The expanding importance of health as a global issue has focused attention on the value of applying the concept of Global Public Goods from economics to international health. The Global Public Goods for health concept considers 'goods' i.e. services, technologies and information, such as knowledge of an infectious disease outbreak or control of climate change, that are important for promoting the health of all populations and which are of benefit globally. Since these are 'public goods' there is often a lack of incentive to provide or feel responsible for them. The central challenge of the Global Public Goods for health concept is to ensure collective action at international level.

The main focus of this book is whether and how best Global Public Goods for health can be used to advance the health of poor populations. Written by experts from both the health, legal and economics worlds, Global Public Goods for Health develops the concept in relation to international health and health policy. Numerous case studies are used to illustrate the usefulness of the concept and consider the aspects of health that may be classed as Global Public Goods and how this helps to ensure their provision.

Global Public Health: A New Era is a comprehensive account of the international state of public health, including an agenda for improving the practice of the discipline across the world. It addresses three major issues, presented in distinct sections: the changing global context for public health; the state of public health theory and practice in both developed and developing countries, and strategies for strengthening the practice of public health in the twenty-first century.
Part One surveys the complex old and new challenges facing public health practitioners, and then summarizes the state of health globally using new data based on measures of the Global Burden of Disease developed by the World Health Organization, and other groups, to better describe population health states and trends.
Part Two presents the first detailed review of the global state of public health. It analyzes the public health situation in all regions of the world. Six chapters cover Europe, North and Latin America, and Australia and New Zealand, including a new chapter focusing on the UK. Three chapters cover China, India, and Sub-Saharan Africa. The lessons from these chapters are surprisingly similar: the challenges are gerat; the public health workforce and infrastructure have long been neglected, and much needs to be done to reinvigorate the practice of public health.
The third section covers several cross-cutting themes, including the developing field of international public health ethics and the central and neglected role of the public in strengthening the practice of public health. The final chapter summarizes the major themes of the book, and explores the opportunities for building the capacity of the public health workforce to respond to the major global health needs. Despite the enormity of the challenges facing public health practitioners, especially in low and middle income countries, the tone adpoted in the final section of the book is relatively optimistic. The editors are convinced that a reinvigorated public health practice will contribute substantially to improving the public health situation, especially for the most disadvantaged populations, whether in poor or wealthy countries.

There is a growing awareness of cross-border issues in health that require new policy responses and financing mechanisms. This expanding importance of health as an international issue, and the growth in attention given to health by non-health sector bodies, has brought to prominence the concept of Global Public Goods (GPGs) as applied to health: 'goods' that are in the interest of the world as a whole, but where 'public good' attributes (non excludability and non rivalry in consumption) mean that there is a lack of incentive to produce these goods.
The book addresses the growing globalism of health from the unique perspective of the economic concept of public goods. This concept identifies where a 'good' or service, such as knowledge of an infectious disease outbreak which would be of benefit globally, will not be produced if left to 'the market' because of a lack of incentive due principally to not being able to exlude people from using the good. in this case the producer, of the information on disease outbreak for example, cannot charge a price and therefore cannot recoup production expenses. Nationally, the production of these goods is usually assured by government intervention, but at the global level there is no 'global government' to undertake this role. The Global Public Good concept therefore extends the economic analysis of public goods to this international level. In this book we consider specifically the aspects of health that may be classed as Global Public Goods and considers how the concept helps to ensure their provision.

This book is an introduction to public health as a discipline and a critique of its recent development. Identifying poverty as the greatest continuing threat to health worldwide, the authors, both of them prominent public health authorities, review epidemiological, demographic and public health trends internationally, and argue that the prospects for public health will improve only if health in a broad sense becomes a central concern of the policy-making process. This extensively revised edition reviews major health trends, the current state of the world's health, and the latest estimates of the global burden of disease. With examples drawn widely from rich and poor countries, the authors argue for an inclusive vision of public health based on the application in public policy of improved epidemiological understanding of the causes of disease. Of interest to all health professionals, it will be essential reading for those in public health and related fields.