In writing this title, I thought to myself – if I was being completely honest there are a whole host of ‘real-life’ topics I wished we covered in medical school. Yes of course I could have looked it up myself etc but you can only look up what you know, have heard of or what is interest driven. Macroeconomics as a topic I believe is essential and pertinent in everything especially health – which is why push come to shove it would be the one thing I wish we covered additionally in medical school. (No we did not have other elective modules in my university).
So what is Macroeconomics anyway?
Like public health, it is all about taking a step back from the individual and looking at the overall picture. We are looking at how an economy performs, its structure, how it behaves and functions as well as the decision making involved.
Giving us an overall idea of the relationship of economic growth with things like employment rates and inflation. It also helps us understand the cause and effect of short term booms in economy as well as determine what we can do to ensure long term economic growth and increase in overall national income.
Over the next few posts, I will delve into a bit about GDP, GNI, inflation and other topics before going into it’s role in health.
365 days of public health 