Global Health NOW: Two Problems with the U.S. Global Health Budget
Derek Yach, chief health officer at the Vitality Group

“…In addition to expanding the scope of federal support for global health, there is a need for a more visible lead institution for global health that is tasked with maximizing the use of the best programs positively impacting health in the U.S. across the public and private sector and better integrating global health actions. The NIH’s Fogarty International Center, the leader for decades in building capacity for health science and policy globally, continues to be starved of funds … No doubt there are many institutes … that do have large global health research programs. If these efforts were better coordinated and integrated, the NIH as a whole could have a far more substantial impact on global health research than it does today. … There is a clear need for a consolidated and integrated approach to global health embedded in the federal budget that covers all agency budgets and lets global health experts in academia, research, NGOs, and industry easily understand the criteria (in terms of risks, diseases, and countries) used to define spending priorities” (1/18).