ABSTRACT
As confi rmed throughout this text, it is clear that the healthcare needs and issues in the industrialised nations differ sharply from those in the developing world. While in the former many illnesses result from affl uence, in many developing nations, especially in sub-Saharan Africa and southeast Asia, the central causation of poor health is poverty affecting approximately 1.6 billion people – more than one in seven of the total world population. The variance in the numbers affected should be a stark reminder of the inequity and urgency of addressing the problems, with approximately 5.7 billion people in poor countries with low or no income and approximately 1.3 billion people in high-income nations.
