World Population to Surpass 7 Billion in 2011; Explosive Population Growth Means Challenges for Developing Nations

In 2011, global population is expected to hit 7 billion. (Credit: © Feng Yu / Fotolia)

From the 28 July 2011 Science Daily article

Global population is expected to hit 7 billion later this year, up from 6 billion in 1999. Between now and 2050, an estimated 2.3 billion more people will be added — nearly as many as inhabited the planet as recently as 1950. New estimates from the Population Division of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs of the United Nations also project that the population will reach 10.1 billion in 2100….

…

Population trends indicate a shift in the “demographic center of gravity” from more to less developed regions, Bloom writes. Already strained, many developing countries will likely face tremendous difficulties in supplying food, water, housing, and energy to their growing populations, with repercussions for health, security, and economic growth.

“The demographic picture is indeed complex, and poses some formidable challenges,” Bloom said. “Those challenges are not insurmountable, but we cannot deal with them by sticking our heads in the sand. We have to tackle some tough issues ranging from the unmet need for contraception among hundreds of millions of women and the huge knowledge-action gaps we see in the area of child survival, to the reform of retirement policy and the development of global immigration policy. It’s just plain irresponsible to sit by idly while humankind experiences full force the perils of demographic change.”…

Read the Science news article

Journal Reference:
David E. Bloom. 7 Billion and Counting. Science, 2011; 333 (6042): 562-569 DOI: 10.1126/science.1209290

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Related articles

• Challenges, Opportunities and Action in a World of 7 Billion (prweb.com)
• Education — a key determinant of population growth and human well-being (Eureka alert)

  ”

  Education — a key determinant of population growth and human well-being

  Projections of future population trends that do not explicitly include education in their analysis may be flawed

  Laxenburg, Austria – 28 July 2011 — Future trends in global population growth could be significantly affected by improvements in both the quality and quantity of education, particularly female education. Projections of future population trends that do not explicitly include education in their analysis may be flawed, according to research published today in the journal Science (July 29 2011).

  The study uses a novel “multi-state” population modeling approach to incorporate education attainment level, along with age and sex. The integration of education in the analyses adds a “human quality” dimension to projections of fertility, mortality and migration. As education also affects health, economic growth, and democracy, these projections provide a more comprehensive picture of where, how, and under what conditions human well-being is increasing.

  The research reinforces earlier findings that the level of formal education achieved by women is, in most cases, the single most important determinant of population growth. More educated women generally have fewer children, better general health, and higher infant survival rates. Education also appears to be a more important determinant of child survival than household income and wealth. The study also found that if concerted efforts were made to fast track education, the global population could remain below 9 billion by 2050. Thus the global population outlook depends greatly on further progress in education……”

Link Found Between Major Depression and Social Conditions

Blue- High income

Green- Upper middle income

Purple- Lower middle income

Red- Low income

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:World_Bank_income_groups.svg

From a 27 July posting by dal22 in Research Now

Major depression is a serious condition, and can lead to a decline in function and quality of life. A new study published in the most recent issue of BMC Medicine reports on a survey of 89,037 adults from 18 high- and low-middle-income countries. Through face to face interviews, data were collected on prevalence, impairment, and demographic factors associated with depression.

Results showed that the average age of onset was 25.7 years in 10 high-income countries and 24.0 years in 8 low-middle-income countries. The ratio of females to males with major depression was

Countries based on World Bank income groupings for 2006 (calculated by GNI per capita, Atlas method).    High income    Upper-middle income    Lower-middle income    Low income

approximately 2:1. Major depression was associated with a younger age in high-income countries, while older age showed greater prevalence in several low-middle-income countries. Separation was found to be the most significant demographic factor in high income countries, while being divorced or widowed was most significant in low-middle-income countries.

According to the authors, major depression is a worldwide threat to public health and is strongly associated with social conditions. Further research will be needed for evaluation of risk factors contributing to occurrence of major depressive episodes.

Read the complete article.

Related articles

• US and France More Depressed Than Poor Countries (livescience.com)
• India named world’s most depressed nation (independent.co.uk)

Ten Great Public Health Achievements — Worldwide, 2001–2010

From the 24 June 2011 MMWR (Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report) of the CDC (US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention)

Worldwide, a child born in 1955 had an average life expectancy at birth of only 48 years (1). By 2000, the average life expectancy at birth had increased to 66 years and, if past trends continue, is projected to rise to 73 years by 2025 (1). These improvements in longevity have resulted from improved living conditions overall, advances in medical science, and a number of population-level interventions. However, major disparities persist. During the past decade, in low-income countries, average life expectancy at birth increased from 55 to 57 years (3.6%), while increasing from 78 to 80 years (2.6%) in high-income countries (2). Analogous to the recent MMWR report highlighting 10 public health achievements that occurred in the United States over the first 10 years of the new century, this report describes global public health achievements during the same period (3). Experts in global public health were asked to nominate noteworthy public health achievements that occurred outside of the United States during 2001–2010. From them, 10 have been summarized in this report. As with the previous report, the 10 global public health achievements are not ranked in any order. Additional information regarding these achievements is available athttp://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm6019a5_addinfo.htm….

Click here for more of the summary

And a short  listing…with links…to these Top 10

 

Learn more about the CDC science and programmatic work that went into the “Ten Great Public Health Achievements — Worldwide, 2001–2010” at these links:

• CDC’s Role in Global Health
  • Global Health
• Reductions in Child Mortality
  • United Nations: Milenniem Development Goals (MDG)
• Vaccine-Preventable Diseases
  • Vaccines & Immunizations
  • Global Immunizations and Vaccinations
• Access to Safe Water and Sanitation
  • Food and Water Safety and Hand Hygiene Resources
  • Global Water, Sanitation, & Hygiene (WASH)
• Malaria Prevention and Control
  • Malaria
  • Roll Back Malaria Partnership
• Prevention and Control of HIV/AIDS
  • HIV/AIDS
  • Global HIV/AIDS
• Tuberculosis Control
  • Tuberculosis (TB)
  • CDC Factsheet on HIV and TB
  • World Health Organization (WHO): Tuberculosis (TB)
• Control of Neglected Tropical Disease
  • Parasites – Dracunculiasis (also known as Guinea Worm Disease)
  • Parasites – Onchocerciasis (also known as River Blindness)
  • Parasites – Lymphatic Filariasis
  • World Health Organization (WHO): Lymphatic filariasis
• Tobacco Control
  • Smoking & Tobacco Use
  • Global Tobacco Control
  • World Health Organization (WHO): Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) 
    MPOWER: Six policies to reverse the tobacco epidemic 
• Increased Awareness and Response for Improving Global Road Safety
  • Global Road Safety
  • World Health Organization (WHO): World Report on Road Traffic Injury Prevention
• Improved Preparedness and Response to Global Health Threats
  • Office of Public Health Preparedness and Response
  • Global Disease Detection (GDD)
  • World Health Organization (WHO): International Health Regulations (IHR) 

 

Urgent Need To Fight Diseases Affecting The World’s Poor

Image via Wikipedia

From the 22 June 2011 Medical News Today article 

Despite significant advancements in increasing distribution and development of vaccines against childhood killer diseases – including pneumococcal disease, rotavirus, and Haemophilus influenzae Type B – global efforts to reduce the burden of infection from neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) has greatly lagged, argues Sabin Vaccine Institute (Sabin) President Dr. Peter Hotez in an article for the June edition of Health Affairs.

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NTDs, a group of 17 parasitic infections, represent a significant contributor to global poverty, and have well documented chronic and disabling effects. Yet efforts to develop vaccines for NTDs have not benefitted from larger ongoing initiatives to combat major childhood diseases.

In his article, “A Handful of ‘Antipoverty’ Vaccines Exist for Neglected Diseases, But the World’s Poorest Billion People Need More,” Dr. Hotez cites three critical reasons for the lack of interest in “antipoverty” vaccines:

• Though NTDs disable, they do not typically cause high levels of mortality leading some in the public health community to misleadingly conclude that NTDs are not a significant public health threat;
• NTDs predominately occur in rural settings and are largely hidden diseases unknown to the public and infrequently documented; and,
• Pharmaceutical companies are reluctant to make an investment in NTD vaccines because there is no financial incentive.

Related articles

• ‘Decade of vaccines’ has potential to save lives, but challenges ahead (eurekalert.org)
• Cumulative Health Risks Faced By Returnee Migrants (medical news today)
• Bill Gates’s plea: help me save four million lives (independent.co.uk)
• Measles are back as parents refuse vaccines (sfgate.com)

Migration An Overlooked Health Policy Issue: New Series

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From the 24 May 2011 Medical News Today article

If internal and international migrants comprised a nation, it would be the third most populous country in the world, just after China and India. Thus, there can be little doubt that population mobility is among the leading policy issues of the 21st century. However, policies to protect migrants and global health have so far been hampered by inadequate policy attention and poor international coordination. This is the conclusion of a new article inPLoS Medicine arguing that current policy-making on migration and health has been conducted within sector silos, which frequently have different goals. Yet, population mobility is wholly compatible with health-promoting strategies for migrants if decision-makers coordinate across borders and policy sectors, say the authors, who are also serving as guest editors of a new series in PLoS Medicine on migration & health that launches this week. …

Related articles

• Framework convention on global health needed (eurekalert.org)

How Safe is Your Food? GMO, Foodborne Illnesses and Biotechnology

From a blog item by the Center for Research on Globalization by Rady Ananda

GRAIN has released a global report, Food Safety for Whom? Corporate Wealth vs. Peoples’ Health, showing how governments and corporations use “food safety” to manipulate market access and control. Rather than making food safer, domestic and trade rules “force open markets, or backdoor ways to limit market access.” Highlighting aspects of the report, GRAIN states:

“Across the world, people are getting sick and dying from food like never before. Governments and corporations are responding with all kinds of rules and regulations, but few have anything to do with public health. The trade agreements, laws and private standards used to impose their version of ‘food safety’ only entrench corporate food systems that make us sick and devastate those that truly feed and care for people, those based on biodiversity, traditional knowledge, and local markets.”

Graph: Data compiled by GRAIN from government and UN sources, 2008-2010 (except Australia=2005)

Canadian raw milk producer Michael Schmidt makes a brief statement about these fake food safety laws that violate food freedom in this video (though he has confused it with food sovereignty, which is the right of a nation to determine food safety standards and appropriate ag technologies despite trade agreements): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AGa04mNr5p0&

In the next video, Paul Noble discusses raw milk and government intrusion. “If God had intended us to drink pasteurized milk, he would have put a pasteurizer on the cow.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=miPj0xeeaus

GRAIN notes, “During US President Obama’s visit to India in November 2010, Indian Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar made it clear that the United States can produce all the scientific studies it wants, and they will be respectfully reviewed, but India will not import US dairy products that offend domestic religious sensitivities.”

That corporations control governments is undeniable, and we see this with the Food Safety Modernization Act. On May 4th, citing the FSMA for its authority, the US Food and Drug Administration declared it can seize food without evidence of contamination. This blatantly violates the U.S. Constitution protecting citizens from unreasonable search and seizure.

In its 37-page report, GRAIN spends time showing how bilateral trade agreements inhibit developing nations from controlling imports and exports. Rules generated by the World Trade Organization, in the name of food safety, “do little to protect public health, serving only corporate growth imperatives and profit margins.” Several specific examples are given. (To follow developing and ongoing bilateral trade agreements, visitBilaterals.org.)

Click here for the rest of the article

Child malnutrition caused by more than lack of food

Image via Wikipedia

From the 1 May 2011 Science News Daily article

ScienceDaily (May 1, 2011) — Giving poor families land on which to grow crops has been shown to improve child nutrition. New research also shows that giving families non-agricultural land and better housing also is beneficial for children’s growth and nutrition…

…”Malnutrition is a major problem for the health of children under 5 years of age in rural Mayan Guatemalan villages,” said Dr. Agulnik, lead author of the study and a resident at Children’s Hospital Boston. “This study demonstrates that in areas where land scarcity is a major problem, land distributions supporting improved housing and community organization can improve child nutrition without changing a family’s income. It also suggests that in our population, living conditions, sanitation, crowding and community organization play a major role in causing child malnutrition.”

The study underscores the fact that childhood malnutrition is not only about food, said study co-author Paul Wise, MD, MPH, FAAP, who created a program at Stanford University in California called Children in Crisis to improve health care to children living in politically unstable regions. “While this study documents the terrible toll of poverty on child health, it also emphasizes the interaction between the child, infections, community life and the exercise of political power.”

Story Source:

The above story is reprinted (with editorial adaptations by ScienceDaily staff) from materials provided by American Academy of Pediatrics, via EurekAlert!, a service of AAAS.

Related Articles

• Persistent child malnutrition in Tanzania: Risks associated with traditional complementary foods (A review (foodhygiene2010.wordpress.com)
• Making a Business of Fighting Child Malnutrition (blogs.forbes.com)
• India’s child malnutrition puzzle (palakmathur.wordpress.com)
• Risk factors for the development of persistent diarrhoea and malnutrition in Burmese children (foodhygiene2010.wordpress.com)
• DJIBOUTI: Challenges remain, despite nutrition gains (goubet2day.wordpress.com)
• Dying hungry (bbc.co.uk)

World’s Leading Scientists Join Forces To Set Priority Interventions To Save 36 Million Lives From Non-Communicable Diseases

http://www.who.int/nmh/events/un_ncd_summit2011/en/index.html

World’s Leading Scientists Join Forces To Set Priority Interventions To Save 36 Million Lives From Non-Communicable Diseases***

From the April 5 2011 article

NCDs (non-communicable diseases), mainly heart disease, stroke, diabetes,cancers, and chronic respiratory disease, are responsible for two out of every three deaths worldwide and the toll is rising.***A landmark global alliance between leading scientists and four of the world’s largest NGOs brings together evidence from a 5-year collaboration with almost 100 of the world’s best NCD experts and proposes a short-list of five priority interventions to tackle this increasing global crisis. Reducing tobacco and salt use, improving diets and physical activity, reducing hazardous alcohol intake, and achieving universal access to essential drugs and technologies have been chosen for their health effects, cost-effectiveness, low costs of implementation, and political and financial feasibility….

….The top priority must be to reduce tobacco use followed by lowering salt intake, say the authors. Key to the success of this intervention will be the accelerated implementation of the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) to achieve the proposed goal, “a world essentially free from tobacco by 2040”, where less than 5% of the population uses tobacco; achieving this goal would prevent at least 5.5 million premature deaths over 10 years.

By 2025, they would like to see salt intake reduced to less than 5 g per person. They point out that reducing global salt consumption by just 15% through mass-media campaigns and reformulation of processed foods and salt substitution could prevent an estimated 8.5 million deaths in just 10 years.

Importantly, the costs of these interventions will be small, say the authors. The yearly cost to implement tobacco control and salt reduction will be less than US 50 cents per person per year in countries like India and China. The total package of priority interventions will require a new global commitment of about $9 billion per year.

*** The free full text of this Lancet article may be found here, however registration is required.

Related Articles

• Health Crisis in South Asia : World Bank (itsinfoworld.wordpress.com)
• GRAND CHALLENGES IN GLOBAL HEALTH – “Rising Stars” (openmedicine.ca)
• Report says economic development could change worldwide face of cancer (eurekalert.org)
• NCD Alliance Unveils Ground-Breaking Document For Successful UN Summit On Non-Communicable Diseases (NCDS) (medicalnewstoday.com)
• Non-Communicable Disease Deaths Increasing Globally, Especially In Developing Nations (medicalnewstoday.com)
• Global Events Take Aim At Health’s Biggest Enemy: Non-Communicable Diseases (donttradeourlivesaway.wordpress.com)
• Chronic diseases now leading global killer: WHO (ctv.ca)
• Heart disease and cancer – the global threat omitted from the MDGs (guardian.co.uk)
• Headway is being made fighting communicable diseases globally, research suggests (jflahiff.wordpress.com)
• Emerging Global Mandate To Save 36 Million Lives From Non-Communicable Diseases (NCDs) (medicalnewstoday.com)
• Eat Healthy To Reduce The Risk Of Non-communicable Diseases (NCDs)
• Patients must set the agenda on non-communicable diseases (International Alliance of Patient Organizations, 17 May 2011)

“Geneva, Switzerland, 17 May 2011 – Patient advocates have called for a stronger role in setting the agenda in the design and delivery of strategies to prevent and manage non-communicable diseases (NCDs), and chronic diseases more broadly. This call was made at a Side Meeting to the World Health Organization (WHO) World Health Assembly in Geneva, Switzerland. The meeting was hosted by the International Alliance of Patients’ Organizations (IAPO) and two of its member patient groups; Alzheimer’s Disease International (ADI) and the Multiple Sclerosis International Federation (MSIF) and attended by over 50 participants including member state representatives, health professionals and WHO representatives…

…Speakers from Africa, Latin America and Europe highlighted, with practical examples, how patient advocates are contributing knowledge, experience and resources to support efforts to tackle chronic disease. Across the world in high, middle and low income countries, patient groups routinely provide health information and training to patients and health professionals. These have been shown to support prevention strategies and effective disease management to ensure that patients’ needs are met. ….

PBS NewsHour’s Global Health Watch : Diseases, Conditions, Medical Advances and Related Policies

PBS NewsHour’s Global Health Watch features news and on-the-ground reports exploring the diseases, conditions, medical advances and policies affecting the health of people around the world.

Earthquake victims gather at the evacuation center in Kamaish
(Kamaishi.Perawongmetha/Getty Images)

BLOG  MARCH 24, 2011 Slideshow: TB a Silent KillerJust 22 countries contribute 80 percent of the global burden of tuberculosis.

A sampling from the March 25 2011 contents.
Each section includes Browse, Subscription, and Related Information options.

• Global Health
  • Recent Global Health Trips – Guatamala includes videos, a blog, and news updates
  • Blogs and reports on emerging news from Tokyo, Bangladesh, and Haiti
• The World’s Most Destructive Diseases
  • Information on the top 5 non-communicable diseases and also top 5 infectious diseases
  • Each disease or condition has information in these areas: global impact, causes, symptoms, prevention, and treatment
• From the Field (Archive) has links to current and past postings. There is a drop down menu organized by country.
• The For Teachers link  has the heading For Teachers and Students. It includes lesson plans.

Related Articles

• Japan Crisis: What’s next for nuclear energy in the U.S.? (boingboing.net)
• PBS Newshour: Wind Turbines and Health (windconcernsontario.wordpress.com)

The World’s Women and Girls 2011 Data Sheet

The World’s Women and Girls 2011 Data Sheet : Overcoming Gender Equality is published by the Population Bureau, It contains global statistics relating to women’s health.

For example, in the section providing statistics from a range of several countries

• Percent of Women and Men Who Agree That Wife Beating Is Acceptable
• Household Decisions Made by Husbands Alone
• Prevalence of Early Marriage Around the World
• Births Assisted by a Skilled Provider, by Wealth Quintile

The demography/reproductive health table contains statistics by country in these areas

• Female population by age (<15, 15-49, >49)
• Percent of women ages 20-24 married by age 18
• Lifetime births per women
• Percent of women ages 15-19 giving birth in one year
• Percent of married women using contraception
• Percent of women giving birth by skilled personnel
• Maternal deaths per 100,000 live births, 2008
• Lifetime chance of dying from maternal causes ( 1 in ___)
• Abortion policy
• Percent of Adults (Male and Female) ages 14-49 with HIV/AIDS, 2009

The education/work & family life table includes

• literacy, primary school completion, and secondary school enrollment rates
• economically active, nonfarm wage earner, and parliament member percentages

 

March 8 was International Women’s Day. The Bureau’s  International Women’s Day: 100 Years has some great links that are centainly not limited to any particular observance.

Download a Fact Sheet aboutThe World’s Women and Girls 2011 Data Sheet (PDF: 508KB)

Download The World’s Women and Girls 2011 Data Sheet (PowerPoint: 512KB) Drawing on PRB’s The World’s Women and Girls 2011 Data Sheet, this PowerPoint presentation is designed to bring attention to and present accurate data on fertility, contraceptive use, early marriage, gender-based violence, and more. The presentation includes data comparisons within and among countries, as well as trends. Notes are included.

Listen to an interview with Nafis Sadik, Special Envoy of the UN Secretary-General for HIV/AIDS in Asia/Pacific and former Executive Director of UNFPA.

PRB Women’s Edition Journalists’ Stories, Features, and Photos on International Women’s Day from Malawi, Nigeria, and Pakistan

Headway is being made fighting communicable diseases globally, research suggests

Headway is being made fighting communicable diseases globally, research suggests

From the March 14 2011 Science Daily news item

ScienceDaily (Mar. 14, 2011) — Those working for healthier humans around the globe are making headway in fighting communicable diseases such as AIDS, malaria and diarrheal illness, according to research from the Frederick S. Pardee Center for International Futures in the University of Denver‘s (DU) Josef Korbel School of International Studies.

The center recently released the third in a series of five volumes [full online text of all 3 volumes]  that focus on human progress in which researchers explore topics such as education, poverty, infrastructure and governance. The latest book is Improving Global Health: Forecasting the Next 50 Years [full online text] (Paradigm Publishers and Oxford University Press India, 2011).

The latest volume sheds light on a transition the authors see occurring in global health — a transition of disease burdens from communicable diseases to chronic ones such as cancer, diabetes and heart disease….

 

 

 

Related Articles

• Non Communicable Diseases Hit The World’s Poorest People (medicalnewstoday.com)
• In Africa, cancer is a burden that can no longer be ignored | Emilie Filou (guardian.co.uk)
• Non Communicable Diseases: The World’s Number One Killer For Women (medicalnewstoday.com)

Most New Jersey residents see global health as critical to state’s economy

Most New Jersey residents see global health as critical to state’s economy
R&D a key to creating jobs, improving health, building public-private partnerships

From the February 15, 2011 Eureka news alert

WASHINGTON—February 16, 2011—Despite the unpredictable economy, nearly three-quarters (73%) of New Jersey residents think spending money on research to improve health globally is important to jobs and incomes in the state, according to a new statewide poll commissioned by Research!America. The poll data will be released today at a meeting in Washington, DC, of prominent global health research and development (R&D) experts and New Jersey business, academia and nonprofit leaders. This is part of a six-state effort by Research!America.

According to the poll, most of the New Jersey population (94%) thinks it is important for their state to be a leader in health R&D, and in fact, the state is currently third in the country for total investment in this area. New Jersey is home to 17 of the world’s 20 largest pharmaceuticals, medical technology and diagnostic companies. These companies contributed nearly $30 billion to the state’s economy and accounted for more than 55,000 New Jersey jobs in medicine, research, public health and education in 2009 alone. They also are providing solutions for some of the world’s deadliest infectious diseases, such as HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria and dengue fever.

Former Congressman and Research!America Chair John Edward Porter said, “Global health research is one of New Jersey’s best investments, in which the state’s private sector plays a leading role. On the other hand, New Jersey is ranked 11th in population but is 18th in peer-reviewed federal research grants, which provide the basis on which private industry builds much of its applied research and its products. This is a growth opportunity for New Jersey. I urge the state’s leaders to further strengthen their commitment to global health R&D in New Jersey.”

Porter added, “Working to treat and prevent disease around the world not only fuels our economy and creates jobs here, but also allows some of the world’s best minds to come together here to enrich our science and our society and to improve health everywhere.”

One of the most successful approaches to moving global health R&D forward has been public-private partnerships—which often consist of joint endeavors between technology or pharmaceutical companies, universities and nonprofits. They can yield groundbreaking results.

Case in point: Research led By David Alland, MD, at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey (UMDNJ)—together with the Foundation for Innovative New Diagnostics (FIND), the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the manufacturing company Cepheid—spawned a new diagnostic test that tells whether a person has tuberculosis and whether it is a drug-resistant strain of the deadly disease in under two hours. Current tests, in use for over a century, can take up to three months. This new rapid TB test has been endorsed by the World Health Organization and is expected to revolutionize the way TB is treated around the world.

New Jersey residents (91% according to the poll) believe these types of partnerships are important for developing new treatments and cures, and 73% think it is important for New Jersey to offer incentives for companies to invest in research to improve health globally.

“These product development partnerships have paved new paths in global health research and created new jobs and new businesses, so it is gratifying to see that they have strong public support in New Jersey. This should send a clear message to local and national policy makers about the need to make further R&D investment a top priority,” said Mary Woolley, Research!America president and CEO.

The poll also finds that:

• 94% say infectious diseases like the flu, tuberculosis and SARS will pose some level of threat to the U.S. in the next few years, and 79% say Americans should worry about diseases like malaria, dengue fever and cholera that mostly affect poorer countries.
• 91% of the state’s residents are concerned about drug resistance and say it is important to conduct global health research to prevent the problem worldwide.
• 88% are concerned about U.S. troops overseas being exposed to global health diseases, and 86% say American civilians benefit from health research conducted by the U.S. military.

###

To learn more about global health R&D investment in New Jersey, visit www.researchamerica.org/uploads/NewJerseyFactSheet.pdf.