Researchers want to launch a global public health movement
NEWS
We need a global movement of researchers, specialists, politicians and civil servants to meet the needs of public health initiatives that are present at various levels of society. This is the opinion of a group of researchers in a manifesto published in the journal The Lancet.
The researchers who are active at Umeå University, the University of Auckland, New Zealand, the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, UK, and Richard Horton, chief editor of the journal The Lancet, aim as part of the manifesto to create a global movement to respond to the threats facing humanity. These include the threats to human health and well-being, threats to natural systems and systems developed by man that promote health and threats to an environmentally sustainable lifestyle.
“The purpose of the manifesto is to create a movement that works for our planet to be able to nurture and nourish the diversity of life. The goal is to group experts and decision makers from various fields to promote health, not just for humans, but for all forms of life on the planet that we depend on,” says Stig Wall, Professor Emeritus at the Department of Public Health and Clinical Medicine, Umeå University, who is one of the researchers behind the manifesto.
He says that a good knowledge of public health is vital to achieve the vision of protecting and promoting health and well-being, preventing disease and disability, and eliminating the conditions detrimental to health and well-being. To achieve these objectives we need to create just societies and minimise health disparities based on financial assets, education and gender.
The target group for the manifesto in the journal are healthcare professionals, people who work with public health issues, politicians and policy makers, international officials working at the UN and development agencies, as well as academics at various national levels involved in public health issues.
“The people we want to reach with the manifesto is really anyone who has an interest in their own health, for the health of fellow beings and the health of future generations,” says Stig Wall.
