Poverty, Dignity, and Forgotten Skin Care: Dermatology in the Stream of Human Mobile Population

Skin diseases represent the greatest public health care problem in all developing countries. Tropical diseases tend to cluster in poor populations and often are defined as “neglected” because the investments made to combat them seem negligible compared with the massive amounts expended globally on the health problems of developed countries. After reviewing the worldwide situation, this article explains the principles of community dermatology and discusses the work of the San Gallicano Institute in Rome, which has developed a model for reducing the number of people suffering from dermatologic and other diseases and has established the first dermatologic hospital in Ethiopia.