Global Health: Ideas and Ideals

Source: Harvard.edu

The last several weeks we have been planning our return to Honduras for our medical relief trip. So, finally, I dove into an Infectious Diseases Clinics of North America publication on global health. A recent article, on the evolving meaning of global health, can be found here.


For those of you who are interested, here are some salient points:


Although the definition of global health is broad, the guiding principal lies in practical approaches to equity, human rights, and evidence-based interventions and actions.


From Julio Frenk’s Address at the Harvard School of Public Health Commencement,
June 7, 2007: Actions are guided by two powerful sources of illumination—ideas and ideals. Ideas take the form of knowledge derived from science. Ideals take the form of values derived from ethics. Ideas can be transforming to the evidence base for sound decision making. Ideals can be transformed into the integrity base for coherent action.


Ain't that the truth.