Overview of the Global Health Issues Facing Children

This first Pediatrics Perspectives column on global health joins the monthly rotation with other columns on medical history, graduate medical education, and medical student education. It makes good sense to add global health to the rotation. After all, the future of our world depends on the health and well-being of all its children. Medical history will be determined by the global health issues facing children today, and surely our education programs must broaden their content to include worldwide issues to meet the demands of future pediatric practice. It has been said by many pediatricians that any disease found on this planet is no farther than a plane ride from your local hospital. Clearly, the world is a very small place for all its inhabitants, and every day, travel continues to bring us closer. Global Health Perspectives will bring issues to the readership that will stimulate our thinking about strategies and initiatives to improve child health in the broadest context. For our initial column, Drs Cabral and Soares de Moura have traced the recent history of global child health, sharing perspectives that should cause each of us to think about the future of humankind. * Abbreviations: MDG — : Millennium Development Goals UNICEF — : United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund WHO — : World Health Organization