'Creating the Conditions for People to Lead Healthy, Fulfilling Lives' forms part of a book on non-communicable disease (NCD) prevention called Dancing in the Rain: Living with NCDs, which is published by Future Leaders (an Australian philanthropic initiative) and is intended for a general...

In her 2012 reconfirmation speech as WHO Director-General, Dr Margaret Chan asserted: "universal coverage is the single most powerful concept that public health has to offer. It is our ticket to greater efficiency and better quality. It is our saviour from the crushing weight of chronic...

Over the past few years the World Health Organization (WHO) has been undergoing a significant reform process. The immediate trigger was a budget crisis in 2010 that spurred massive lay-offs at the global agency. But at a more fundamental level, deeper systematic changes in global health...

President Barack Obama signed the Affordable Care Act (ACA) in 2010 with no Republican support. The ACA has been politically divisive ever since, with the House repeatedly voting for repeal. Earlier this year, Congress successfully passed a repeal, with the Senate using a legislative process...

Americans are largely apathetic about the risks of Zika virus and Congress cannot agree on preparedness funding. Strategies to counter the spread of Zika by the World Health Organisation (WHO) grossly underestimate the disease’s impact. WHO and member countries lack sufficient resources to...

Public health agencies face considerable challenges trying to prevent overweight and obesity in society, primarily because a person's own behavior is often the root cause of the disease. Individuals make personal choices about their diet, exercise, and lifestyle, so disease is often thought of...

Conservatives are taking aim at the field of public health, targeting its efforts to understand and control environmental and social causes of disease. Richard Epstein and others contend that these efforts in fact undermine people's health and well-being by eroding people's incentives to create...

A central goal in the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine’s (NASEM) framework for equitable COVID-19 vaccine allocation is to mitigate existing inequities, particularly those affecting economically worse-off racial and ethnic minorities. The Advisory Committee on...

In a 2019 report by Woolf and Schoomaker, average life expectancy in the U.S. was revealed to be in decline from 2014-2017, a trend which the COVID-19 pandemic is anticipated to exacerbate in 2020. As we assess in this commentary, concerted actions to address these declines are highly warranted....

The same week that the United States passed the grim milestone of 100,000 deaths from COVID-19, President Donald Trump announced that the United States would withdraw from and end its funding for the World Health Organization (WHO). If carried out, especially in the middle of a pandemic, this...