The COVID-19 crisis—the most catastrophic international public health emergency since the Spanish influenza 100 years ago—provides impetus to review the significance of public and global health in the context of Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) achievement. When countries unanimously adopted the 17 SDGs in September 2015, stakeholders had mixed views on global health goal SDG 3 (Good Health and Well-Being). Concern arose over the feasibility of achieving SDG 3 by 2030 when countries pursued its nine targets and four means of implementation with sixteen other ambitious global goals. Nonetheless, health surely cuts across the SDG framework: for instance, the underlying health determinants are expressed in many goals as is urban and planetary health. Although health (and its different constructions) is central to overall SDG achievement, SDG success depends on a paradigm shift toward whole-of-government policy and planning. Indeed, the 2030 Agenda echoes calls for a Health in All Policies (HiAP) approach to public health programming. This depends on another paradigm shift in public health tertiary education, practitioner training, and policy skills development within and beyond ministries of health. Added to this are the underlying problematics around SDG health financing, human resources for health, health target and indicator localization for equitable country responses that leave no one behind, strengthening civil registration and vital statistics systems for inclusive and accountable health implementation, and the sidelining of human rights from SDG metrics. While COVID-19 has derailed SDG efforts, it could also be the ultimate game changer for intergenerational human and environmental health transformation. Yet strong global health governance and rights-based approaches remain key.
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Public Health and the UN Sustainable Development Goals
Claire E. Brolan
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Urban Health and Disaster Resilience
David Sanderson, Ronak Patel, and Kelsey Gleason
As cities and towns across the world continue to grow to accommodate most of the world’s population increase, so too are they increasingly and often disproportionately exposed to the threat of natural hazards—including those worsened by climate change—such as floods, earthquakes, windstorms, and fires. Efforts that aim to enhance and safeguard urban health are those that seek to build the resilience of people and systems before, during, and after disasters. Yet where these efforts fail or fail to exist, components of vulnerability and urban diversity inform disaster risk. Taking a systems approach is especially essential to recognize the interconnected, complex, and dynamic issues that include and impact on the spectrum of urban health.
