ABSTRACT
Terminologies change, enter and exit fashion. The concepts underlying the changing health needs, status and situations of groups and nations are becoming ever better understood, and terms to describe them are changing. In this context, global health (GH) is gaining popularity and momentum. The term has emerged from many perspectives and disciplines and may well yet be varyingly interpreted in the coming years in different countries. To some scholars and policy-makers, GH refers generally to emerging global shifts in health status and apparent convergences of health experience across the world. Others apply GH more technically, in relation to particular diseases or conditions: for example, the attainment of specific healthrelated objectives, the reduction, prevention or elimination of specific, often infectious, diseases (such as HIV, malaria, schistosomiasis) or groups of chronic conditions (heart disease, cancers, or wider non-communicable diseases), or in the reduction in incidence and extent of specific health problems, such as maternal or infant mortality. Others see GH as implying some sort of generality in evolution and variation in human behaviour, such as drug and alcohol misuse, under-or over-nutrition, obesity or behaviour leading to the spread of sexually transmitted diseases. Yet others see GH in the context of policies for widespread targeting of particular groups or geographical areas: for example, the young, women, refugees, migrants, victims of disasters, or older people. ‘Although universities, government agencies, and private philanthropies are all using the term in highly visible ways, the origin and meaning of the term “global health” are still unclear’ (Brown et al., 2006, p. 62). But it has a huge and critical reality, as former Director of the WHO G.H. Brundtland (2003) noted almost a decade ago.
