Global Health Reading

Global Child Health, Pediatrics in Review

By Denno, D

This article explores the scope and causes of childhood mortality, interventions to combat these killers, trends in child health, potential reasons for these trends, and opportunities for progress in improving global child health.

Medical Considerations before International Travel

By Freedman DO

In 2015, international tourist arrivals in all countries exceeded 1.2 billion persons. In 2014, the total number of arrivals in countries with emerging markets nearly surpassed the number in developed countries (http://www.e-unwto.org/doi/book/10.18111/9789284416899). Depending on the destination, 22 to 64% of travelers report some illness; most of these illnesses are mild and self-limited, such as diarrhea, respiratory infections, and skin disorders. Some travelers return to their own countries with preventable life-threatening infections. Yet 20 to 80% of travelers do not seek pretravel health consultation. Data about the effect of pretravel advice are limited, although such advice has had a positive effect on the prevention of malaria. Travelers visiting friends and relatives in their country of origin constitute the group with the highest morbidity, especially from malaria and typhoid; this group requires special approaches to illness prevention and education.

Training, Ethics and Best Practice Guidelines for Training Experiences in Global Health

By Crump

Academic global health programs are growing rapidly in scale and number. Students of many disciplines increasingly desire global health content in their curricula. Global health curricula often include field experiences that involve crossing international and socio-cultural borders. Although global health training experiences offer potential benefits to trainees and to sending institutions, these experiences are sometimes problematic and raise ethical challenges. The Working Group on Ethics Guidelines for Global Health Training (WEIGHT) developed a set of guidelines for institutions, trainees, and sponsors of field-based global health training on ethics and best practices in this setting. Because only limited data have been collected within the context of existing global health training, the guidelines were informed by the published literature and the experience of WEIGHT members. The Working Group on Ethics Guidelines for Global Health Training encourages efforts to develop and implement a means of assessing the potential benefits and harms of global health training programs.