Strategic leadership in global public health

This presentation will explore key components of global public health leadership framed in the concept of a future that everyone shares. Participants will be provided with examples and complementary activities to help hone their leadership skills to ensure they work effectively in an international health context. Of note, the 21st century will be the century of change - change driven by major forces globally and locally - political, social, economic, technological and environmental. These will profoundly affect the capabilities of households and communities to produce and maintain health and general well being. The challenge is to consider these forces as an opportunity for positive change rather than a threat to the status quo, participants will go through activities to understand this concept, and be able to incorporate it in a public health practice setting.

To assist communities in more effectively and efficiently producing health in the presence of these rapidly changing forces, governments and long established community institutions will need to change, and new institutions will need to be created. Whether one is creating a new institution or changing an old one, leadership is required. But for leaders to be effective in developing and sustaining the organizational creativity, innovation and flexibility required in the changing world, they need to establish “learning organizations”.

To assist participants in acknowledging the concept of learning organizations the content from this session derives from the Gates Leadership Seminars, which is built on the premise that households, particularly mothers, are the primary producers of (reproductive) health. This premise leads to a fundamental redefinition of the “health system” that provides the foundations for transformational change. Participants will explore new paradigms of the health production systems including “the Houseldold Production of Health” and a change in the metrics of health system performance - from organizational structures and biomedical technologies to household resourcefulness. This presentation will help students to uncover the root cause of the problem and enhance their leadership skills to implement accountability at every level.

Ultimately, this paradigm of the health system recognizes that doctors, nurses, hospitals, health centers, etc., do not produce health; households do. especially mothers in the case of maternal and child health. Households live in the context of communities with their social arrangements (social capital) and these are organized nationally under government institutions. There are also local and global driving forces – political, economic, social, technological and environmental - that can impact profoundly on household health production.