The authors’ research problem is major health problems in today’s world. The authors’ research questions are what the international health organizations such as WHO do to improve public health, and how they tackle the emerging diseases. The main point of the research is that the creation of a unified international health system aimed at the prevention of diseases and the promotion of health all over the world will significantly increase the level of the global public health. The authors support their point stating that global health has changed significantly since 1990. One of the main reasons for these changes is a collaborative concern over such issues as maternal mortality, acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS), and new strains of influenza. The international health fund has increased considerably, from approximately 6 billion in 1990 to almost 30 billion in 2014, mostly due to voluntary organizations (Lawrence & Sridhar, 2014).
The authors’ initial objective is to show that the main peculiarity of the global health law is the normative laws that can be negotiated, adopted and monitored by every country in the world. They arrive at the conclusion that the higher governance is required to allocate resources, create norms, and help smaller organizations work collaboratively (Lawrence & Sridhar, 2014).
Evaluation of the research methods
The article under consideration is a scholarly article. The authors conduct their research in the sphere of global health. The authors provide a literature review referring to almost fifty different sources on the topic, among which there are books, scholarly and peer-reviewed articles, newspaper articles and trustworthy web-sources. In their research, the authors refer to a similar article stating that the globalization plays a significant role in sustaining global public health. Although the global health system is not an organized system operated by a certain governing body (like the World Trade Organization, for example), there is a network of small organizations that serve as a global instrument in sustaining global health. Many of these organizations function under the protection of the World Health Organization (WHO) (Frenk & Moon, 2013).
The research can be considered relevant to today existing health issues, though it dates back to 2014. Nevertheless, I think that three years in such a research is not much, as in the article the currently existing global health issues are analyzed. Thus, the authors describe the way the WHO works, its strategies, and the principles of the World Health Assembly. The WHO can negotiate norms on different health issues, among which there are standards for the safety, efficiency, and purity of medicines, quarantine and sanitation, diseases terminology and many others. The current 194 countries-participants are bound to fulfill the norms that come into effect after the adoption by the Assembly. Although the WHO is authorized to create and implement norms, the law of the international health is notably scarce, having only two big treaties accepted since the creation of the organization in 1948 (Lawrence & Sridhar, 2014).
The research presented in the article is non-experimental, though it contains statistics on the major health problems, the budget that the international health organizations have to tackle different diseases, and the outstanding breakthroughs in medicine for the last couple of decades. Also, the authors focus their attention on the international health regulations that are adopted by the World Health Assembly. These regulations are aimed at detecting the international health threats and organizing the necessary response to them. The regulations comprise a wide range of health hazards that can be considered the international threats, no matter what is their origin – biologic, radioactive, or chemical. The governments must monitor the health situation within the country and inform the WHO within a day after the events that threaten the public health on the international level take place. The director of the WHO is authorized to declare an emergency, as it was in 2009 influenza pandemic. The WHO has the authority to apply to unofficial sources, such as voluntary organizations, social networks, scientists, mass media, and so on (Lawrence & Sridhar, 2014).
In my opinion, the sample meets the purpose of the study which is the issues of global health today. It is also appropriate and not biased, as it objectively shows the current state of the global health organizations and the methods they implement to tackle diseases. Thus, the authors describe challenges that the law of the global health has. They claim that despite the potential that soft and hard instruments possess in establishing regulations and mobilizing resources, the global health law has significant restrictions. First, the governments do not like compel themselves; thus, they often do not accept the international law or agree only to weak regulations. Second, developed countries do not like to finance underdeveloped and developing countries or provide money to the WHO without their “stamp” on it. Third, compliance methods for such regulations are often weak or do not exist at all (Lawrence & Sridhar, 2014). One more disadvantage is that the international law influences only countries and their governments and cannot have an impact on non-state sources, from separate individuals to different social foundations and enterprises (Frenk & Moon, 2013).
On the whole, the research conveys the practical value. It suggests different methods that can help create a unified global health organization with enough power and resources to deal with different health issues of any origin all over the world. I believe that these methods can and will be applied, but it needs time for the authorities to make the appropriate regulations to which everyone would agree. Thus, the authors claim that newer global health organizations, such as Global Fund, UNAIDS, GAVI Alliance and others have appeared recently. They have non-state representatives on their board that can help mobilize more resources (Lawrence & Sridhar, 2014).
I think that this article has room for improvement, as not all the aspects of current global health problems are considered. Particularly, the authors could have provided the information about different health hazards happened in the world and how the WHO, the governments, and voluntary organizations dealt with them.
The writing in the article is straightforward and understandable. The authors present their research clearly providing arguments for their claims. Also, the article is easy to read, as it is properly structured and contains sections that explain what is going further.
A further research on this topic can be conducted in order to provide more detailed information on the global health issues and to create a prognosis on the improvement of global public health after the creation of a single global health organization.
Conclusion
In my opinion, the authors provide a quality research on the topic of the global health issues providing relevant and trustworthy information. I agree with the authors’ main points and think that creating a unified global health organization will help resolve a lot of global health issues, as working collaboratively is always faster and more efficient. According to my knowledge, I think that their research can be improved and supplemented with the information about different health hazards and the methods that the WHO and similar organizations used to tackle them. Also, I think that the article lacks the information about the prognosis on the creation of a unified global health organization.
References
Frenk, J., & Moon, S. (2013). Governance challenges in global health. New England Journal of Medicine, 368(10), 936-942.
Lawrence, O. G., & Sridhar, D. (2014). Global health and the law. New England Journal of Medicine, 340(1), 1732-1740.