Vaccines or Latrines? Debating spending on health

The final session of the 1st year Environmental Health module took the form of a class debate. "This class believes that the recent trend of increasing investment in health care in low income countries at the expense of environmental health measures will be detrimental to health outcomes overall." A few days prior to the debate, each student was asked to prepare a short paper arguing either for or against the motion. Students could not choose which side of the debate to argue for, but voting was free choice. We took a vote at the start on the motion. Three people from each side of the debate presented their case before the debate was opened up to the floor. A spokes-person from each side summed up, then there was a second vote on the motion. Interestingly, most of the class agreed with the title of the debate at the outset. But those arguing for the relative merits of health care spending, particularly in relation to reducing mortality in under-five's, had managed to convince more skeptics by the end of the morning. Two of the best papers are given here.