Research has proven that engaging in active mobility (AM), namely walking and cycling for transportation, significantly enhances physical activity levels, leading to better physical health. It is still unclear whether AM could also offer any mental health benefits. This scoping review aims to provide a comprehensive understanding of the current knowledge on the relationship between AM and mental health, given its crucial role in public health. The authors searched online databases to isolate primary studies written in English involving an adult sample (16 or over). AM was the exposure factor. Many mental health elements were included as outcomes (depression, anxiety, self-esteem, self-efficacy, stress, psychological and subjective well-being, resilience, loneliness and social support, quality of life, mood, life satisfaction and sleep). The results were organised in a narrative summary per each outcome selected, graphical syntheses and an overview of gaps to be further examined. The authors identified a total of 55 papers as relevant. The results show inconsistency in study designs, definition and operationalisation of the variables, approach and methodologies used. A cross-sectional design was the dominant choice, primarily examining data from national public health surveys. Nonetheless, there has been improvement in outcomes of interests, initially mainly the quality of life and affect. Lately, authors have focused on a broader range of mental health-related factors (such as travel satisfaction). The experimental studies showed promising mental health improvements in those who used active modes more than those who used motorised vehicles. It creates a rationale for further research towards implementing a unified theoretical and methodological framework to study the link between AM and mental health. The ultimate goal is to generate solid conclusions that could support building societies and cities through public health promotion and sustainable strategies, like walking and cycling as a means of transport.

This article examines COVAX, a public private partnership, from a public law perspective. It asks whether COVAX is a legitimate and appropriate instrument with regard to the goal of distributing COVID-19 vaccines in a globally equitable manner and enabling equal access to vaccination worldwide. By developing public-legal legitimacy standards for this purpose, the article critically distances itself from the outset from considering the use of private actors and forms of action in public functions (‘privatization’) essentially as a release of market economy rationality, which enables efficiency and effectiveness gains and relieves the public sector. With the public law perspective, the article questions precisely whether private-law, market-based action is appropriate with respect to the global distribution of vaccines in the pandemic.

Vaccine apartheid is creating conditions that make for premature death, poverty, and disease in racialized ways. Invoking vaccine apartheid as opposed to euphemisms like vaccine nationalism, is necessary to highlight the racialized distributional consequences of vaccine inequities witnessed with COVID-19. This commentary clarifies the concept of vaccine apartheid against the historical and legal usage of apartheid. It reflects on the connections and important disjunctions between the two. It places the intellectual property regime under heightened scrutiny for reform and transformation. This commentary finds that drawing on the intersections between a human rights and health justice approach can provide creative and novel approaches for anti-subordination. It concludes that acknowledging and naming the structural injustice of vaccine apartheid is only the first step towards providing redress.

This two-part article examines the global public health (GPH) information system deficits emerging in the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. It surveys past, missed opportunities for public health (PH) information system and operational improvements, examines current megatrend changes to information management, and describes a new multi-disciplinary model for population-based management (PBM) supported by a GPH Database applicable to pandemics and GPH crises.

This two-part article examines the global public health (GPH) information system deficits emerging in the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. It surveys past, missed opportunities for public health (PH) information system and operational improvements, examines current megatrend changes to information management, and describes a new multi-disciplinary model for population-based management (PBM) supported by a GPH Database applicable to pandemics and GPH crises.

There have been multiple inconsistencies in the manner the COVID-19 pandemic has been investigated and managed by countries. Population-based management (PBM) has been inconsistent, yet serves as a necessary first step in managing public health crises. Unfortunately, these have dominated the landscape within the United States and continue as of this writing. Political and economic influences have greatly influenced major public health management and control decisions. Responsibility for global public health crises and modeling for management are the responsibility of the World Health Organization (WHO) and the International Health Regulations Treaty (IHR). This review calls upon both to reassess their roles and responsibilities that must be markedly improved and better replicated world-wide in order to optimize the global public health protections and its PBM.

This article captures the webinar narrative on March 31, 2020 of four expert panelists addressing three questions on the current coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Each panelist was selected for their unique personal expertise, ranging from front-line emergency physicians from multiple countries, an international media personality, former director of the US Strategic National Stockpile, and one of the foremost international experts in disaster medicine and public policy. The forum was moderated by one of the most widely recognized disaster medical experts in the world. The four panelists were asked three questions regarding the current pandemic as follows:

1. 1. What do you see as a particular issue of concern during the current pandemic?

2. 2. What do you see as a particular strength during the current pandemic?

3. 3. If you could change one thing about the way that the pandemic response is occurring, what would you change?

For a large number of health care providers world-wide, the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic is their first experience in population-based care. In past decades, lower population densities, infectious disease outbreaks, epidemics, and pandemics were rare and driven almost exclusively by natural disasters, predatory animals, and war. In the early 1900s, Sir William Osler first advanced the knowledge of zoonotic diseases that are spread from reservoir animals to human animals. Once rare, they now make up 71% or more of new diseases. Globally, zoonotic spread occurs for many reasons. Because the human population has grown in numbers and density, the spread of these diseases accelerated though rapid unsustainable urbanization, biodiversity loss, and climate change. Furthermore, they are exacerbated by an increasing number of vulnerable populations suffering from chronic deficiencies in food, water, and energy. The World Health Organization (WHO) and its International Health Regulation (IHR) Treaty, organized to manage population-based diseases such as Influenza, severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), H1N1, Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS), HIV, and Ebola, have failed to meet population-based expectations. In part, this is due to influence from powerful political donors, which has become most evident in the current COVID-19 pandemic. The global community can no longer tolerate an ineffectual and passive international response system, nor tolerate the self-serving political interference that authoritarian regimes and others have exercised over the WHO. In a highly integrated globalized world, both the WHO with its IHR Treaty have the potential to become one of the most effective mechanisms for crisis response and risk reduction world-wide. Practitioners and health decision-makers must break their silence and advocate for a stronger treaty, a return of the WHO’s singular global authority, and support highly coordinated population-based management. As Osler recognized, his concept of “one medicine, one health” defines what global public health is today.

Public health emergencies of international concern, in the form of infectious disease outbreaks, epidemics, and pandemics, represent an increasing risk to the worldʼs population. Management requires coordinated responses, across many disciplines and nations, and the capacity to muster proper national and global public health education, infrastructure, and prevention measures. Unfortunately, increasing numbers of nations are ruled by autocratic regimes which have characteristically failed to adopt investments in public health infrastructure, education, and prevention measures to keep pace with population growth and density. Autocratic leaders have a direct impact on health security, a direct negative impact on health, and create adverse political and economic conditions that only complicate the crisis further. This is most evident in autocratic regimes where health protections have been seriously and purposely curtailed. All autocratic regimes define public health along economic and political imperatives that are similar across borders and cultures. Autocratic regimes are seriously handicapped by sociopathic narcissistic leaders who are incapable of understanding the health consequences of infectious diseases or the impact on their population. A cross section of autocratic nations currently experiencing the impact of COVID-19 (coronavirus disease 2019) are reviewed to demonstrate the manner where self-serving regimes fail to manage health crises and place the rest of the world at increasing risk. It is time to re-address the pre-SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) global agendas calling for stronger strategic capacity, legal authority, support, and institutional status under World Health Organization (WHO) leadership granted by an International Health Regulations Treaty. Treaties remain the most successful means the world has in preventing, preparing for, and controlling epidemics in an increasingly globalized world.

“Honesty is worth a lot more than hope…” The Economist, February 17, 2020.

Since 1945, the reasons for major crises and how the world responds to them have changed every 10-15 years or sooner. Whereas these crises vary greatly across global regions, their economic, environmental, ecological, social, and disease aspects are increasingly under the influence of widely integrated global changes and forces arising primarily from: climate extremes; rapid unsustainable urbanization; critical biodiversity losses; and emergencies of scarcity in water, food, and energy. These slow-moving but increasingly severe crises affect larger populations across many borders and lead to the emergence of increasing population-based, preventable public health emergencies related to water, sanitation, food, shelter, energy, and related health illnesses, and ultimately global health security. This report explores the impact of these crises on Asia and the Pacific region, and their potential for regional conflict.

Fetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD) is increasingly recognized as a growing public health issue worldwide. Although more research is needed on both the diagnosis and treatment of FASD, and a broader and more culturally diverse range of services are needed to support those who suffer from FASD and their families, both research and practice for FASD raise significant ethical issues. In response, from the point of view of both research and clinical neuroethics, we provide a framework that emphasizes the need to maximize benefits and minimize harm, promote justice, and foster respect for persons within a global context.