Leading Pan American Health: Quadrennial report of the Director 1994-1997

Abstract

Over the past several years, the Pan American Health Organization has worked in a world in which the only constant has been change. The freeing of trade and the ensuing globalization of national economies, the burgeoning of democracies, the emerging of technologies, the reshaping of demographic and epidemiological profiles, and the pushing toward social reforms…these factors have conditioned PAHO’S vision of its role and the pursuit of its mission. This situation is not new. Constant flux has characterized the history of public health in the Americas and of the Organization—for the most part, one and the same history. Today, poised on the cusp of a new millennium, PAHO is instituting major policy, managerial, and technical reforms aimed at clarifying priorities, redefining relations with stakeholders, measuring effectiveness, assuring accountability, and, through all these, bolstering international public health. The Region of the Americas has scored major achievements in the area of health, as the result of the countries’ collective will to tackle, together, their health challenges. This publication recounts recent progress the countries and the Organization have made in the areas of health and human development, disease prevention and control, health systems and services development, health promotion and protection, and environmental protection and development.