Health Affairs Editor-in-Chief Alan Weil https://www.healthaffairs.org, welcomed Loyce Pace, Director, HHS Office of Global Affairs https://hhs.gov/about/agencies/index.html, to the Health Affairs new Policy Spotlight Event to discuss rebuilding relationships and advancing the U.S. international health agenda.
Alan Weil opened the event by reporting Health Affairs has published a number of papers relevant to international policies through the years and that one quarter of the readers are from outside the U.S.
Loyce Pace, Director of Global Affairs at HHS mentioned how HHS works with global partners to enhance health security, prevent the transmission and spread of infectious diseases, reduce the spread of antimicrobial resistance, plus deal with other health threats.
Ms. Pace discussed the White House sponsored virtual Global COVID-19 Summit: Ending the Pandemic and Building Back Better which she recently attended. Representatives from more than 100 governments, other partners along with more than 100 leaders from international organizations, private sector, philanthropic sector, civil society, academia and other stakeholders attended.
Alan Weil and Ms. Pace discussed how the global community is fighting not only COVID-19 but also handling future pandemics, and how to deal effectively with vaccination efforts worldwide. As pointed out, the U.S has to push other countries to commit to vaccine rollouts of their own supplies.
Ms. Pace commented that the World Health Organization (WHO) is a critical partner working to achieve international cooperation. However, WHO needs to focus on health regulatory issues in the international community during an emergency, improve accountability, increase resources, and improve access to resources in terms of equity.
She mentioned how the HHS Office of Health Equity addresses public health systems, partnerships worldwide, clinical care, and the need to use innovative ideas to address issues worldwide
Ms. Pace reports that other health related issues are also of great concern such as climate change since climate change and health issues are connected. Presently a group of worldwide organizations are looking at the research available on climate change and gathering ideas on how to work together with other countries on the issue.
Studying how to redesign public health systems to deal effectively with pandemics now and in the future is on the agenda. As Ms. Pace pointed out there is a need to provide up-to-date information systems in order deal in the future with the supply chain, production issues, plus mental health issues found in the healthcare workforce affected by the pandemic.