July 05, 2007
Rich Countries Should Care about the World's Least Healthy
Lawrence O. Gostin, JD, writing in JAMA.
It is well known that the poor experience extreme hardship, certainly much more than the rich. Unfortunately, this is also true with respect to global health. What is less often known is the degree to which the poor unnecessarily have increased morbidity and mortality. The global burden of disease is shouldered by the poor disproportionately, such that health disparities across continents render a person's likelihood of survival drastically different based on where he or she is born. These inequalities have become so extreme and the resultant effects on the poor so dire that health disparities have become a defining issue of modern society.