Why is investing in health so important?
As described above, poor health has horrendous impacts on society that go beyond effects on individuals and their families. The combined effect of poverty and disease decimates key infrastructure and industries, ruins the social fabric of communities, and threatens political stability. For example, early death and chronic disability from preventable diseases kills economic productivity. High rates of infant mortality can lead to large families who have a poor quality of life, which impedes economic development for the society as a whole. As one patient said, “It’s exhausting to have this many children but I know that most of them will die so I’m trying to increase the chance that a few of my children will live to adulthood.” Many patients have expressed exactly the same thing. Also, the economic costs of preventable disease are staggeringly high. Conversely, breakthroughs in public health and improved nutritional intake historically support periods of economic growth in places like Eur
