Policies of public health, and the difference between health care systems

In Prof Boling Lecture, she gave us a different prospective in global health, it is about health policies across the different countries and its effect on health of population and mortality and morbidity rates.

She talked about social determinant and infrastructure and its effect on health. Social determinants of health are conditions in which people are born, grow, live, work and age. These circumstances are shaped by distribution of money, power and resources at global national and local level. It can lead to health  inequities, there is an important role played by social determinants of health in global health, one of the Who preamble constitution is that "the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of health is one of the fundamental rights of every human being without distinction of race, religion, political belief, economic or social condition". health inequities within and between countries are politically, socially and economically unacceptable, Reducing health inequities through action on the social determinants of health could be a very effective way, These include early years' experiences, education, economic status, employment and decent work, housing and environment, and effective systems of preventing and treating ill health. Infrastructure is the basic structure needed for the operation of the society, an example of that is the water system as a basic infrastructure and how some low income countries did not have access to clean water which affects the population health dramatically. This interesting site of the World Bank where we can search data about health across the whole world and compare different countries, shows how health policies in the different countries affect the distribution of the health of the people.

One of the nice examples of some data that has been shown in this site is the record of immunization across different countries, how this in high income countries compared to low income countries also the distribution of life expectancy which found to be highest in Canada and eastern Europe compared to lowest ay south Africa  countries and other low income countries, the same regarding infant mortality rate , all these  health issues and other public health systems was affected mainly by the socioeconomic status  which affect the health policies in the lower income countries.

Health care system differ greatly from one countries to another. Some countries depends mainly on out of pocket expenditure and most of those are the lower income countries the more developed countries like Canada depend on governmental insurance others like USA depends mainly on private insurance. I think that the governmental insurance is the best of those three systems. It ensures the equality of health distribution in the nation and decrease the individual disparities between the different socio-economic levels. It also remove this burden from the shoulder of poor people and achieve the health access right for everyone. Despite that, it has some disadvantages like long waiting line to get the service.

Reference:

Prof Boling lecture on politics of public health, a global and comparative perspective.