Global health is a field known, in the past, as international health and colonial health. It has recently sought to center itself around health equity – that every person deserves decent healthcare to have a decent life. Thus, it has tried to remove any shackles of Western imperialism from its conceptualization. Also recently, Paul Farmer and Partners in Health have brought attention to the field, especially in Haiti and Rwanda. A large braintrust centered around Harvard University has worked with them. Out of such hard work with thoughtful reflection comes books like these. It not only can serve as a global health textbook for the next generation, it can map out a future world of work.
This work offers twelve scholarly examinations of issues in the field of global health. Expect to have a few braincells strengthened. It incorporates much anthropology, philosophy, medicine (of course), and international politics to paint a rich, three-dimensional picture of what’s going on globally in healthcare. I doubt there’s any better one-volume introduction to the field.
Of course, things have changed in the dozen-or-so years since this text was penned. The American government, a large funder, has mercurially and blindly chosen to become hostile to global health initiatives. Yet efforts continue to help the “lowest billion” in Africa and Asia. The authors reiterate that such aid has to take a holistic approach to healthcare system reform by placing poverty, infectious disease, maternal care, children’s education, and women’s rights on equal footing. An entire system must be build with partnership from all interested parties, with priority given to the perspectives of those on the ground.
If you are at all interested in global healthcare from an academic perspective, this is a book for you to read in depth. It offers insightful analyses, interesting stories, and a wide-ranging vision that simply cannot be garnered elsewhere. I’d argue that, at nearly 500 pages, this book offers a bit more than an introduction to an intriguing field. Instead, it offers a comprehensive vision for a better world if we’re willing to take some of its inspirations and enact them, each in our own way.
Reimagining Global Health: An Introduction
By Paul Farmer, Jim Yong Kim, Arthur Kleinman & Matthew Basilico
Copyright (c) 2013
University of California Press
ISBN13 9780520271999
Page Count: 478
Genre: Global Health, Anthropology
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