Several noteworthy reports on population health have been recently released. First, Global Health Watch has released a summary of its Global Health Watch 2 Recommendations. I was unaware of GHW prior to learning of the release of this report, but here's a little bit about the project from the About page:
At the World Health Assembly in May 2003, the People's Health Movement, together with GEGA and Medact discussed the need for civil society to produce its own alternative World Health Report. It was felt that the WHO reports were inadequate; that there was no report that monitored the performance of global health institutions; and, that the dominant neo-liberal discourse in public health policy also needed to be challenged by a more people-centred approach that highlights social justice. The idea of an alternative World Health Report since developed into an initiative called the 'Global Health Watch' the first of which was launched on July 20, 2005 in Ecuador and London.
The press release and executive summary may be downloaded now, with the full report being made available on Nov. 12, 2008. It will be interesting to see the interplay, if any, between GHW 2 and the Report of the WHO Commision on Social Determinants of Health.
The second report was released by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), and is entitled "Growing Unequal? Income Distribution and Poverty in OECD Countries." From the press release:
The gap between rich and poor has grown in more than three-quarters of OECD countries over the past two decades, according to a new OECD report.
OECD’s Growing Unequal? finds that the economic growth of recent decades has benefitted the rich more than the poor. In some countries, such as Canada, Finland, Germany, Italy, Norway and the United States, the gap also increased between the rich and the middle-class.
Countries with a wide distribution of income tend to have more widespread income poverty. Also, social mobility is lower in countries with high inequality, such as Italy, the United Kingdom and the United States, and higher in the Nordic countries where income is distributed more evenly.
Summaries for the report may be downloaded here, though the full report is available only to subscribers to Source OECD, or for purchase.
(h/t Spirit of 1848 & SDOH listservs)
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