For Schools: Tackling the Issues, Health

When we are young we often take health for granted, but health issues can have an enormous influence on development. Moreover, the threats to our health can come from many different directions: malnutrition, lack of basic health care, environmental pollution, AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases, tobacco and drug abuse, and others. Without their health, people cannot lead fulfilling, productive lives, yet much of the world's population suffers from ailments that could be prevented with the proper treatment and information. Explore this page to discover why and how international organizations like the World Bank are committed to investing in people's health. You might want to start with the Bank's strategy in the fields of health, nutrition, and population and then visit some of the other sites below.

Health, Nutrition, and Population
This is the main World Bank web site for health and the related issues of nutrition and population. It contains wide range of useful web pages, reports, and articles. You may find the following sites especially helpful:

Strategies for Improving Equity in Health
In many developing countries, government spending for health benefits the well-to-do more than the poor. Find out how several countries have worked to break this pattern.

To Nourish A Nation
Find out why malnutrition is unnecessary in today's world where solutions are both readily available and easily affordable - so affordable, in fact, that they pay for themselves many times over.

New and Noteworthy in Nutrition
Check out the latest addition of "New and Noteworthy in Nutrition." You can also access back issues through the archives.

Enriching Lives: Overcoming Vitamin and Mineral Malnutrition in Developing Countries
What are micronutrients? Explore this article to find out what they are, and learn why they improve lives and accelerate development at a low cost and in a short period of time.

Class Action: Improving School Performance in the Developing World Through Better Health and Nutrition
This report summarizes how better nutrition and health enhances school performance, productivity, and the health of future generations.

Improving Reproductive Health: The Role of the World Bank
What is reproductive health? Access this article to find out how the World Bank defines reproductive health and learn about how they are working with countries to improve reproductive health around the world.

Why Invest in Young People?
This web page explores why investing in the reproductive health of the next generation should be a primary concern of governments everywhere. Too often these needs are recognized when it is too late-when they become infected with HIV or other sexually transmitted diseases (STDs).

A New Agenda for Women's Health and Nutrition
This report discusses why investing in women's health and nutrition could save millions of women in developing countries from needless suffering or premature death.

Safe Motherhood
This web site presents the issue of maternal health and discuss the social and economic benefits that occur when women's health care becomes a priority for countries.

Improving Women's Health in India
Access this report for an overview of women's health issues in India and the social and cultural factors influencing women's health and well-being.

AIDS: For Schools
This web site features the four major World Bank AIDS sources: Expanding the Response, AIDS Economics, UNAIDS, and the AIDS Africa Page. Explore this site to find out what AIDS is and its impact on development around the world. You will also find information about how you can protect yourself and also become involved in an international youth campaign to help battle AIDS.

Early Childhood Development
Check out this site to find out how the care provided during early childhood years shapes the futures of individuals and their nations.

Health and Environment

Cities and Health
Read this article from Environment Matters, the Bank's environmental magazine, to learn about why cities in developing countries are increasingly becoming unhealthy places to live.

Valuing the Health Effects of Air Pollution
Most people know that air pollution is bad for your health. This paper explores how policymakers obtain the information they need to make informed decisions about the costs and benefits of reducing air pollution.

Lead Phase-out: Resources on Getting Lead Out of Gasoline
This web site contains information on health and environmental problems related to leaded gasoline. It contains information about what people and governments are doing all over the world eliminate lead from gasoline. See also "World Bank Recommends Global Phase-Out of Leaded Gasoline. Eliminating Leaded Gas Reduces Health Risks".

Bellagio Statement on Tobacco and Sustainable Development
Did you know that if today's young people continue to smoke at the same rate,about 300 million will eventually be killed by tobacco use? Examine this article to learn about how tobacco threatens human life and sustainable development. See also "Next Decade Crucial For Tobacco Control" for a brief outline of the World Bank's position on tobacco smoking and controls.

Data: Health

Explore these pages from World Development Indicators, 1999 to find data on gender for over 140 of the world's countries. To view these pages you will need Adobe Acrobat Reader. If you do not have it, you may download it here for free.

Access to Health Services

Health Expenditure, Services, and Use

Health Risk Factors and Future Challenges

Reproductive Health

Mortality

Development Progress

Around the World

Catch Them Young: The Tamil Nadu Nutrition Project
Read about how the Tamil Nadu Nutrition Project (TINP) in India makes available a threefold package of nutrition, education, and health services.

Lao People's Democratic Republic
Read a project leader's first hand account of a health system reform project in Laos that began as a project to help control the malaria epidemic and turned out differently than everyone expected.

Digging deeper

Tackling the Issues
Health is associated with other issues that in their turn affect human health. Explore issues like Population, Gender, Education as well as Poverty, Pollution, and Water and Sanitation.

Health Reform on-line
Access this site to read about current issues in health reform. Learn about the economic and social obstacles decision makers encounter when trying to improve the quality and access people have to health care.

Health Reform on-line/library
This site provides links to reports and web sites that deal with health reform and other health-related issues.