Kent Buse

The George Institute for Global Health · Healthier Socities

Background Non-communicable diseases (NCDs) represent a significant threat to human health and well-being, and carry significant implications for economic development and health care and other costs for governments and business, families and individuals. Risks for many of the major NCDs are associated with the production, marketing and consumption...

The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) galvanized attention, resources and accountability on a small number of health concerns of low- and middle-income countries with unprecedented results. The international community is presently developing a set of Sustainable Development Goals as the successor framework to the MDGs. This review examines the ev...

Background The Global Public Private Partnerships for Health (GPPPH) constitute an increasingly central part of the global health architecture and carry both financial and normative power. Gender is an important determinant of health status, influencing differences in exposure to health determinants, health behaviours, and the response of the healt...

Global health research reflects and can either perpetuate or challenge the complex power hierarchies and inequities that characterize our systems for health and the societies in which they are situated. The imperative to embed equity in health research aligns with broader efforts globally to promote equitable partnerships among researchers, and bet...

Background Multistakeholder collaboration has emerged as a dominant approach for engaging and mobilising non-state actors; notably embedded in the paradigm of the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Yet, considerable ambiguity and contestation surrounds the appropriate terms of public private engagement (PPE) with industry actors. Main body This pap...

Tackling the Commercial Determinants of Health (CDoH) is necessary for progress on health equity and will determine whether or not the health-related targets of the SDGs are met. We present a simple visual heuristic of three core aspects of CDoH: commercial actors, commercial practices, and system-level dynamics (which commercial actors influence a...

Water is a finite natural resource. Zero Water Day(s) scenarios are challenging people and communities in Europe and worldwide. The public health community must seize the opportunity to prepare for Zero Water Day(s) through strengthening capacity and capability to respond to rapidly emerging emergencies as well as protected crises. Collaboration ac...

Background Gender equality, zero hunger and healthy lives and well-being for all, are three of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) that underpin Fiji’s National Development Plan. Work towards each of these goals contributes to the reduction of non-communicable diseases (NCDs). There are gender differences in NCD burden in Fiji. It is, however,...

Better alignment between health research organisations with the needs (and interests) of key stakeholders in the health policy and research system is critical to improving research impact. The George Institute for Global Health’s ‘Healthier Societies’ program focuses on harnessing the power of governments, markets, and communities to improve popula...

With growing recognition of the extent to which human activities are imperilling planetary health, it is critical to understand how international law can uphold a healthy environment. Drawing from 50 years of dedicated diplomacy, the United Nations General Assembly has recognised the right to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment under inte...

Integrating HIV-related care with treatment for substance use disorder provides an opportunity to better meet the needs of people living with these conditions. People with substance use disorder are rendered especially vulnerable by prevailing policies, structural inequalities, and stigmatisation. In this Series paper we analyse existing literature...

Drowning has been a neglected health issue, largely absent from the global health and development discourse, until the UN General Assembly adopted its first resolution on global drowning prevention in 2021. This policy analysis examines the role of issue characteristics, actor power, ideas, and political contexts in the emergence of drowning preven...

Opion piece on obesity with five point plan for action by WHO and health leaders on an integrated strategy encompassing prevention and management. This includes addressing the commercial determinants, options for treatment, and correcting political failures based on an approach that to date has been fragmented and inadequate.

Background Labour migrants, who represent over sixty per cent of international migrants globally, frequently have poorer health status than the population of host countries. These health inequities are determined in a large part by structural drivers including political, commercial, economic, normative and social factors, including living and worki...

Sex and gender matter to health outcomes, but despite repeated commitments to sex-disaggregate data in health policies and programmes, a persistent and substantial absence of such data remains especially in lower-income countries. This represents a missed opportunity for monitoring and identifying gender-responsive, evidence-informed solutions to a...

In recent years, the concept of commercial determinants of health (CDoH) has attracted scholarly, public policy, and activist interest. To date, however, this new attention has failed to yield a clear and consistent definition, well-defined metrics for quantifying its impact, or coherent directions for research and intervention. By tracing the orig...

The commercial determinants of health (CDoH) describe the adverse health effects associated with for-profit actors and their actions. Despite efforts to advance the definition, conceptualization, and empirical analyses of CDoH, the term's practical application to mitigate these effects requires the capacity to measure the influences of specific com...

Background Despite the widely published international guidelines for a better implementation of health policies promoting healthy eating habits; the epidemiological situation regarding most weighing heavily non-communicable diseases (NCDs) on global health, is still alarming. We aimed to analyze Tunisian health policies targeting trans fatty acids...

Objective To understand factors influencing implementation of salt reduction interventions in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). Design Retrospective policy analysis based on desk reviews of existing reports and semi-structured stakeholder interviews in four countries, using Walt and Gilson’s ‘Health Policy Triangle’ to assess the role of c...

As evidence mounts that corporate actor engagement in United Nations (UN) policy-making processes leads to weaker and shallower public health commitments, greater attention is being paid to how to minimise undue interference and manage conflicts of interest (CoI). While we welcome efforts to develop normative guidance on managing such conflicts, we...

Background Marketing of foods and non-alcoholic beverages high in saturated fats, trans-fatty acids, free sugars, or salt (“unhealthy foods”) to children is contributing to increasing child obesity. However, many countries have not implemented WHO recommendations to restrict marketing of unhealthy foods to children. We sought to understand the abse...

Introduction Diverse gender and geographical representation matters in research. We aimed to review medical and global health journals’ sex/gender reporting, and the gender and geography of authorship. Methods 542 research and non-research articles from 14 selected journals were reviewed using a retrospective survey design. Paper screening and sys...

COVID-19 has exposed and exploited existing inequalities in gender to drive inequities in health outcomes. Evidence illustrates the relationship between occupation, ethnicity and gender to increase risk of infection in some places. Higher death rates are seen among people also suffering from non-communicable diseases – e.g. heart disease and lung d...

Global and national responses to the COVID-19 pandemic highlight a long-standing tension between biosecurity-focused, authoritarian and sometimes militarised approaches to public health and, in contrast, comprehensive, social determinants, participatory and rights-based approaches. Notwithstanding principles that may limit rights in the interests...

Issue Malnutrition in all its forms poses daunting challenges to global health and development. The agriculture sector is a significant contributor to global warming. COVID-19 has pushed many people into poverty, including food poverty. A radical rethink of business models, food systems, civil society involvement, and national and international gov...

Both gender and the law are significant determinants of health and well-being. Here, we put forward evidence to unpack the relationship between gender and outcomes in health and well-being, and explore how legal determinants interact and intersect with gender norms to amplify or reduce health inequities across populations. The paper explores the si...

We assessed the technical content of sugar, salt and trans-fats policies in six countries in relation to the World Health Organization 'Best Buys' guidelines for the prevention and control of non-communicable diseases (NCDs). National research teams identified policies and strategies related to promoting healthy diets and restricting unhealthy cons...

Background: The sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) of migrants and refugees present important public health challenges. Social and structural determinants affect both the general health and SRHR of migrants, but the drivers of SRHR among migrant and refugee populations remain understudied. Aims: To identify upstream social and stru...

The adoption of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development marked a defining moment in the history of the United Nations and the creation of an unprecedented development paradigm bringing together the social, environmental, and economic development strands into one comprehensive, ambitious, and balanced framework. With seventeen interdependent Sus...

Obesity and its comorbidities pose daunting challenges to global health and development in the 21st century. This paper reviews some commonalities between obesity and another global health challenge, the pandemic of human immunodeficiency virus/acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS). International human rights law was an important catalyst f...

Health systems are critical for health outcomes as they underpin intervention coverage and quality, promote users' rights and intervene on the social determinants of health. Governance is essential for health system endeavours as it mobilises and coordinates a multiplicity of actors and interests to realise common goals. The inherently social, poli...

Background In 2017, the G20 health ministers convened for the first time to discuss global health and issued a communiqué outlining their health priorities, as the BRICS and G7 have done for years. As these political clubs hold considerable political and economic influence, their respective global health agendas may influence both global health pri...

The Sustainable Development Goals offer the global health community a strategic opportunity to promote human rights, advance gender equality, and achieve health for all. The inability of the health sector to accelerate progress on a range of health outcomes brings into sharp focus the substantial impact of gender inequalities and restrictive gender...

Gender refers to the social relationships between males and females in terms of their roles, behaviours, activities, attributes and opportunities, and which are based on different levels of power. Gender interacts with, but is distinct from, the binary categories of biological sex. In this paper we consider how gender interacts with the 2030 agenda...

This chapter argues that the current global health agenda has failed to put people and their rights at the center. With communities unable to have their voices heard, challenge injustice, and hold decision makers to account, states are ill-equipped to realize the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), including SDG 3 to ensure healthy lives and well...

Over the past 20-plus years, there has been a significant rise in the "partnership model" in global health. Mainly involving collaboration between public and private spheres, some partnerships include only inter-governmental organizations (IGOs). This chapter explores how three types of partnerships-global public-private partnerships (usually focus...

Building upon the successes of Countdown to 2015, Countdown to 2030 aims to support the monitoring and measurement of women's, children's, and adolescents' health in the 81 countries that account for 95% of maternal and 90% of all child deaths worldwide. To achieve the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030, the rate of decline in prevalence of mate...

Building upon the successes of Countdown to 2015, Countdown to 2030 aims to support the monitoring and measurement of women's, children's, and adolescents' health in the 81 countries that account for 95% of maternal and 90% of all child deaths worldwide. To achieve the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030, the rate of decline in prevalence of mate...

Background Cervical cancer is a major public health problem. Even though readily preventable, it is the fourth leading cause of death in women globally. Women living with HIV are at increased risk of invasive cervical cancer, highlighting the need for access to screening and treatment for this population. Integration of services has been proposed a...

PRISMA checklist. (DOC)

Non-communicable diseases (NCDs), including cardiovascular diseases (CVD), hypertension and diabetes together with HIV infection are among the major public health concerns worldwide. Health services for HIV and NCDs require health systems that provide for people’s chronic care needs, which present an opportunity to coordinate efforts and create syn...

Background: The frequency in which HIV and AIDS and mental health problems co-exist, and the complex bi-directional relationship between them, highlights the need for effective care models combining services for HIV and mental health. Here, we present a systematic review that synthesizes the literature on interventions and approaches integrating t...

The National Commitments and Policy Instrument (NCPI) has been used to monitor AIDS-related laws and policies for over 10 years. What can be learnt from this process? Analyses draw on NCPI questionnaires, NCPI responses, the UNAIDS Law Database, survey data and responses to a 2014 survey on the NCPI. The NCPI provides the first and only systematic...

Integration of services for patients with more than one diagnosed condition has intuitive appeal but it has been argued that the empirical evidence to support it is limited. We report the findings of a systematic review that sought to identify health system factors, extrinsic to the integration process, which either facilitated or hindered the inte...