Global healthcare data collection

2015 marks the end of the millennium development goals and the implementation of a new agenda. As such, some unachieved goals will be retained along with new ones being introduced. These goals rely heavily on the acknowledgement of new circumstances in which we find ourselves. One of the United Nations’ main goals is to eradicate poverty and hunger along with several other goals that have interconnected roots. I think many of these issues are not solvable with simple fixes, but rather with the recognition that in order to achieve these goals small steps must be made towards solving each each.

Chapter 5 of The Textbook of International Health begins by focusing on the various discrepancies regarding the calculation and qualification of healthcare data internationally. Factors bearing significant importance in the world of decision and policy making should draw upon a more comprehensive analysis of health care overall. These could possibly include the addition of geographic, environmental, and socioeconomic components as a supplement to purely numerical data for effective planning. I think numerical data especially in today’s globalized world is significantly less useful because it disregards many factors, on the other hand, perhaps numerical data can appear less biased when presented to a variety of agenda holding agencies.  In recent years the recognition of environmental factors playing an important role in ill health have been given more weight and perhaps will alter the ways UN goals (problems) are approached.  

The root causes of ‘why are some people are so much healthier than others?’ is a loaded question buried beneath political, economic, and social issues. An answer proposed in chapter 5 considers the collection of data and implementation of healthcare infrastructure as key factors based on that data. This answer while objective hints at the multifarious nature and practice of healthcare in underdeveloped countries. These countries are often the site of conflicting ideologies and social norms especially in the case of healthcare where access and affordability also limit data collection and therefore constrain the creation of numerous healthcare practices. As 2015 quickly approaches, the reassessment of the world’s healthcare systems is vital to the reformation of the UN’s agenda.