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The phenomenon of globalization is a reality of the new millennium. Through activities such as international trade, immigration, overseas development assistance, and peacekeeping, Canada continues to be an important player on the international scene. Increased trade and immigration is reflected in the approximately 49 million visitors crossing the Canadian border on an annual basis. Many more people cross the borders bringing with them expertise, trade in goods and services pose new health challenges such as infectious diseases, contaminated foodstuffs, toxic substances, and even biological and chemical terrorism(1). Through increased globalization, global health problems, once perceived as external to Canada, are inextricably linked to the health of Canadians.
Poor health is a major impediment to social factors such as economic progress, enhanced productivity, and human fulfillment. As such, our nation's economic development and stability is dependent on our ability to sustain the health of the Canadian population. Canada's long history of aiding developing countries and acting role as a good global citizen require that we look beyond our borders to recognize the impact of the health of poorer nations on the global economy and thus on Canada. In other words, to ensure economic sustainability for Canada, globalization requires that Canada promote the economic development and health of the populations of its current and future trading partners all around the world.
Canada has committed to a substantial increase in overseas development assistance (ODA) over the next few years and our Prime Minister has emphasized our need for a "knowledge-based" approach to assistance to lower and middle income countries (LMICs). In as far as contributions to the UN's "health-related" Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), Canada is now uniquely positioned to increase its investment in global health research, to ensure our health-related international assistance efforts are focused, coordinated and productive. Our advantages include:
Canada has much to learn from the experiences of researchers and health research communities of developing countries. For example, South Africa has had many years of experience in struggling against the HIV/AIDS epidemic; policy makers, educators, researchers have important contributions to make with respect to best practices and lessons learned in this area. Other benefits would include sharing of information with a focus on studies involving public health will aid researchers in obtaining more accurate and cohort statistics in order to most effectively utilize resources dedicated to development assistance.
An enormous discrepancy exists between the magnitude of disease burden in the world and the allocation of research funding. The discrepancy is now widely recognized as the "10/90 Gap". Of the approximately $73.5 billion (USD) invested in health research and development worldwide in 1998, only 10% was allocated to 90% of the world's health problems, which are concentrated in poor countries. International research organizations, such as the Global Forum for Health Research, have been engaging health research funding organizations and researchers worldwide in an attempt to narrow the 10/90 Gap (2).
In this increasingly globalized world where health and economic prosperity are cornerstones of a nation's success, knowledge outcomes from health research are significant to improving the health of nations. Canada has an important role to play vis-à-vis global health research. By helping to correct the 10/90 Gap, Canada will inevitably improve the health and safety of Canadians as well as the rest of the world. One of the ways that Canada is trying to address the "10/90 Gap" is through the Global Health Research Initiative.
(1) Statistics Canada's Internet Site - Non-Resident Travellers Entering Canada, Oct., 2001
(2) Davies, Shiela. The 10/90 Report on Health Research 2000. Global Forum for Health Research. Geneva: 2000.
