Health dimensions of economic reform

Abstract

Health is an essential objective of development. It is also a condition for development. These two aspects of health and its links with development are now emerging with greater force and clarity. There is a better understanding of the crucial contribution of health to economic activity, to improvement of the human condition and, through these, to all the processes of development. The achievement of appropriate health objectives is, therefore, an important measure od development strategies

There has been some complacency with regard to ill health following on industrialization, greater life expectancy, and the far-reaching changes in life styles and values now taking place. The complacency is mainly attributable to the expectation that advances in technology would be adequate to cope with the problems. Only recently have the global prospects for human health begun to disturb this complacency and attract the attention of the world community

The problems of human health emerging as a result of the prevailing patterns of development are assuming a global dimension. They are similar and closely linked to those that underlie the environmental crisis. The health issues, however, have an independent identity and must not be subsumed within the issues central to concern regarding the environment

This book analyses how health conditionality can become an essential component of economic decision-making. It illustrates how the vital health objectives of protection and improvement of health status and quality of life can be defined at the very outset along with the macroeconomic objectives, and that the processes of adjustment can achieve both sets of objectives simultaneously. It also provides examples of how health status protection and promotion can acquire an intrinsic value in the lives of all people, but especially in the lives of the vulnerable and the marginalized

Background document for the International Forum on Health : a Conditionality for Economic Development : Breaking the Cycle of Poverty and Inequity

International Forum on Health: a Conditionality for Economic Development: Breaking the Cycle of Poverty and Inequity. World Health Organization; 4-6 Dec. 1991