There is an interconnectedness between Public Health Principles and the recently agreed upon/adopted UN Global Goals. These, are also known as Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
This prompted me to think that most of our actions (governance, leadership, housing, exercise, nutrition, health-care..) as being processes that ensure quality livelihoods for all people whether in homes, schools, hospitals, dormitories, cities, trains, ship and airplanes. There are definitions I want to first refer to:
This prompted me to think that most of our actions (governance, leadership, housing, exercise, nutrition, health-care..) as being processes that ensure quality livelihoods for all people whether in homes, schools, hospitals, dormitories, cities, trains, ship and airplanes. There are definitions I want to first refer to:
Public health refers to all organized measures (whether public or private) to prevent disease, promote health, and prolong life among the population as a whole. Its activities aim to provide conditions in which people can be healthy and focus on entire populations, not on individual patients or diseases (WHO).
Public health is the science of protecting and improving the health of families and communities through promotion of healthy lifestyles, research for disease and injury prevention and detection and control of infectious diseases. Overall, public health is concerned with protecting the health of entire populations (CDC).
Public health is the health of people in general; the science of caring for the people of a community by giving them basic health-care and health information geared at improving living ( MERRIAM-WEBSTER).
On 19 July 2014, the UN General Assembly's Open Working Group on Sustainable Development Goals (OWG) forwarded a proposal for the SDGs to the Assembly. The proposal contained 17 goals with 169 targets covering a broad range of sustainable development issues. These included ending poverty andhunger, improving health and education, making cities more sustainable, combating climate change, and protecting oceans and forests.[1] On 4 December 2014, the UN General Assembly accepted the Secretary-General's Synthesis Report which stated that the agenda for the post-2015 SDG process would be based on the OWG proposals.[2]
The Intergovernmental Negotiations on the Post 2015 Development Agenda (IGN) began in January 2015 and ended in August 2015. Following the negotiations, a final document was adopted at the UN Sustainable Development Summit September 25–27, 2015 in New York, USA.[3] The title of the agenda isTransforming our world: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development[4][5]
The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), also called Global Goals,[6] and Agenda 2030 [7] are an inter-governmentally agreed set of targets relating tointernational development. They will follow on from the Millennium Development Goals once those expire at the end of 2015.[8] The SDGs were first formally discussed at the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development held in Rio de Janeiro in June 2012 (Rio+20).
The definition "Public health refers to all organized measures (whether public or private) to prevent disease, promote health, and prolong life among the population as a whole. Its activities aim to provide conditions in which people can be healthy and focus on entire populations, not on individual patients or diseases," makes me contemplate on the following 17 measures as aspirations I want to pursue as a Public Health Practitioner:
1. End poverty in all its forms everywhere.
2. End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition, and promote sustainable agriculture.
3. Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages.
4. Ensure inclusive and quality education for all and promote lifelong learning.
5. Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls.
6. Ensure access to water and sanitation for all.
7. Ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modernenergy for all.
8. Promote inclusive and sustainable economic growth, employment and decent work for all.
9. Build resilient infrastructure, promote sustainableindustrialization and foster innovation.
10. Reduce inequality within and among countries.
11. Make cities inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable.
12. Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns.
13. Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts.
14. Conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources.
15. Sustainably manage forests, combat desertification, halt and reverse land degradation, halt biodiversity loss.
16. Promote just, peaceful and inclusive societies.
17. Revitalize the global partnership for sustainable development.
CONCLUSION:
The knowledge of, owning the right set of Public Health skills as well as a continued cognizance of the interconnectedness and intersectionality between the 17 measures will go a long way to make me a more effective Public Health Practitioner.
REFERENCES:
3. World leaders adopt Sustainable Development Goals". United Nations Development Programme. Retrieved25 September 2015.
4. Transforming our world: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development".United Nations - Sustainable Development knowledge platform. Retrieved 10/04/2015.
5. "Breakdown of U.N. Sustainable Development Goals". Retrieved 10/04/2015.
7. Harris, Gardiner (27 September 2015). "Obama Tackles Poverty and Sexism in U.N. Speech". New York Times. Retrieved 29 September 2015.
8. Breakdown of U.N. Sustainable Development Goals". Retrieved 10/4/2015.
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