Sustainable economic production and equitable distribution are aimed at a) reducing inequality, b) ending human deprivation, c) maximizing human fulfillment, d) maintaining innovation, and e) not exceeding the earth’s carrying capacity. Mission-oriented research addresses grand challenges facing the world that affect the well-being of people. These challenges include health insecurity, climate change, population changes, unemployment, mass migration, environmental degradation, and terrorism.

The goal of this Research Topic is to urge governments and international governance organizations to innovate systems and guide new technologies to respond to the grand challenges. Health and socio-economic crises around the world are prevalent and can be attributed to the global neo-liberal capitalist policies. Three decades of free-market health sector reforms in poor countries did not achieve appreciable improvement in health care. Instead, they have fragmented, commodified, and privatized health care, and condoned inequity in health and health care. This has been especially so in underdeveloped countries where foreign aid grants are often tied to free-market conditions. The global pandemic Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) has revealed this inequality and how unsuitable and unprepared global economic and governance systems are for health security and the overall well-being of people. The wider socio-economic crises engulfing the world today include unemployment, mass migration, environmental degradation, and terrorism.

To tackle the socioeconomic crisis engulfing the world today including unemployment, mass migration, environmental degradation, and terrorism, this Research Topic is aimed at providing different economic, social, and health systems and models that could provide equitable and quality health care and socio-economic welfare at both national and global levels.

Using health as an entry point, this research seeks to answer the following research questions:
• What are the socio-economic contexts of countries that have or have not attained UHC?
• What are the social and economic policies of these countries?
• What are the health policies of these countries?
• What are the unique or remarkable common features of the countries that have attained and those that have not?
• What are the practical and applicable lessons for countries that want to achieve UHC?

Instead of the relentless pursuit of intangible and often meaningless GPD, there is a need to pursue well-being as the ultimate human goal. This can be measured by contentment with life through happiness indices, healthy lives, social support, trust, freedom, generosity, family relations, friends, work, the use of time, education, culture, good governance, ecological diversity, community vitality, and better living standards. Governments must set progressive income policies by increasing wages and by tying wages to productivity and work targets. Trade barriers must be overcome, especially those related to International Property, data, and information. Digital rules should be made to be fair for all countries, and should not be lateralized. It will be necessary to increase tax revenue to increase the fiscal space. This is possible with increased employment and better wages. There is a need to alleviate the balance of payment through the allocation of special drawing rights for the poorest countries. There will be a need to reduce capital flows into countries and to control finance volatility through country-specific measures.

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Frontiers in Public Health

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