Health care Mandate

As such epidemic diseases as cholera, the plague, and yellow fever continued to spread through Europe in the 1800s, accelerated by the increase of trade and commerce among nations, the first international coordination of public health was born (Beigbeder et al. 1998, 1). Initially a scattering of international public health institutions followed by international sanitary conferences and conventions, this first attempt at international public health coordination was transformed into a global Health Organization by the post-World War I creation of the League of Nations (WHO 1988, 2). The organization was composed of member nations, which it would aid, at their request, in dealing with public health issues. These concerns ranged from improving health services to reducing infant mortality rates or fighting epidemic diseases (Beigbeder et al. 1998, 5). The collapse of the League of Nations, and the creation of a new global body, the United Nations, resulted in a new global health organization, WHO, which took up and expanded its predecessor's mandate.

With the adoption of its constitution in 1948, WHO was officially created and given a mandate as a global agency in charge of organizing and directing international health (WHO 1988, v). Although the methods WHO has chosen to fulfill this mandate have changed over the ensuing decades depending on the priorities and goals of its member nations, the organization has consistently attempted to conceive of health as more than just the physical well-being of individuals within a population and to include concerns of mental and social health as well.

WHO's annual budget is not large enough to fund large-scale disease-eradication programs or to set up major health infrastructures in localities that need it. Rather, WHO is a coordinating body with access to information and experts in various areas of health care that can advise member states on how to best allocate their health resources to accomplish their public health objectives. WHO can also propose and coordinate global health initiatives funded by money donated by its member states. An example of WHO's capacity as a global health organizer would be its creation of a central health database whereby members facing a particular health situation can study how other states have tackled similar issues and learn from their successes and mistakes. WHO also has helped nations with a dearth of well-trained health professionals to develop training programs for their citizens. The agency has provided fellowships so that individuals without financial means can attend this training (ibid., 8). WHO has also helped to lead initiatives to provide sanitary water supplies for people around the globe and to establish the correlation of certain diseases with unclean drinking-water and lack of hygiene in order to promote healthier living practices in various localities.

Although WHO's medical authorities may have knowledge of how diseases are spread and what constitutes a healthy lifestyle, however, those ideas are not universally shared or even understood. Attempting to create a change in behavior in one locale—practicing safer sex by using condoms in order to stem the spread of HIV/AIDS, for example—may ...