Global health requires evidence-based approaches to improve health and decrease inequalities. In a roundtable discussion between health practitioners, funders, academics and policy-makers, we recognised key areas for improvement to deliver better-informed, sustainable and equitable global health practices. These focus on considering information-sharing mechanisms and developing evidence-based frameworks that take an adaptive function-based approach, grounded in the ability to perform and respond to prioritised needs. Increasing social engagement as well as sector and participant diversity in whole-of-society decision-making, and collaborating with and optimising on hyperlocal and global regional entities, will improve prioritisation of global health capabilities. Since the skills required to navigate drivers of pandemics, and the challenges in prioritising, capacity building and response do not sit squarely in the health sector, it is essential to integrate expertise from a broad range of fields to maximise on available knowledge during decision-making and system development. Here, we review the current assessment tools and provide seven discussion points for how improvements to implementation of evidence-based prioritisation can improve global health.
Research is a critical part of any effort to improve the world's health. Yet there are significant political, social, and organizational barriers to increasing funding for research on the infectious diseases of the poor. Malaria, tuberculosis (TB), and AIDS have gained particular attention in the past several years because they have become overwhelming burdens on the world's poorest people. Worldwide, 40 million are infected with AIDS, more than 300 million seek treatment for malaria each year, and a staggering 2 billion people are infected with tuberculosis. During the past several years, there have been substantial increases in support from public and private funds. Most recently, an international nongovernmental organization called the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis & Malaria (http://www.globalfundatm.org/) was proposed at the 2000 G8 meeting of industrialized countries in Okinawa, with input from several national governments as well as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The Global Fund was established and is held in trust by the World Bank; it funds the treatment, care, and prevention of malaria, TB, and AIDS, but not research and development. Other important infections, including child-killing diarrheal and respiratory diseases, acute and chronic Chagas' disease, and leishmaniasis and parasitism by worms, have not benefited from the same kind of attention. Although many governments have increased their support for health-related international development and applied research, they have not rallied around a recent World Health Organization (WHO) call (http://www3.who.int/whosis/menu.cfm?path=whosis,cmh&language=english) for the creation of a global health research fund to coordinate increased spending on basic and applied research against these diseases.
