SOCI 365 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Tropical Medicine, International Health, Military Medicine
5 May 2018
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How to define?
• The complexity of health and development as a research and practice
History
• Most global health centers are in North America and Europe
• Where does it come from (the global health concept)
o The era of colonization
▪ European countries began travelling to areas that eventually became
colonies
▪ These new colonies experiences new diseases which affected the
colonies and the colonist
▪ Ghana mortality rates were very high in the first years of the
colonies
▪ This all gave birth to something called the tropical medicine
▪ Health services emerged to limit the toll of fatality diseases
▪ It was a great time for violence against the native population force
quarantine (idea of stabilizing the people, which was of interest to the
colonies)
▪ There were also many religious organization that send medical services
to the colonies
• Religion also took part in colonization since the beginning
▪ The idea of medical mission was to use health care to save individual
souls
▪ Colonization, military medicine, tropical medicine, religious medicine..
▪ Want to prevent your missionaries / military to get infected
o Between 1800-1900 many epidemics that were spreading
▪ Diplomats from 12 European governments would meet in Paris
international sanitary prevention
▪ If epidemics affect western Europe get a reaction from Europeans
▪ Create international code to contain epidemics
o 1946 UN created
▪ WHO (world health organization)
• Took the function of international health bureaucracy
• Defines health as a state of complete physical, mental and
social well-being and not merely the absence of disease
• The factors that affect health such as income, healthcare, etc
important to WHO (not just symptoms of a disease)
• More than 200 counties that are members (started with 60
countries)
• Even though this organization anted to extend their mission to
include a wider conception of health many of their
intervention revolves around the control of infectious diseases
• This organization was quite criticized (very political, question
of funding)
o As a result 1990s = rise of NGOs
▪ Proposed different dynamics to international health
o 2000s
▪ A new epidemic would change international health -- AIDS
▪ Forced cooperation between government and NGOs
▪ Invest in research to address AIDS
▪ Ex: countries of G8 included AIDs as a international health issue
▪ Got the nations together to tackle international health
▪ NGOs and private philanthropy (Bill and Melinda Gates foundation)
tackle the problem of international health
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
How to define: the complexity of health and development as a research and practice. But in 2000, who set 8 goals to set for the agenda. Improve maternal health: eradicate extreme poverty and hunger, provide universal primary education, reduce childhood mortality, fight hiv/aids and malaria. Global health is focused on people across the whole planet rather than the concerns of particular nations. Global, international, public: what is the difference, table, she doesn"t think there is much of a difference, there is an overlap, for this course we are going to use the term global health, but it overlaps. Agree to disagree: which we have a lot of in social science, but if we had to make a distinction. , global health, encompassing a broader perspective of health determinants, a concern with all countries. It recognized the social determinants of health 5 and the need to change conditions in order to promote health equity.
