Health's role in achieving Australia's Sustainable Development Goal commitments

Achieving the Sustainable Development Goal 3: challenges in HIV testing in the Eastern Mediterranean Region.

In the era prior to antiretroviral therapy (ART), taking an HIV test was associated with great fear, as a diagnosis of HIV infection signaled imminent death (1). As we mark World AIDS Day on 1 December 2017, it is worth reflecting on the success over the last two decades whereby treatment for HIV infection has become safer, more effective and simpler as new regimens with fixed combinations of a...

The Knowledge Base for Achieving the Sustainable Development Goal Targets on Water Supply, Sanitation and Hygiene

Safe drinking water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) are fundamental to an improved standard of living. Globally, 91% of households used improved drinking water sources in 2015, while for improved sanitation it is 68%. Wealth disparities are stark, with rural populations, slum dwellers and marginalized groups lagging significantly behind. Service coverage is significantly lower when considering ...

Nutrition: a quintessential sustainable development goal.

In the fi nal paper of our 2008 Lancet Series on maternal and child undernutrition, Saul Morris and colleagues wrote that, “The international nutrition system—made up of international and donor organisations, academia, civil society, and the private sector—is fragmented and dysfunctional”. They concluded that, incredibly, no evidence base existed to prioritise actions to improve nutrition. And ...

Grand convergence: a future sustainable development goal?

Alcohol breeds empty goal commitments.

According to alcohol-myopia theory (C. M. Steele & R. A. Josephs, 1990), alcohol leads individuals to disproportionally focus on the most salient aspects of a situation and to ignore peripheral information. The authors hypothesized that alcohol leads individuals to strongly commit to their goals without considering information about the probability of goal attainment. In Study 1, participants n...