This chapter discusses how the time of the COVID-19 pandemic was also a time when the world, in many respects, had never been better—or healthier. In a number of key areas—from life expectancy, to declines in poverty, to reductions in preventable diseases like HIV/AIDS—it was, and is, a more favorable time to be alive than any other point in recorded history. All these advances was a byproduct of foundational forces unfolding over time, forces like industrialization, global development, urbanization, and political changes. However, the incidental nature of this success has meant that we have yet to fully acknowledge why it occurred, which hinders our ability to advance it in the future. Why do we need to know how we got here? First, our understanding of the causes of health shapes our investment in health. America's investment in healthcare comes at the expense of their investment in the foundational drivers of health. The second reason is that if we do not understand the true causes of health, we will be unable to build a world that is ready for the next pandemic.
Joint Modeling of Incidence of Tuberculosis and Change in Viral Load Over Time Among Adult HIV/AIDS Patients on Anti-Retroviral Therapy at Zewditu Memorial Hospital in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia