Publication: Health Care Reforms that Serve the Poor
Date
1999-02-10
ISSN
Published
1999-02-10
Author(s)
Koch-Weser, Caio K.
Abstract
This report presents the chairman
Bruntland speech on the remarkable achievements in health,
nutrition, and population (delivered at the XII Malente Symposium of the Drager Foundation in Lubec). There have been greater gains in
life expectancy and greater decreases in birth rates
throughout the world in the past four decades than during
the entire previous four centuries. In his speech chairman
has cite few achievements such as: 1) people all over the
world live almost 25 years longer today than they would have
lived at similar income levels in 1900; 2) there have been
huge gains in infant mortality: the proportion of children
who die before reaching age five is now less than half the
level it was in 1960; 3) contraceptive use in low- and
middle-income countries rose from 10 percent of married
couples in the mid- 1960s, to 55 percent in 1990; and as a
result of this and other factors; and 4) on average, women
choose (and are able to act on this choice) to have three
children each, down from five in 1960. Even in his speech
chairman points that enormous progress have been made in
understanding the causes of diseases, and in developing
effective preventive and curative interventions such as
immunization and antibiotics, but still there are challenges
in the health sector, and policy option to channel scarce
resources to the poor.
Citation
“Koch-Weser, Caio K.. 1999. Health Care Reforms that Serve the Poor. Health, Nutrition and Population (HNP)
discussion paper;. © World Bank, Washington, DC. http://openknowledge.worldbank.org/entities/publication/21732d4c-1712-58d2-bee1-b832e4143656 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”