Whereas effective treatment for noncommunicable diseases may be too costly to disseminate globally, opioids for pain control are cheap to produce. Yet 80% of the population, including millions of patients with terminal cancer, lacks adequate access to pain treatment.

In September, representatives from 192 countries met at a UN conference on noncommunicable diseases, turning international attention from the devastation wrought by well-known epidemics such as those of AIDS and malaria to a quieter, though no less dangerous, threat.

The world faces a shortage of about 4.3 million health professionals required for delivering essential services. The WHO Global Code of Practice on the International Recruitment of Health Personnel addresses the migration of health workers from lower-income countries.

In preparation for the UN General Assembly's upcoming meeting on addressing global noncommunicable diseases, it is worth reexamining the global experience with HIV–AIDS for lessons that may be applicable to initiatives for noncommunicable diseases.

Although many health technologies are indispensible to global health, many are inaccessible in developing countries. Yet most of the health technologies needed in such countries are not expensive, and there are ways to ensure their appropriate distribution.

New data show earlier treatment of HIV vastly reduces transmission risk, but “test and treat” and “treatment as prevention” are well recognized notions in pediatric HIV care. Yet children with HIV in low- or middle-income countries remain a largely neglected population.

Advocates of Medicare vouchers cite health care reforms in the Netherlands as a model. But competition among private insurers hasn't produced the expected benefits and has created new problems, casting doubt on the model's merits and its suitability for Medicare.

Infection with poliovirus can have devastating consequences, including paralysis and death. In 1988, a year when an estimated 350,000 or more children were paralyzed by polio, the World Health Assembly initiated a global effort to eradicate the infection ...

As Britain shifts from a system of drug review by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence toward value-based drug pricing, defining “value” in health care will be critical. The process and the definition may carry implications for U.S. health policy.

In 2007, a bundled-payment approach to integrated chronic care was launched in the Netherlands, initially on an experimental basis with a focus on diabetes. The results provide lessons applicable to the U.S. concept of accountable care organizations.

It has been a year since the earthquake of January 12, 2010, devastated the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. Piles of rubble remaining throughout the Haitian capital and a devastating cholera epidemic provide stark reminders of the challenges ...

Until the morning of February 26, 2010, the name Eddie Roach meant nothing to me. Then a desperate e-mail brought the 32-year-old self-described “global health missionary” into my life. Weeks earlier, Roach had been distributing handheld water purifiers ...

Cholera is a severe and often rapidly fatal diarrheal disease caused by the bacterium Vibrio cholerae. People die from cholera because the pathogen elicits the secretion of large quantities (up to 20 liters daily) of bacteria-laden fluid from the ...

At first glance, medicine may seem unrelated to foreign policy, but in reality it is an unappreciated partner of diplomacy. In many parts of the world, poverty, inequity based on ethnicity or sex, shoddy public infrastructure, and environmental ...

Like so many recent British governments, the new Conservative–Liberal Democrat coalition government is making structural changes to the National Health Service (NHS) in England. Such changes are being made despite campaign promises by the Conservative ...

As the United States debates health care reform, the concept of “patient-centered medical homes” is receiving increasing attention.¹ Many experts believe that medical homes with multidisciplinary teams and financial incentives for providing comprehensive ...