We hope your new year is off to a good start. Our first issue of 2023 takes a thoughtful and sobering look at some of the public and global health issues on our radar right now.
First, Ilona Kickbusch analyzes the new global health strategy of the European Union (EU). The EU and its member states are among the largest funders of global health, and Kickbusch describes the new strategy as “an unexpectedly political document” that emphasizes the synergies between the EU’s international and external policies on health security.
As the three-year anniversary of the COVID-19 pandemic approaches, Eric A. Friedman, Chelsea Clinton, and Lawrence O. Gostin reflect on the pandemic’s harm to human rights—the deprivations of freedom and the discrimination and erosion of democratic norms and ideals.
More than one hundred million people around the globe were displaced from their homes in 2022—up from about ninety million in 2021. Joy Shu’aibu, a public health expert from Nigeria, discusses how the massive displacements have put people at risk for serious and life-threatening diseases and why their health care needs should not be sidelined.
Our final piece examines how malnutrition and hunger in Somalia are complicating the treatment of measles, cholera, and malaria in the country. Hodan Abdullahi Mohamed argues that mobile health-care units in Somalia should better integrate treatment for malnutrition into the clinical care they provide.
As always, thank you for reading. —Thomas J. Bollyky and Mary Brophy Marcus, Editors
