Last week, the World Health Organization (WHO) released its World Health Statistics report – an annual assessment of a range of mortality, disease and health system indicators taken from 194 countries around the world.
The report has long served as a tool for assessing global progress on the health-related Millennium Development Goals. The results found in the 2015 World Health Statistics are mixed, showing significant progress with some goals (e.g. success in combating HIV, malaria and tuberculosis and increasing access to safe drinking water) and highlighting shortfalls with others (e.g. child and maternal mortality rate reductions won’t reach targets).
Many of the key findings of the WHO report point to an ongoing need to strengthen health systems and highlight the importance of education and professional development opportunities for health workers around the world:
Non-Communicable Disease
The report found that two-thirds of deaths worldwide are due to non-communicable diseases. As the burden of non-communicable disease grows, health care workers need to be equipped with the knowledge and skills to treat these afflictions. Cancer, diabetes, and heart disease are becoming more common threats to the lives of people in nations like Cambodia and Uganda. These diseases require a new spectrum of care that many health systems – particularly in resource-scarce countries – struggle to provide. Health workers require new training and information to properly care for patients battling these diseases.
Maternal Health and Access to Safe Surgery
The WHO report found that in some countries, more than one-third of births are delivered by caesarean section. Access to safe anesthesia care during emergency obstetric surgery can be important to improving maternal health and reducing mortality rates. With such a high rate of caesarean sections in some countries, education and training for anesthesia care providers will lead to better outcomes and improve both maternal and infant survival rates.
Health Systems Provide Essential Medicines
Two key findings in the report highlight the lack of access to proper care and essential medicines. The World Health Statistics report found that in low- and middle-income countries, only two-thirds of pregnant women with HIV receive anti-retrovirals to prevent transmission to their baby, and only one in three African children with suspected pneumonia receives antibiotics. Child and maternal health requires health systems that can provide access to and information about proper medicines. By educating more health workers, you strengthen health systems and increase the likelihood that women and children will understand and receive the medicines they need.
Health Volunteers Overseas aims to strengthen health systems through the education and training of the local health workforce in resource-scarce countries. A number of findings in the WHO’s World Health Statistics report highlight the importance of this work in improving global health.
Find out more about HVO’s programs and projects and ways you can get involved.