SDG 3 – Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages

“At present, only about a half of the world’s people have access to healthcare without impoverishment. This needs to improve dramatically.”

^{– Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, newly elected Director-General of the World Health Organisation (WHO) starting 1st July 2017.}

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, from Ethiopia, is the first African to hold the position of Director General, or head, of the WHO. He lays out the stark reality of healthcare in our world today. This week we are exploring SDG 3 which is a proposed response to the challenges of achieving healthcare for all. We will see how health is fundamental to human development and underlies many of our efforts toward achieving sustainable development.

SDG 3 seeks to ensure health and well-being for all, at every stage of life.

What is health?

“a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being, and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.”

Measuring health

• Prevalence (or morbidity) refers to the number of individuals who have a disease, like HIV or diabetes, at a particular point in time.
• Incidence is the number of new cases within a time period, for example a year.
• Mortality refers to the number of deaths in a population.

The relationship between development and health

^{Based on a free chart from www.gapminder.org. Creative Commons Attribution License 3.0. (Click to expand)}

“GDP…does not distinguish between those activities that increase a nation’s wealth and those that deplete its natural resources or result in poor health or widening social inequalities.”

Bhutan introduced and popularised the concept of measuring GNH so that a country would have a framework to pursue equitable socio-economic development “integrated with environmental conservation, cultural promotion and good governance”.

^{Paro Taktsang, a Himalayan Buddhist sacred site located in the upper Paro valley in Bhutan © Shutterstock/ultramansk}

This week we will see how health is a complex and all-encompassing concept that intertwines with many other SDGs, and relates closely to our ultimate development objective: to ensure that people all around the world have better lives. Next, let’s consider the challenges to achieving a complex goal like SDG 3.

Take a look at this map of life expectancy around the world from the Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation.

• Select one country and comment below on what development challenges or strengths you think could have affected its life expectancy.