Person: Frenk, Julio
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Frenk
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Julio
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Frenk, Julio
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Publication Global rules for global health: why we need an independent, impartial WHO(BMJ, 2014) Sridhar, D.; Frenk, Julio; Gostin, L.; Moon, SuerieOver the past few years the World Health Organization (WHO) has been undergoing substantial reform. The immediate trigger was a budget crisis in 2010 that spurred massive staff cuts. But at a more fundamental level, deeper systematic changes in global health governance have made reform imperative.1 Though WHO reform draws relatively little attention outside diplomatic circles in Geneva, at stake are critical concerns that will affect public health everywhere. The essential role of WHO is most often appreciated when outbreaks of infectious disease cross borders, such as the newly identified Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) coronavirus, which has infected 636 people since 2012 and has a death rate of about one in three.2 With an increasing number of cases being reported, fears exist that it could infect thousands of people, similar to the SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) coronavirus in 2002-03.3 The international response to MERS has been more rapid than to SARS at least partly because of global structures that have facilitated epidemiological assessment, international information sharing, and the development of potential treatments. In an increasingly interconnected and interdependent world, global rules negotiated among governments are crucial for facilitating international cooperation and for protecting the health of the world’s population. Sometimes adhering to these rules requires governments to forgo some of their sovereignty and to trust an international organisation to act impartially and independently for the common good. One of the fundamental reasons for the creation of WHO in 1948 was to ensure that governments would “compromise their short-term differences in order to attain the long-run advantages of regularized collaboration on health matters.”4 Although many global health problems can be dealt with outside of WHO, the negotiation, agreement, and monitoring of compliance with global health rules can realistically take place only in WHO’s main decision making body, the World Health Assembly. WHO possesses unique political legitimacy because its membership encompasses all countries in the United Nations. This legitimacy allows WHO to convene governments and others (such as civil society, experts, and business) to negotiate rules, resolve differences, and reach consensus—all key elements of stewardship, a core function of the global health system.5 MERS exemplifies at least three areas of global rule making that are crucial for protecting global health: rapid information sharing on new infectious threats, fair arrangements for access to drugs and vaccines, and research and development of technologies and other interventions.Publication Governance Challenges in Global Health(New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM/MMS), 2013) Frenk, Julio; Moon, SuerieGlobal health is at the threshold of a new era. Few times in his- tory has the world faced challenges as complex as those now posed by a trio of threats: first, the unfinished agenda of infections, undernutrition, and reproductive health problems; second, the rising global burden of noncommu- nicable diseases and their associated risk factors, such as smoking and obesity; and third, the challenges arising from globalization itself, such as the health effects of climate change and trade policies, which demand engagement outside the tradi- tional health sector.1 These threats are evolving within a multifaceted and dynamic global context characterized by great diversity among societies in norms, values, and interests, as well as by large inequalities in the distribution of health risks and the resources to address them. A robust response to this complex picture requires improved governance of health systems — certainly at the national level but also at a worldwide level in what could be thought of as the “global health system.” However, the concept of governance is still poorly understood despite its growing visibility in current de- bates about global health. In this article, we define and discuss the importance of good global governance for health, outline major challenges to such governance, and describe the necessary functions of a global health system.Publication Rethinking Maternal Health(Elsevier BV, 2016) Knaul, Felicia; Langer, Ana; Atun, Rifat; Rodin, Danielle; Frenk, Julio; Bonita, RuthWomen's health has gone through a major epidemiological transition in the past decades. It is now time to rethink how global health defines maternal in order to encompass challenges to the health of all women, as well as their transformative potential as productive members of society.Publication The Global Health System: Institutions in a Time of Transition(Center for International Development at Harvard University, 2017-04-04) Clark, William; Szlezak, Nicole Alexandra; Moon, Suerie; Bloom, Barry; Keusch, Gerald T.; Michaud, Catherine; Jamison, Dean T.; Frenk, Julio; Kilama, Wen L.The global health system is in a period of rapid transition, with an upsurge of funds and greater political recognition, a broader range of health challenges, many new actors, and the rules, norms and expectations that govern them in flux. The traditional actors on the global health stage—most notably national health ministries, the World Health Organization (WHO) and a relatively small group of national medical research agencies and foundations funding global health research—are now being joined (and sometimes challenged) by a variety of newer actors: civil society and nongovernmental organizations, private firms, and private philanthropists, and an ever-growing presence in the global health policy arena of low- and middle-income countries, such as Kenya, Mexico, Brazil, China, India, Thailand, and South Africa. We present here a series of four papers on one dimension of the global health transition: its changing institutional arrangements. We define institutional arrangements broadly to include both the actors (individuals and/or organizations) that exert influence in global health and the norms and expectations that govern the relationships among them. We focused on three central questions regarding the global health system: (1) What functions must an effective global health system accomplish? (2) What kind of institutional arrangements can better govern the growing and diverse set of actors in the system to ensure that those functions are performed? (3) What lessons can be extracted from analysis of historical experience with malaria to inform future efforts to address them and the coming wave of new health challenges?Publication A comprehensive approach to women’s health: lessons from the Mexican health reform(BioMed Central, 2012) Frenk, Julio; Gómez-Dantés, Octavio; Langer, AnaBackground: This paper discusses the way in which women’s health concerns were addressed in Mexico as part of a health system reform. Discussion The first part sets the context by examining the growing complexity that characterizes the global health field, where women’s needs occupy center stage. Part two briefly describes a critical conceptual evolution, i.e. from maternal to reproductive to women’s health. In the third and last section, the novel “women and health” (W&H) approach and its translation into policies and programs in the context of a structural health reform in Mexico is discussed. W&H simultaneously focuses on women’s health needs and women’s critical roles as both formal and informal providers of health care, and the links between these two dimensions. Summary The most important message of this paper is that broad changes in health systems offer the opportunity to address women’s health needs through innovative approaches focused on promoting gender equality and empowering women as drivers of change.Publication Health Professionals for a New Century: Transforming Education to Strengthen Health Systems in an Interdependent World(Elsevier, 2010) Frenk, Julio; Bhutta, Zulfiqar A.; Chen, Lincoln; Cohen, Jordan; Crisp, Nigel; Evans, Timothy; Fineberg, Harvey; Garcia, Patricia; Ke, Yang; Kelley, Patricia; Meleis, Afaf; Naylor, David; Reddy, Srinath; Scrimshaw, Susan; Sepulveda, Jaime; Serwadda, David; Zurayk, Huda; Education of Health Professionals for the 21st Century: A Global Independent Commission; Kistnasamy, Patrick Barry; Pablos-Mendez, Ariel