Health before wealth is more than just an old adage, we look at why programmers that aim to protect and improve the health of poor people can help in the battle against global poverty.
Health before wealth is an old adage that can be readily understood by looking at the links between ill health and poverty in developing countries. Good health boosts labour productivity, educational attainment and income, and so reduces poverty.
When poor people know their children are more likely to survive and be healthy, they tend to have smaller families and so higher incomes per family member. So programmers that aim to protect and improve the health of people below and just above the poverty line in developing countries could greatly help in the battle against global poverty.
These links between health and poverty reduction have been strongly confirmed in recent research on the determinants of economic growth in developing countries (see The Commission for Macroeconomics and Health in the references).
And this has helped place health higher on the international agenda than ever before, not just because of efforts to generate economic growth or because of the battle against HIV/AIDS, but because poor people have higher than average child and maternal mortality, higher levels of disease, and limited access to health care and social protection. Gender inequality undermines further the health of poor women and girls.
When poor people become ill or injured, the entire household can become locked in a downward spiral of lost income and high health care costs.
The international community has agreed three Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) that call for health improvements by 2015: reducing child deaths, lowering maternal mortality, and stopping the spread of HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis.
In addition, however, the achievement of the other MDGs ? particularly eradicating poverty and hunger, achieving universal primary education, and empowering women ? greatly depends on better health.