The world of today is marked by a large population which draws heavily on the supply of humankind’s basic needs: water, food and energy While population growth rates have slowed and life expectancy is longer than ever before, there are many emerging challenges to global health. These include the destruction or degradation of the environment and the consequences of climate change, which will have an impact on global health. The emergence of new diseases and the potential for climate change to influence mortality, hunger, and malnutrition may put human civilization at risk.
In a world that has increasingly become knowledge-based; universities and institutions of higher learning must take the lead and come together in the spirit of mutual respect and understanding, to address in a meaningful way the health and well-being of all citizens of all countries.
We, the Presidents and the leaders of Universities, declare that achieving a high level of health and wellbeing for all citizens of our countries is of the greatest importance. We declare that we will work together to:
- Promote education to produce citizens with a global outlook on health.
- Undergraduate education – by instituting and strengthening courses to fonn part of the undergraduate core curriculum that will produce students who are skilled and competent in understanding global health issues
- Graduate education – by promoting student mobility, program mobility, credit transfer and double degree programs to enrich students’ understanding of public health issues.
- Provide professional education to produce experts in the health professions who are equipped to address emerging, as well as recurring, global health issues.
- Use multi-disciplinary and integrative approaches for global health to produce professionals with interdisciplinary training to enable them to deal with complex real – world problems.
- Promote global health networking to build a coalition of global health institutes working together to improve the health of all citizens.
- Undertake collaborative research to address emerging public health issues and to discover more effective approaches for sustainable development.
- Engage with government and industry to achieve common goals in public health, including prescriptions for best practice in public health for existing and emerging major health problems.
The Presidents of Universities and members of the APACPH hereby commit to achieving these initiatives by providing and creating an enabling environment in their respective institutions with the goal of promoting the health and wellbeing of all citizens of the world.
Signed by:
- Prof Han-Joong Kim, Yongsei University
- Prof Wen-Ta Chiu, Taipei Medical University
- Prof Yasuo Kagawa, Kagawa Nutrition University
- Prof Keisuka Taira, University of the Ryukus
- Prof Emorn Wasantwisut, Mahidol Univeristy
- Prof Tony Chang, National Taiwan University
- Prof Amin Jalaludin, University of Malaya
- Prof Kamaruzaman Hj Ampon, University Malaysia Sabah
- Prof Antoine Flahault, EHESP
- Prof Emerlinda Roman, University of the Philippines Manila
- Prof Gumilar Rusliwa Somantri, University of Indonesia
- Prof Tien-Yu Shieh, Kaohsiung Medical University
