Goals matter in the fight to improve international health

Setting goals is a common undertaking for individuals, groups, companies, etc. to make inroads as to what can be accomplished in the future. But when it comes to goals as lofty and seemingly insurmountable as eliminating malaria, fighting AIDS and bettering the health of children around the globe, some people take the view that international health goals are unreasonable, or promise too much. A new report from the World Health Organization puts that mindset to rest; it found that health goals and targets are really delivering results by energizing politicians and political bodies to work toward solutions.

The report is based on the Millennium Development Goals, which, according to the WHO, "are eight goals that all 191 UN member states have agreed to try to achieve by the year 2015. The United Nations Millennium Declaration, signed in September 2000 commits world leaders to combat poverty, hunger, disease, illiteracy, environmental degradation, and discrimination against women." The 2010 World Health Statistics annual report found that the goals appear to have set results in motion, with international health successes such as helping "the percentage of underweight children drop from 25 percent in 1990 to 16 percent in 2010, HIV infections fall 16 percent between 2001 and 2008 and upped the percentage of the world's population with access to safe water to around 87 percent," according to Reuters.

Of course, though the successes are cause for hope and celebration, the report also found areas that still require urgent and consistent attention. Non-communicable diseases and injuries accounted for 33 million deaths in developing nations in 2004 and will be responsible for a growing proportion of total deaths in the future. The WHO also warns that while many nations are making progress across the board in regard to health goals, "others are falling behind. Often the countries making the least progress are those affected by high levels of HIV/AIDS, economic hardship or conflict."

Many of the targeted international health goals for 2015, such as halving the number of people without access to safe drinking water, reducing malaria and improving child nutrition are on track to be fulfilled. But other goals, notably improving maternal health, aren't faring well. According to the report, "Recent academic estimates suggest that maternal mortality has fallen since 1990 though at a pace well short of the annual 5.5% reduction needed to achieve the MDG targets. ... From 2000 to 2008 fewer than half of all pregnant women made the WHO-recommended minimum of four antenatal visits. While the global proportion of births attended by a skilled health worker has increased, in the WHO regions of Africa and South-East Asia fewer than half of all births had skilled assistance." While not every international health target that officials set gets fulfilled, these numbers prove that they're establishing and striving for.

Photo credit: World Health Organization