Global public health is a rather complicated issue that requires an extensive number of efforts on the local, country, and international levels. Governments pursue various political economies considering specific national problems. As a rule, low-income countries’ governments pursue market political economy, and high-income countries pursue corporatist or socialist political economies. For global public health problem solving the international community established various institutions and plans that are aimed to increase the level of public health and life expectancy.
The concept of the political economy implies the interaction of political and economic institutions within a country. National health care directly depends on the political economy of the government. For this reason, those countries that invest more money in social policies have better public health services and higher life expectancy than those that do not. In low-income countries, governments are faced with several factors that interfere with the successful implementation of social protection and services. As a rule, in low-income countries, the number of people working in the informal sector is quite large.
These are unregistered workers; therefore, they can avoid paying taxes. Without tax revenues, governments cannot fund the development and implementation of social programs. Moreover, the tax system in low-income countries is not of progressive form, and this fact only contributes to the increase of the informal sector economy. Among other factors that keep social policies from being implemented are corruption, clientelism, and the colonial history of countries.
Almost all low-income countries pursue a market political economy. High-income countries report a higher quality of the state’s health care and higher life expectancy because of their corporatist or socialist political economies. Thus, high life expectancy is the main feature of a developed health care system, and it is observed in countries that pursue corporatist or socialist political economy.
The health care needs of one country differ from those of another. Life expectancy is also different from nation to nation. Each government attempts to conduct some social policies to provide their citizens with health care services. Various problems such as poor access to medical care, weak pollution control, and poverty interfere with the implementation of these policies. Both low-income and high-income countries solve these problems in their ways to increase the level of public health.
Global public health, however, is another issue altogether. The international community set out a set of goals for the global health development: decrease the extreme poverty rates, reduce child mortality rates, improve maternal health, combat such diseases as HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other, ensure environmental sustainability, and create a partnership for coordinated dealing with various problems. Gradual achievement of these goals positively affects global public health. However, a large number of international problems such as wars, lack of coordination between countries concerning international aid for health and economic development negatively impact global public health. The international community is on its way to the well-developed system of global public health.
The main feature of the developed health care system is the level of life expectancy. Both low-income and high-income countries attempt to improve health care and increase life expectancy by implementing social policies and solving various problems such as poor access to medical care, weak pollution control, and high poverty rates. Internationally, countries cooperate and work on international aid for health and economic development of each other. However, a great number of issues remain unresolved.