10 Things to Read About Global Health

The Health Of Nations: Proposals for a new political economy of health by Gavin Mooney

Gavin Mooney was a health economist driven by social justice and community participation in all spheres of public life, particularly in health policy. This book is structured in three main parts highlighting: firstly, what is wrong with the healthcare systems worldwide, with a sharp criticism to global institutions such as WHO, WTO, WB, G8, and IMF. The second part presents successful and unsuccessful cases studies, providing a comprehensive analysis of push and pull forces in the health policy arena: power and influence by the big pharmacy, corporations, politics, and neoliberal institutions. The final section discusses communitarian solutions to empower communities and give voice to disadvantaged groups in health initiatives.

Global Health: An Introduction to Current and Future Trends  by Kevin McCracken & David R. Phillips

This book covers topics from basic epidemiology moving towards the main discussions about the sustainability of the health systems with the population aging and burden of chronic diseases in developed and developing nations.

Gapminder & The Lancet Global Health Blog by Ola & Hans Rosling

Gapminder is a powerful tool to crunch reliable statistics and test your hypothesis, by selecting countries, indicators and time periods. Ola Rosling & Hans Rosling are the two ambassadors of this initiative that collaborates with universities, UN, public agencies and non-governmental organizations. This blog covers emerging discussions, Global Health policies, and trends based on independent analysis, with the excellence stamp from The Lancet. A bookmark to add to Global Health favorites.

Global Health and International Relations by Colin McInnes & Kelley Lee

Global Health studies recognize that health is determined by circumstances and issues that transcend national boundaries. In McInnes and Lee’s book, the nexus between body, mind, and spirit, and peace and security get closer and are sharply analysed. Their reflections about Security, International Political Economy and Global Health Diplomacy makes this a must read the book for diplomats, academics, and professionals working in public health.

Reimagining Global Health: An Introduction by Paul Farmer (Editor), Arthur Kleinman (Editor), Jim Kim (Editor) & Matthew Basilico (Editor)

Farmer, Kleinman, and Kim are three distinctive academics with extensive fieldwork and applied research in public health. This book gives a comprehensive view of global health starting from the theory and conceptual background (Chapters 1 and 2), followed by case-studies on emerging topics as Mental Health and Multidrug-resistant TB, HIV and effective health service delivery. Overcoming the simplistic and layback criticism, all the participant-authors contribute with realistic solutions. This book ends up appealing to the creation of a movement for global health equity grounded in evidence-based dialogue with good partners, reaching out to the general public and policy makers.

Partner to the Poor: A Paul Farmer Reader by Paul Farmer (Author), Haun Saussy (Editor) & Tracy Kidder (Foreword)

Paul Farmer, a physician and anthropologist and one of the founders of Partners in Health, reunites in this volume thirty years of his better-known works of global health.  Committed with healthcare as a human right available to all, Farmer worked in the most deprived contexts of Haiti, Boston, Peru, Rwanda or Russia. From his very beginnings as a medical student in Harvard, Farmer was interested in the social and political conditions that determine both individual wellbeing and access to health care. His views on structural violence and the maintenance of unequal access to healthcare as the major drivers for the modern plagues, such as TB or HIV, inspired generations of health workers and academicians. This book crosses disciplines and perspectives, ranging from Global Health to International Development and Human Rights.

The World Health Organization between North and South by Nitsan Chorev

Created in 1948, the World Health Organization (WHO) is better known for its numerous programs aimed at improving health conditions around the globe. In this book, Chorev carefully examines the main actions – as well as the limits – of WHO, ranging from the smallpox eradication that modelled other vertical interventions around the world, to the new education program on the health risks of smoking. On a more political and international relations perspective, Chorev looks at WHO as a forum where developing countries hold most votes and try to influence effective international policies. Particularly relevant is the analyses of WHO’s advocacy for global access to essential medecines and the regulation of intellectual property rights. A must-read book that literally leads us through the corridors of the main actor on Global Health.

Recipient States in Global Health Politics: PEPFAR in Africa by Ricardo Pereira

The Presidential Emergency Program For AIDS Relief, PEPFAR, is the most invested vertical program fight AIDS. Initially designed to act in needing settings in the global south, PEPFAR’ actions were actually focused in Sub-Saharan Africa. PEPFAR was launched in 2003 by the Bush administration, and many look at it as part of a larger soft policy agenda of the US government. This book carries on a detailed analysis comparing PEPFAR’s implementation in Botswana, Ethiopia and South Africa, based on fieldwork and interviews with major agents. A great work to understand Global Health from an International Relations perspective.

Medicine, Mobility, and Power in Global Africa: Transnational Health and Healing by Hansjörg Dilger, Abdoulaye Kane & Stacey A. Langwick (Eds.)

This edited volume reunites several works on the circulation of knowledge, technology and professionals from and to Africa. Healthcare practices, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, have integrated a myriad of actors, from traditional practioners to private medicine, from charities and churches to public healthcare. Driving from an anthropological perspective, the different essays on this book illustrate how people, ideas and technologies are circulating around healthcare practices in and out of Africa. This book also presents some of the research conducted at CEI-IUL on this subject.

Making and Unmaking Public Health in Africa. Ethnographic and Historical Perspectives by Ruth J. Prince & Rebecca Marsland (Eds.)

The anthropologists Prince and Marsland ask what is public health in Africa nowadays, after the failure of national policies in the seventies, the major financial cuts imposed by the Structural Adjustment Plans of the eighties and nineties, and the novel interventions from private actors? The book counts with a remarkable introduction and several ethnographic essays that present different perspectives about Primary Health Care, the state and private actors, including traditional providers. A great analysis of the limits and perspectives of creating a public health system in deprived contexts.

A little girl receiving oral polio vaccine. Photo by CDC Global / CC BY 2.0

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