical student. I feel that the piece highlights the importance of early exposure to different specialities for medical students; especially considering how the medical world is becoming filled with ever-increasing niche roles, requiring students to distinguish sooner-rather-than-later the path they wish to take.

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Final Days in Bangladesh Pt. I: Chakaria

February 3, 2012
Culture, Global Health, Human Development, Live, Photos, Writings
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It certainly has been some time since the last post on Bangladesh. However, after leaving Southeast Asia and returning to United States at the beginning of November, it has taken a couple of months to re-adjust to the modern chaos of New York City. Although I am typing piece in retrospect to my research trip, I believe it to be necessary contribution in order to wrap up and explain the closing of this past trip to Bangladesh—hopefully to be the first of many in the future.

During my time at ICDDR, B, I had been working on a solo project to develop community health modules and a workshop, which would be used to inform rural areas of chronic diseases and how social behavioral modifications could be used in order to prevent the onset of illness.

Within the last 60 days of being in the country it was decided that I was going to be temporarily transferred to one of these rural regions. Once there, I would have the opportunity to meet with local villagers and fieldworkers in order make some ground-level assessments and gain feedback on the project, so that adjustments could be made to help it run more efficiently. Of course, I was more than thrilled at the prospect of meeting with those residing with in the rural outskirts. After all, it was for their sake that the project had even commenced in the first place, and it was important to receive their input and observe the situation locally.

Leaving Dhaka City circa 8:00 in the morning, I boarded a train that would take me on a 7-hour journey southward to the second largest city of Bangladesh, Chittagong. From there, I would immediately continue towards the neighboring district, traveling by car for an additional 4 hours on treacherous unpaved roads, until finally reaching my destination: ICDDR,B’s Chakaria Field Site. By this time, the town was well cloaked by the darkness of night, and my exhaustion from the voyage left me with little interest in anything besides my bed.

 

 

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