Coming into this class, I felt as if I had a solid understanding of global health, but I couldn’t

define what it is or how to measure it. After the first three weeks of class, I feel confident in
doing both. I believe learning specifically about global health metrics is very important as it can
help in stopping the spread of misinformation.
I also think it is good to learn about these metrics so you can compare countries or regions
around the world in regards to global health. I believe that it can be a good way of looking at
countries’ progress in global health or to see how a certain country is doing in global health
compared to another. Statistics like these can provide important and essential feedback on how a
country is performing in global health and whether what the country is doing is actually working.
In addition, I was fascinated by the 8 Millennium Development Goals. It was very interesting
to see that countries are sharing their progress on these goals with others. I believe that this
further allows us to see how different countries’ systems are performing in regard to global
health. I was impressed by the detailed key that lets you know where countries are on each goal.
However, I’m a bit confused as to why there is no “color” or “indication” for a country having
faster progress than expected or planned, as there is a “color” for going slower than planned. If a
country is doing better than it had planned regarding a specific goal, shouldn’t it be able to share
it with other countries? Although the MDGs were eventually replaced, I think that this would’ve
been important to add on while the MDGs were still in use.
I believe that the SDGs are an improvement on the MDGs. They still allow countries to share
information about their progress, but also include more “modern” issues, such as climate action
and clean energy, that are more prevalent in today’s world. However, I believe that the data on
SDGs should be more easily accessible and readable. When I was trying to look at the data on
how countries were doing on SDG targets, it was very confusing for me to read and interpret. I
believe that making this data easier to read and interpret would allow more people to learn about
SDGs and countries’ progress on them, increasing public knowledge on these important issues.
I was quite intrigued when looking at the SDGs and the countries that guarantee a right to
health in their constitution. Although the U.S. doesn’t explicitly guarantee this in their
constitution, they are still working towards the SDG targets, which include “No Poverty”, “Clean
Water and Sanitation”, and “Good Health and Well Being”. To reach SDGs like these,
everybody in the country has to have access to (or the right to) health and health-related
facilities. Additionally, the U.S. is one of the few countries in the world that don’t have
universal/free healthcare. It will be interesting to see how the U.S. reaches these goals while
using a completely different system of healthcare from European countries and the rest of the
world. I think that it will either expose the flaws of the American healthcare system or show that
it is a viable system to use.