Public Health

A global perspective on health

November 28, 2007

I have been thinking about how subtly, imperceptibly, yet thoroughly one is transformed to take a global perspective on health. I am working with two colleagues (Drs. Karen Glanz and Vish Viswanath) who are co-editors on the 4th edition of our textbook. Sentences that are subtly U.S.-centric but never seemed obnoxiously so before, now seem inappropriate to me. We cannot simply talk about “the health care system” as though there is one at all. And even if there were one in the US, there are many around the world. Where once we could glibly talk about the transition from infectious diseases to chronic ones, we do that today only with the knowledge that we are ignoring millions of deaths a year, including millions that are preventable.

As the Worldwatch Institute says:

All of the wars of the twentieth century are estimated to have resulted in the deaths of an average of 1.1 million combatants and civilians per year. But at present, communicable diseases are killing fourteen times that number of people annually.

I am not a scholar of global health, but I realized that like so many of you, I am changed by the recognition of our “globalness.” Once altered, one cannot – or at least I hope not! – return to one’s former state.

Our students are forcing us to change our thinking and practices. I struggle with what it means to turn out students who understand enough about global health to be competent at what they do without turning them all into global scholars – which we cannot do.


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The views expressed in this blog are Barbara Rimer’s alone and do not represent the views and policies of The University of North Carolina or the Gillings School.