The a??Arab Worlda?? is Not a Useful Concept When Addressing Challenges to Public Health, Public Health Education, and Research in the Middle East

摘要

The preferred definition of the Arab World is the 22 member countries of the League of Arab States. The Eastern Mediterranean Region (EMR) of the World Health Organization (WHO) is a second important classification in which the Comoros, Mauritania, and Algeria are moved to the WHO Regional Office for Africa and three non-Arab countries are added: Afghanistan, Iran, and Pakistan. In addition, South Sudan is included. A third widely used classification is the World Bank’s Middle East and North Africa (MENA) grouping of 22 countries, which takes WHO EMR and excludes Sudan, Somalia, and Pakistan but adds Israel. Irrespective of which grouping is chosen, while there are “linguistic, political, historical, and socio-cultural links” between these nations there are also major dissimilarities at many levels and their heterogeneity is a major challenge (4). The region divides geographically into the Maghreb, the Mashreq, and the Gulf but the most important differences relate to levels of economic development, demography, population health status, inequity, political stability, history of conflict or war, presence of refugee or displaced populations, and health system organization. Given these differences does it make sense for countries to come together as the “Arab World” or WHO EMR to seek solutions to the specific challenges they face or would smaller issue-specific groups provide a more efficient forum for collaboration and joint action.