Political leaders increasingly perceive health as being crucial to achieving growth, development, equity and stability throughout the world. Health is now understood as a product of complex and dynamic relations generated by numerous determinants at different levels of governance. Governments need to take into account the impact of social, environmental and behavioural health determinants, including economic constraints, living conditions, demographic changes and unhealthy lifestyles in many of the World Health Organization (WHO) Member States. This understanding and increasing globalization means it is very timely to review the role of (global) public health in this changing societal and political environment

Borisch, B

Hernandez, I

Jenkins, C

Krech, R

Laaser, U

Lomazzi, M

Miron, E

Moore, M

Nurse, J

Robinson, P

Yeatman, Heather

English

Research Online

University of WollongongResearch OnlineFaculty of Social Sciences - Papers Faculty of Social Sciences2015A global charter for the public's health - The public'shealth: the role, functions, competencies, educationB BorischWorld Federation of Public Health AssociationsC JenkinsWorld Federation of Public Health AssociationsI HernandezWorld Federation of Public Health AssociationsR KrechWorld Health OrganizationU LaaserWorld Federation of Public Health AssociationsSee next page for additional authorsResearch Online is the open access institutional repository for the University of Wollongong. For further information contact the UOW Library:research-pubs@uow.edu.auPublication DetailsBorisch, B., Jenkins, C., Hernandez, I., Krech, R., Laaser, U., Lomazzi, M., Miron, E., Moore, M., Nurse, J., Robinson, P. & Yeatman, H.(2015). A global charter for the public's health - The public's health: the role, functions, competencies, education. Geneva,Switzerland: World Federation of Public Health Associations.A global charter for the public's health - The public's health: the role,functions, competencies, educationAbstractPolitical leaders increasingly perceive health as being crucial to achieving growth, development, equity andstability throughout the world. Health is now understood as a product of complex and dynamic relationsgenerated by numerous determinants at different levels of governance. Governments need to take into accountthe impact of social, environmental and behavioural health determinants, including economic constraints,living conditions, demographic changes and unhealthy lifestyles in many of the World Health Organization(WHO) Member States. This understanding and increasing globalization means it is very timely to review therole of (global) public health in this changing societal and political environment.Keywordscompetencies, functions, education, global, public, role, health, charterDisciplinesEducation | Social and Behavioral SciencesPublication DetailsBorisch, B., Jenkins, C., Hernandez, I., Krech, R., Laaser, U., Lomazzi, M., Miron, E., Moore, M., Nurse, J.,Robinson, P. & Yeatman, H. (2015). A global charter for the public's health - The public's health: the role,functions, competencies, education. Geneva, Switzerland: World Federation of Public Health Associations.AuthorsB Borisch, C Jenkins, I Hernandez, R Krech, U Laaser, M Lomazzi, E Miron, M Moore, J Nurse, P Robinson,and Heather YeatmanThis report is available at Research Online: http://ro.uow.edu.au/sspapers/1793  WFPHA - A Global Charter for the Public’s Health  1    World Federation of Public Health Associations Fédération Mondiale des Associations de Santé Publique Federación Mundial de las Asociaciones de Salud Pública Всемирная Федерация Ассоциаций Общественного Здравоохранения 世界公共卫生联盟  االتحاد العالمي لجمعیات الصحة العامة   A Global Charter for the Public’s Health The Public’s Health: the role, functions, competencies, education  The challenges facing public health, and the broader world context in which we struggle, have become too numerous and too complex for a business-as-usual approach. Dr Margaret Chan, WHO Director-General  Contents Introduction .................................................................................................................................................................. 2 Growth, development, equity and stability .............................................................................................................. 2 Globalization ............................................................................................................................................................. 2 The proposal for a Global Charter for the Public’s Health ........................................................................................ 2 Outcome of Literature Review and Consultation ..................................................................................................... 2 A Global Charter for the Public’s Health ....................................................................................................................... 3 Functions and services .............................................................................................................................................. 3 Headings for the GCPH .............................................................................................................................................. 3 Recommendations ........................................................................................................................................................ 4 Conclusion ..................................................................................................................................................................... 4   Authors (in alphabetical order) Borisch B(1), Jenkins C(1), Hernandez I.(1), Krech R(2), Laaser U(1), Lomazzi M.(1), Miron E.(1), Moore, M.(1), Nurse J.(1), Robinson P.(1), Yeatman H.(1). Acknowledgement We appreciate the efforts of all who contributed to this Charter. Particularly, the WFPHA leadership (M. Asnake, M. Moore and J. Chauvin), the WFPHA Policy Committee (Chair: I. Hernandez), the WFPHA Governing Council, L. Bourquin and all other people involved for their helpful suggestions. Conflict of Interest The authors have not received any funding or benefits from industry or elsewhere to conduct this study.   1. World Federation of Public Health Associations, c/o University of Geneva, 9 ch. des Mines, 1202 Geneva, Switzerland 2. Office of the Assistant Director-General, Health Systems and Innovation. World Health Organization, Av. Appia 20, 1211 Geneva, Switzerland Correspondence to: WFPHA Headquarters: c/o IGH, University of Geneva - Biocampus – ch des Mines 9, 1202 Geneva – Switzerland E-mail: marta.lomazzi@wfpha.org – Phone: + 41 (0) 22 379 04 53/55 - Fax: +41 (0) 22 379 04 52 – www.wfpha.org     WFPHA - A Global Charter for the Public’s Health  2 Introduction Growth, development, equity and stability Political leaders increasingly perceive health as being crucial to achieving growth, development, equity and stability throughout the world. Health is now understood as a product of complex and dynamic relations generated by numerous determinants at different levels of governance. Governments need to take into account the impact of social, environmental and behavioural health determinants, including economic constraints, living conditions, demographic changes and unhealthy lifestyles in many of the World Health Organization (WHO) Member States. This understanding and increasing globalization means it is very timely to review the role of (global) public health in this changing societal and political environment. Globalization The positive and negative impacts of globalization need to be better understood by public health professionals and more widely acknowledged by policy makers. Globalization is marked by increased interconnectedness and interdependence of peoples and countries, based on the opening of borders to increasingly fast flows of goods, services, finance, people and ideas across international borders and the changes in institutional and policy regimes at the international and national levels that facilitate or promote such flows. It is recognized that globalization has both positive and negative impacts on health development. Increasingly trade agreements provide frameworks for intergovernmental relationships; however possible impacts on human health are not routinely assessed prior to signing. The proposal for a Global Charter for the Public’s Health A Global Charter for the Public’s Health (GCPH) is proposed to adapt today’s public health to its global context following work undertaken from 2013 by the World Federation of Public Health Associations (WFPHA) together with the World Health Organization which embarked on an initiative in order to develop a charter to bring together the best of all the existing models and provide a comprehensive, clear and flexible framework that can be applied globally and within individual countries, whether low, middle or high-income. The WFPHA has engaged with its over 100 national public health associations to discuss the new roles that global public health professionals have to assume and the needed changes with regard to education and recruitment of public health personnel. A literature review and widespread consultation formed part of this initiative. The details of the consultation and the literature reviews have been submitted for publication and may be accessed at wfpha.org. Outcome of Literature Review and Consultation As part of the consultation process several key points were raised: 1. The need for genuine political engagement was stressed, underlying that too often politicians only paid lip service to public health.  2. Commercial, social and environmental determinants of health, as well as social inequalities should be tackled and resources allocated in a sustainable and accountable way.  3. The impacts of underlying ideologies should be taken into consideration.  4. More comprehensive and reliable data are needed in many programmatic areas of public health.  5. The multisectoral and holistic approach should be reached, engaging public health in big dialogues and in the concerted decision making processes.  6. Participants of the consultation stressed that WHO should provide leadership in this process. 7. New leaders for public health are required. 8. A flexible common framework of instruments to influence governments has been suggested. 9. New creative solutions are needed. 10. Specific projects of selected countries where public health has a strong voice and is integrated in government policies and initiatives might be possible models for other settings. In the literature, while publications on global public health are exponentially increasing, the term “Global public health” itself remains ill defined. The term is frequently used though, but more in the context of a “problem” or a “challenge”. The framing of global public health is frequently medical and technical. This may be a result of the vertical technically oriented programs that are run throughout the world. Political and economic constraints found in the literature are important but there is not a large body of literature around this topic. Despite the evidence that the different public health functions need to be much better integrated into health systems, a “know-do-gap” is apparent. While multi-sectoral approaches in public health are increasingly chosen, they are by no means mainstream.    WFPHA - A Global Charter for the Public’s Health  3 A Global Charter for the Public’s Health  Resilient public health systems are needed locally to globally and within each country. However, the current reality consists of fragmented, variable and incomplete public health services and functions, with little common understanding of what a good public health service looks like.  Currently there is no global agreement on what public health functions or services consist of, and the lack of a common vocabulary in public health adversely affects the efforts of public health systems, including security and workforce development and quality standards across the world. Many public health policies, especially those that look at disease specific topics, remain vertical, even if they outline some inter-sectoral components. Many are not well coordinated with other related societal fields and, therefore, have a huge impact on population health. A Global Charter for the Public’s Health has the potential to become an established framework to allow public health systems to communicate globally, compare capacity and improve performance through systematic action.  Functions and services The proposed GCPH consists of two groups of functions/services including: 1. Services: A group of core services - Information, Protection, Prevention, Promotion  2. Functions: A group of enabler functions - Governance, Advocacy, Capacity   Headings for the GCPH There exists overlap between all these services and functions, especially between health promotion, primary prevention and environmental health, which benefit from a cross-sector approach. Specific public health topics require components drawn from across the range of services and functions. These include:  1. Governance: public health legislation; health and cross-sector policy; strategy; financing; organisation; assurance: transparency, accountability and audit. 2. Information: surveillance, monitoring and evaluation; monitoring of health determinants; research and evidence; risk and innovation; dissemination and uptake. 3. Protection: international health regulation and co-ordination; health impact assessment; communicable disease control; emergency preparedness; occupational health; environmental health; climate change and sustainability. 4. Prevention: primary prevention: vaccination; secondary prevention: screening; tertiary prevention: evidence-based, community-based, integrated, person-centred quality health-care and rehabilitation; healthcare management and planning. 5. Promotion: inequalities; environmental determinants; social and economic determinants; resilience; behaviour and health literacy; life-course; healthy settings. 6. Advocacy: leadership and ethics; health equity; social-mobilization and solidarity; education of the public; people-centred approach; voluntary community sector engagement; communications; sustainable development.  7. Capacity: workforce development for public health, health workers and wider workforce; workforce planning: numbers, resources, infrastructure; standards, curriculum, accreditation; capabilities, teaching and training.   WFPHA - A Global Charter for the Public’s Health  4 Recommendations Recommendation 1 - Consensus: A common conceptualization of global public health should be defined and adopted by the WFPHA and its members and used as a basis for public health education and training. It should be followed by a process of engagement with partners and Member States to adopt a WHO action plan on public health functions, based on the approved A Global Charter for the Public’s Health. Recommendation 2 - Co-ordination: WFPHA in association with partners supports and recognises WHO's leadership role to facilitate global public health in global multi-sectoral dialogues, co-ordination and decision making.  Recommendation 3 - Leadership: Public health leadership to be strengthened to integrate the public health charter into cross-sector policy, health systems policy and governance mechanisms, building on and enhancing existing frameworks.  Recommendation 4 - Workforce: Applying the A Global Charter for the Public’s Health encompassing functions, services and healthy public policy to scale up the public health workforce to ensure global health security and the sustainability of health systems.  Recommendation 5 - Tools and application: Case studies, tools and standards to be developed to illustrate the application of the A Global Charter for the Public’s Health at the global, national and local levels and for use in public health education and training. Adoption of a GCPH will require skilful communication and practical application. Recommendation 6 - Resources: In order to strengthen Global Public Health, political commitment is needed, with co-ordinated roles and resources with partners and donors.  Conclusion In the broadest sense, public health in our globalized world is multi-faceted, serving as a basis for everyday life, crucial for growth and development, equity and stability and is a function of numerous social, environmental and behavioural determinants, not least of which are the impacts of globalization itself. To realize the potential of a healthy global citizenry to support economic growth and development, equity and stability, there is an urgent need for genuine political acknowledgement of, engagement with and leadership for the public’s health supported by a global public health system. Action on two levels is required. First, consensus on a conceptualization of global public health and on a framework for sustainable and secure health infrastructures and services are essential first steps to underpin health in everyday life and to minimize the negative economic, social and environmental impacts of globalization on health development and community stability. Additionally, new models and skill sets are needed to address new and re-emerging public health challenges within the different socio-economic realities around the world, varying political capacities and new political entities. Second, development of global public health requires political engagement, use of social networks, identification of political leverage points, and steerage of public health agendas through the new societal and political environments. Importantly, global public health values should inform, be embedded within and be used to assess political and policy decisions.  

A global charter for the public\u27s health - The public\u27s health: the role, functions, competencies, education

https://ro.uow.edu.au/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2792&amp;context=sspapers

A global charter for the public\u27s health - The public\u27s health: the role, functions, competencies, education

Abstract

Similar works

Full text

Available Versions

Research Online