ABSTRACT
Community health is the health status, including physical and mental wellbeing, of a group of people within a defined geographic region. Factors like population size, economy, politics, social and culture play important roles on affecting the health of a community. Health care systems vary across the globe and there is a huge performance disparity between high-income and low-income countries and regions. Developed and wealthy countries in Americas and Europe like United States, Netherlands and United Kingdom have sufficient finance to support their health care systems, while many countries in the Asia-Pacific are once being identified as being in short of resources to support health care developments. In fact, regions like Australia, Singapore and Hong Kong have well-developed health care systems and China, too, has made great achievements in improving the health status of the population. Facing continuous threats to global health, ranging from growing of noncommunicable diseases, outbreaks of emergent infectious diseases, such as Ebola, to the latest pandemic of COVID-19, health care systems in all countries are facing the challenges in tackling these worldwide health issues. There is an urgent need to strengthen the equity of access to medical care and resources so that citizens are protected from diseases and can maintain a healthy living.
