The Global Health Watch 2 report

doi:10.1136/bmj.a2144

Published 17 October 2008, doi:10.1136/bmj.a2144
Cite this as: BMJ 2008;337:a2144

Editorials

The Global Health Watch 2 report

Holding the social and economic causes of health inequitiesto account

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

Global Health Watch 2, the second of the self claimed alternativeworld health reports, is published today.¹ Like its 2005 predecessor,it is an approachable overview of why health inequities persistand what can be done to reduce them. The strength of this reportis that it is a product of several civil society organisationsand networks, and its inherent activism is strongly evidencebased and carefully reasoned.

The report is divided into major sections on health systems,determinants of health, and accountability, and it includesessays on alternative development and on the politics of resistanceto unhealthy policies, politics, and economics. A key argumentis that our present approach to development divides the world’sthree most important imperatives—to reduce poverty, improvehealth, and sustain the environment—into unattainableincoherence. For example, poverty reduction in low income countries,which is assumed to improve health, is driven by growth thatis . . . [Full text of this article]