The COVID pandemic knocked back progress towards improving public health. Without addressing the underlying social and economic causes of ill health, it could completely stall.
The past few years have not been easy on the world’s health-care systems. When the United Nations set its Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in 2015, the threat of a pandemic sweeping the world would not have registered with most people.
Nature 619, 221 (2023)
When the rich control decisions required to reduce the wealth gap, it’s just going to get worse, not better.
In May, the World Health Organization released a report that laid out the economic reforms needed to improve global health. The report, entitled ‘Health for All’, set out a range of economic measures, such as the reformation of taxes on wealthy individuals and multinational corporations, and called for allowing debt relief for low-income countries during pandemics and natural disasters.
It also called for a fundamental reformulation of how we perceive health and well-being: not as an expenditure to be chopped during times of austerity, but as an investment in a country’s future economy and well-being. That is a call that must be heard and understood. Ultimately, we will not stand a chance of meeting the SDG health targets unless world leaders are willing to embrace the economic reforms necessary to reduce inequality.
Completely agree with that quote, but the current trajectory here in the US is back to a feudalistic model with corporations and billionaires owning all of the property. There needs to be a massive shift in how society views resources (money, property, time) and the social contract (what a government must provide for its citizens) before we can get back on track.
