For over a decade, Global Health Watch has been the definitive source for alternative analysis on health. This new edition addresses the key challenges facing governments and health practitioners today, within the context of rapid shifts in global governance mechanisms and the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. Like its predecessors, it challenges conventional wisdom while pioneering innovative new approaches to the field. Collaboratively written by academics and activists drawn from a variety of movements, research institutions and civil society groups, it covers some of the most pressing issues in world health, from the resurgence of epidemic diseases such as Ebola to the crisis in the WHO, climate change and the ‘war on drugs’. Combining rigorous analysis with practical policy suggestions, Global Health Watch 5 offers an accessible and compelling case for a radical new approach to health and healthcare across the world.
In an increasingly globalised world with new cross-border threats to public health and widening disparities between populations, civil society actors are challenging the existing structures of global health policies. Like its critically acclaimed predecessors, this third volume of Global Health Watch covers a comprehensive range of topics, including access to medicines, mental health, water and sanitation, nutrition, and war and conflict. Unlike most documentations of global health, it also draws attention to the politics of global health and the policies and actions of key actors. Global Health Watch books are the definite independent sources of data on global health, and this third volume offers unique and essential information for anyone working in the field.
Global Health Watch, now in its fourth edition, is widely perceived as the definitive voice for an alternative discourse on health and healthcare. It covers a range of issues that currently impact on health, including the present political and economic architecture in a fast-changing and globalized world; a political assessment of the drive towards Universal Health Coverage; broader determinants of health, such as gender-based violence and access to water; stories of struggles, actions and change; and a scrutiny of a range of global institutions and processes. It integrates rigorous analysis, alternative proposals and stories of struggle and change to present a compelling case for a radical transformation of the way we approach actions and policies on health.
For over a decade, Global Health Watch has been the definitive source for alternative analysis on health. This new edition addresses the key challenges facing governments and health practitioners today, within the context of rapid shifts in global governance mechanisms and the UN's Sustainable Development Goals. Like its predecessors, it challenges conventional wisdom while pioneering innovative new approaches to the field. Collaboratively written by academics and activists drawn from a variety of movements, research institutions and civil society groups, it covers some of the most pressing issues in world health, from the resurgence of epidemic diseases such as Ebola to the crisis in the WHO, climate change and the 'war on drugs'. Combining rigorous analysis with practical policy suggestions, Global Health Watch 5 offers an accessible and compelling case for a radical new approach to health and healthcare across the world.
With lessons learned from COVID-19, a world-leading expert on pandemic preparedness proposes a pragmatic plan urgently needed for the future of global health security. The COVID-19 pandemic revealed how unprepared the world was for such an event, as even the most sophisticated public health systems failed to cope. We must have far more investment and preparation, along with better detection, warning, and coordination within and across national boundaries. In an age of global pandemics, no country can achieve public health on its own. Health security planning is paramount. Lawrence O. Gostin has spent three decades designing resilient health systems and governance that take account of our interconnected world, as a close advisor to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the World Health Organization (WHO), and many public health agencies globally. Global Health Security addresses the borderless dangers societies now face, including infectious diseases and bioterrorism, and examines the political, environmental, and socioeconomic factors exacerbating these threats. Weak governance, ineffective health systems, and lack of preparedness are key sources of risk, and all of them came to the fore during the COVID-19 crisis, even—sometimes especially—in wealthy countries like the United States. But the solution is not just to improve national health policy, which can only react after the threat is realized at home. Gostin further proposes robust international institutions, tools for effective cross-border risk communication and action, and research programs targeting the global dimension of public health. Creating these systems will require not only sustained financial investment but also shared values of cooperation, collective responsibility, and equity. Gostin has witnessed the triumph of these values in national and international forums and has a clear plan to tackle the challenges ahead. Global Health Security therefore offers pragmatic solutions that address the failures of the recent past, while looking toward what we know is coming. Nothing could be more important to the future health of nations.
The past few decades have seen a massive increase in the number of international organizations focusing on global health. Campaigns to eradicate or stem the spread of AIDS, SARS, malaria, and Ebola attest to the increasing importance of globally-oriented health organizations. These organizations may be national, regional, international, or even non-state organizations-like Medicins Sans Frontieres. One of the more important recent trends in global health governance, though, has been the rise of public-private partnerships (PPPs) where private non-governmental organizations, for-profit enterprises, and various other social entrepreneurs work hand-in-hand with governments to combat specific maladies. A primary driver for this development is the widespread belief that by joining together, PPPs will attack health problems and fund shared efforts more effectively than other systems. As Chelsea Clinton and Devi Sridhar show in Governing Global Health, these partnerships are not only important for combating infectious diseases; they also provide models for developing solutions to a host of other serious global health challenges and questions beyond health. But what do we actually know about the accountability and effectiveness of PPPs in relation to the traditional multilaterals? According to Clinton and Sridhar, we have known very little because scholars have not accumulated enough data or developed effective ways to assess them-until now. In their analysis, they uncovered both strength and weaknesses of the model. Using principal-agent theory in which governments are the principals directing international agents of various type, they take a closer look at two major PPPs-the Global Fund to Fight HIV/AIDS, TB and Malaria and the GAVI Alliance-and two major more traditional international organizations-the World Health Organization and the World Bank. An even-handed and thorough empirical analysis of one of the most pressing topics in world affairs, Governing Global Health will reshape our understanding of how organizations can more effectively prevent the spread of communicable diseases like AIDS and reduce pervasive chronic health problems like malnutrition.
Global Health Watch (GHW), now in its sixth edition, provides the definitive voice for an alternative discourse on health. It integrates rigorous analysis, alternative proposals and stories of struggles and change to present a compelling case for the imperative to work for a radical transformation of the way we approach actions and policies on health. It was conceived in 2003 as a collaborative effort by activists and academics from across the world, and is designed to question present policies on health and to propose alternatives Global Health Watch 6 (GHW6) has been coordinated by eight civil society organizations – the People's Health Movement, ALAMES, Health Poverty Action, Medico International, Third World Network, Medact, Sama and Viva Salud. With contributions from across the globe, GHW6 addresses key issues related to health systems and the range of social, economic, political and environmental determinants of health, locating decisions and choices that impact on health in the structure of global power relations and economic governance.
Institutions matter for the advancement of human rights in global health. Given the dramatic development of human rights under international law and the parallel proliferation of global institutions for public health, there arises an imperative to understand the implementation of human rights through global health governance. This volume examines the evolving relationship between human rights, global governance, and public health, studying an expansive set of health challenges through a multi-sectoral array of global organizations. To analyze the structural determinants of rights-based governance, the organizations in this volume include those international bureaucracies that implement human rights in ways that influence public health in a globalizing world. This volume brings together leading health and human rights scholars and practitioners from academia, non-governmental organizations, and the United Nations system. They explore the foundations of human rights as a normative framework for global health governance, the mandate of the World Health Organization to pursue a human rights-based approach to health, the role of inter-governmental organizations across a range of health-related human rights, the influence of rights-based economic governance on public health, and the focus on global health among institutions of human rights governance. Contributing chapters each map the distinct human rights efforts within a specific institution of global governance for health. Through the comparative institutional analysis in this volume, the contributing authors examine institutional dynamics to operationalize human rights in organizational policies, programs, and practices and assess institutional factors that facilitate or inhibit human rights mainstreaming for global health advancement.
The preeminent doctor and bioethicist Ezekiel Emanuel is repeatedly asked one question: Which country has the best healthcare? He set off to find an answer. The US spends more than any other nation, nearly $4 trillion, on healthcare. Yet, for all that expense, the US is not ranked #1 -- not even close. In Which Country Has the World's Best Healthcare? Ezekiel Emanuel profiles eleven of the world's healthcare systems in pursuit of the best or at least where excellence can be found. Using a unique comparative structure, the book allows healthcare professionals, patients, and policymakers alike to know which systems perform well, and why, and which face endemic problems. From Taiwan to Germany, Australia to Switzerland, the most inventive healthcare providers tackle a global set of challenges -- in pursuit of the best healthcare in the world.
