The 21st century has seen an unprecedented focus on global health, both in terms of government and public attention, but also in the billions of dollars that are now being spent on tackling global-health challenges. Increased investment demands increased monitoring both in evaluating health programmes and in producing a clearer picture of trends and patterns in global health. To offer policymakers, researchers, governments, and the public the best information on public health, two Comment articles in this week’s edition of The Lancet announce two new partnerships.
The first Comment describes a new Lancet initiative in collaboration with the Seattle-based Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation to track global-health trends. Health metrics have traditionally been the domain of major inter-governmental agencies such as WHO, UNICEF, and the World Bank. However, monitoring health is complex—conclusions and assumptions made about a particular health problem must be constantly updated and revised on the basis of new data or better methods. Scientific discussion is key in strengthening methods and clarifying gaps in existing data. Thus, it seems important that the world’s scientific community engage fully with the issue of collecting information on health trends, the delivery of key health services, and the availability and use of financial and health resources.
The Lancet will run a new section called Global Health Tracking, and invites researchers to submit research articles that “apply rigorous scientific methods to questions about the levels, trends, and patterns of global health and the organised health system response to these problems” and work that “strengthens the analytical basis and methods for measuring global health”. The articles must respect core scientific principles of replicability by describing methods in detail and making data available to other researchers.
A second Comment announces the launch of a joint Commission with University College London, UK, to study and report on managing the health effects of climate change.
The Commission was created to acknowledge the immediate danger to vulnerable regions such as Africa and the longer-term threat to the entire planet. The Comment says: “The health (and future viability) of the human species should be a central concern for policy makers as they consider how best to mitigate the effects of global warming.”
The Lancet has tried to stimulate impetus in neglected areas of health such as chronic diseases, maternal and newborn health, and reproductive health. A recent series on energy and health highlighted the connection between climate change and excessive global energy consumption.
University College London has the largest scientific output of any European university and has a particularly global focus in its approach to teaching and external collaborations. It realises that “global health problems, such as those due to climate change, require academic inputs beyond biomedicine—from philosophy, law, economics, anthropology, politics, engineering, geography, the built environment, and other disciplines”.
The Comment concludes: “We have moved beyond the need to debate the scientific evidence for climate change; what we require now is action. The Commission will “draw on ideas and suggestions from the global community, together with academics from all backgrounds, to produce recommendations that will allow the health effects of climate change to be monitored, mitigated, and managed more effectively”.
The Lancet Press Office (Comments 1 and 2). T) +44 (0)20 7424 4949
RuthMetcalfe, Media Relations, UCL Press Office. T) +44 (0)20 7679 9739
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The Lancet