Read the entire transcript of the keynote address of Margaret Chan, Director-General of the World Health Organization, at the UW Department of Global Health's 10th anniversary celebration symposium, Global Health: Next Decade, Next Generation. Chan discussed grand challenges on the horizon of the next decade: control of non-communicable diseases, climate change, pandemic disease response and educating the next generation of global health leaders. She added her own concerns with anti-microbial resistance, a growing population, and the inter-connectivity of an increasingly globalized world with laws to safeguard accuracy and engagement on the internet that haven't yet caught up to progress.
This is a unique time in history, where economic progress, improved living conditions, and greater purchasing power are actually increasing diseases instead of reducing them.