Health Policy and Planning
Volume 28 Issue 8 December 2013
http://heapol.oxfordjournals.org/content/current

Diarrhoeal diseases and the global health agenda: measuring and changing priority
Jesse B. Bump1,*, Michael R. Reich2 and Anne M. Johnson2
Author Affiliations
1Department of International Health, Georgetown University, 3700 Reservoir RD NW, Washington, DC 20057, USA, 2Department of Global Health and Population, Harvard School of Public Health, 677 Huntington Ave, Boston, MA 02115, USA
Accepted October 22, 2012.

Abstract
We investigate priority setting and the global health agenda by analysing the control of diarrhoeal diseases (CDD). CDD was one of the ‘twin engines’ of the 1980s’ child survival movement, but now has a low priority on the global health agenda, even though diarrhoeal diseases still claim around 1.5 million children annually. In this article, we develop a framework and four indicators of priority to measure CDD’s overall prominence on the global health agenda over the last three decades: trends in treatment coverage, changes in perceived priority, changes in financial support and institutional involvement and bibliographic trends. We find that CDD’s priority is now one-sixth to one-third of its level in 1985. We then use political analysis to suggest strategies for reframing CDD as an issue and promoting its priority on the global health agenda.