What is Global Health? Flashcards
KOPLAN ET AL. (2009)
- area for study/research/practice that places priority on improving health/achieving equity in health for all people worldwide
- emphasises transnational healt issues/determinants/solutions
- involves many disciplines within/beyond health sciences; promotes interdisciplinary collaboration
- synthesis of population-based prevention within individual lvl clinical care
HANEFELD & FISCHER (2021)
- point to several similarities in range of definitions:
1. seeks to address irl challenges/problems; aka. not knowledge for knowledge’s sake, making dif = important
2. inter-disciplinary; addresses issues of health w/global implications
3. practical application of science/evidence to improve health w/explicit emphasis on addressing injustices
TIMELINE
1854: sanitary conferences
1913: creation of International Health Commission
1948: establishment of WHO
1978: Alma Ata World Health assembly declaration: “Health for All”
1993: world development report (investing in health)
2000: millenium development goals
2001: commission on macroeconomics & health
2005: international health regulations
2015: sustainable development goals
2020: COVID-19 pandemic
IMPORTANCE OF RECOGNISING COLONIAL ROOTS
- global/international health
- disease in “another” country; people in “other” countries as vectors
- centres of knowledge/power/research all in global north
PUBLIC HEALTH “ELSEWHERE”
- “public health somewhere else” = suggests it helps us see topic dif:
1. expertise gradient; knowledge/skills higher in global north (cf. global south)
2. perception that problems elsewhere = simpler than at home
3. equity/efficiency; efficient to fly researchers/donors over & that it benefits
KING & KOSKI (2020)
- defining global health as public health “elsewhere”
- global health = NOT distinguished by aspirations/research methods & practice/intervention strategies/geographical area BUT rather by particular relation between practitioners/recipients
- person engages in global health when they practice public health elsewhere (ie. community/political entity/geographical space) that they don’t call home
4 ASPECTS OF DECOLONISING GLOBAL HEALTH
HANEFIELD & FISCHER (2021)
1. research/teaching ignores key aspects of power/inequality
2. majority of research on “global south” = funded by institutions/organisations in global north
3. publications/knowledge productions
4. who has power to speak about these issues
GLOBAL HEALTH IGNORES POWER
POWER IN HEALTH BEHS
- knowledge/attitude/practice (KAP); HIV surveys
- psychology & own experiences show there is NO clear relation between KAP
ROLE OF CORPORATIONS IN SHAPING HEALTH
- breastfeeding = keyway to ensure child health/survival (50% babies breastfed)
- COHEN ET AL. (2018)
- systematic review of factors associated w/breastdeeding initiation/continuation found (smoking/dyad separation/maternal education/breastfeeding education)
- BAKER ET AL. (2021)
- emphasise role of global corporations in promoting breastfeeding/marketing/expansion of follow-on products
VIERGEVER & HENDRIKS (2016)
- funding of global health research
- identify main public/philanthropic funders of health research globally
- 10 largest funders contributed $37.1 billion for research in 1y (government = US National Institude for Health (NIH) = $26.1 billion; philanthropic = Welcome Trust ($909.1 million)
- focus on specific topics of interest to… who?
BHAKUNI & ABIMBOLA (2021)
- who has power to speak in global health:
1. credibility deficit (who has power to speak about knowledge/ideas in global health)
2. interpretive marginalisation (who interprets how data is made sense of)
SOCIAL PSYCH OF GLOBAL HEALTH: BUILDING ON CRITIQUE
- ignores role of power
- excludes voices of those impacted by poor health
MURRAY & CAMPBELL (2003) - over-emphasis of individualised beh/atheoretical
HENRICH ET AL. (2010) - emphasis on particularly narrow pops
- WEIRD (Western, Educated, Industrialised, Rich, Democratic); 80% studies, 12% world population in psych research
SOCIAL PSYCH OF GLOBAL HEALTH: WHAT DOES IT LOOK LIKE?
- emphasises listening to peoples voices
- role of ideas ie. liberation psych
- identifies how large social/political/economic forces shape people’s identities & health behs
MURRAY & CAMPBELL (2003) - theoretically driven
- engages w/local populations w/action to improve health
KEY CONCEPTS I
- social identities shape people’s beh; behs = socially embedded
- role of contexts in shaping people’s identities/behs; social contexts comprise 3 broad areas (symbolic arena, material-political & relational)
- technological interventions interact w/social identities/contexts
KEY CONCEPTS II
- importance of small group interventions in changing health behs via dialogical communication; comprises of establishing “safe social spaces” where:
1. knowledge is shared
2. peope engage in dialogue
3. people reflect about knowledge & lives
4. knowledge + dialogue + reflection -> critical consciousness & emergence of health enhancing social identities - how do large social/structural forces become embedded in people’s (social) identities? how do individuals/groups internalise/resist/challenge such identities to improve health
SUMMARY I
- health of people everywhere BUT primarily in global south
- decolonisation of global health = 4 components:
1. think about power/inequalities in work
2. how to ensure funding/works resonates w/needs/issues of people working
3. politics/power of publications
4. ensuring interpretation of knowledge = shaped by people we work w/
