Global transition in health.
"Tempora mutantur et nos in illis" King Lothar I remarked by year 900 AD. What exactly changed in us over time, i.e. how patterns of the epidemiological transition in populations locally and globally might appear, was described by Omran in 1971 [1]. The effect of transition on health and diseases in populations was demonstrated by Frenkl et al in 1991 [2]. And which major public health problems following each other, and why, was underscored by LaPorte in 1995 [3]. In 2000, leaders of the world society decided to identify a range of common goals, the Millennium Development Goals (MDG), to be reached by year 2015. Many of the MDG are directly or indirectly related with the major health problems, particularly those hitting the poorest: lack of clean drinking water, unhealthy environment, high maternal mortality due to lack of care for the pregnant, and lack of control of major communicable, often fatal diseases like child diseases, malaria, HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis. It is remarkable that the specific chronic diseases of major public health relevance are in fact not mentioned in the MDG, even if these diseases increasingly are hitting populations in low- and middle-income societies, i.e. developing countries. The world community seems to prioritize the diseases that are most visible, and most often linked with poverty, namely the infectious diseases mentioned above, which together kill about 17 million people annually, often in combination with malnutrition, and the 0.6 million deaths related to birth and pregnancy. With the exception of HIV/AIDS, which also hit richer societies, these diseases of poverty have been under-prioritized regarding research as well. However, at the turn of the Millennium, the burden of "Western" non-communicable diseases was increasing fast in developing countries. And by 2025, the burden of non-communicable diseases is expected to have doubled globally, with half of the burden on developing countries. Therefore it may be rewarding to look backwards upon the three stages of Omran's original thesis on epidemiological transition, to understand life and death forwards, in a world in fast transition, cf. the Danish philosopher Soeren Kirkegaard: "it is true what philosophy tells us, that life must be understood backwards, while not forgetting the second sentence, that it must be lived forwards".
Bygbjerg
Ib Christian
IC
Center of Health and Society, University of Copenhagen, Department of International Health, Copenhagen, Denmark. i.bygbjerg@pubhealth.ku.dk
Meyrowitsch
Dan W
DW