Question

Why are some diseases so successful at getting global health attention and others are not?

Answer 1

To understand the reasons why some health issues come to attract attention from leaders of international organizations and national political systems, while others are neglected is that :

• Many global health analysts present evidence that material factors such as mortality and morbidity burden and the availability of cost-effective interventions may not explain the variance in the levels of attention health issues receive. For instance, in the early 2000s HIV/AIDS received more than one-third of all major donor funding for health, despite representing only around 5% of the mortality and morbidity burden in low- and middle-income countries. Also, severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) attracted enormous resources despite causing the deaths of only several hundred people. Meanwhile, other communicable diseases, such as pneumonia and diarrhoeal diseases, that kill millions of people each year and for which cost-effective interventions exist, attract minimal donor resources.
• Those issues that attract attention may be ones in which policy community members have discovered frames – ways of positioning an issue – that resonate with global and national political elites, and then established institutions that can sustain these frames. Policy communities are networks of individuals (including researchers, advocates, policy-makers and technical officials) and organizations (including governments, non-governmental organizations, United Nations agencies, foundations and donor agencies) that share a concern for a particular issue. When policy communities develop convincing ideas and strong institutions, attention and resources may follow.
• There are several factors which consistently matter. One is the existence of credible evidence to prove the severity of the problem. Another factor is leadership--having effective global champions for the issue. The third factor is the existence of a set of institutions who are advocating successfully to promote the issue.
• There are some other factors that explain why some health issues attract attention and others are neglected:

1. the strength of the actors involved in an issue
2. the ideas they use to understand and position the issue
3. the nature of the political contexts in which these actors operate
4. inherent characteristics of the issue itself.