Global Health & Social Justice MSc
Core Module 1: Critical Global Health (Draft - Subject to change)
Global Health is a field of study, research and practice that addresses the widespread variations
in health disease and medical care in different countries and regions. The global health
movement argues that reducing disease, safeguarding well being and providing adequate health
care requires initiatives are often beyond the capacity of individual nation states to address
individually or through their domestic institutions. This module introduces students to the
evidence on the social determinants of global inequalities in health, disease and medical care,
and to the key concepts debates and case studies that illuminate these inequalities and the
political economic social and structural forces that perpetuate them. The module provides skills in
critically assessing the ways in which global health inequalities are measured and mapped and
the role that governmental, institutional and corporate actors play in financing, governing and
delivering health care worldwide.
Aims
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To introduce students to the evidence on the global burden of disease and the
inequalities in health, disease and medical care.
To introduce students to the key concepts and debates regarding what global health
is and how it might be secured.
To give students capacities of critical analysis of evidence and argument in the field
of global health
To provide students with an understanding of the relationship between political,
economic and social factors in the delivery of global health initiatives.
To provide students with the skills to critically evaluate such initiatives and to identify
the role of key stakeholders in shaping them.
To demonstrate the value of interdisciplinary approaches to global health nature of
To provide insights into the use of particular methodological and epistemological
tools in the production of global health research.
Learning outcomes of the module
By the end of this module, students should be able to:
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Describe the global variations in health status, disease burden and health care
systems
Provide a critical analysis of different measures of the global burden of disease
Understand and assess the role that social, political and economic factors play in
shaping global health outcomes and inequalities
Understand the development and character of the global health movement
Understand key theories of and approaches to global health research.
Critically evaluate current initiatives in global healthcare delivery
Understand different interdisciplinary contributions to the understanding and
assessment of global health interventions.
Be able to access and evaluate evidence and data from scientific publications and
the ‘grey literature’ on global health and disease.
Be able to assess the role of particular methodologies and epistemological
approaches in constructing understandings of, and research into, global health.
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Recommended books:
Bach, S. International Mobility of Health Professionals - Brain Drain or Brain Exchange? UNU-WIDER
Research Paper No. 2006/82 - August 2006, 29pp.
www.wider.unu.edu/publications/rps/rps2006/rp2006-82.pdf
Benatar, S., & Brock, G. (2011). Global health and global health ethics. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Blumenthal D, Hsiao W. (2005) “Privatization and Its Discontents – the Evolving Chinese Health Care
System.” New England Journal of Medicine. 2005; 353 (11): 1165-1170
bridging differences in culture and society. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Brown, Theodore M., Marcos Cueto, and Elizabeth Fee (2006) The World Health Organization and
the Transition from "International" to "Global" Public Health. American Journal of Public Health
96(1):62-72.
Castro, A. & Singer, M. (eds.). (2004). Unhealthy health policy: A critical anthropological
examination. Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira Press.
Chowdhury, A.N., Chakraborty, A.K., & Weiss., M. (2001). Community mental health and concepts of
mental illness in the Sundarban Delta of West Bengal, India. Anthropology & Medicine 8,109-129.
Coughlin SS. (2003) “Ethical issues in epidemiologic research and public health practice.” Emerging
Themes in Epidemiology. 3: 16. www.ete-online.com/content/3/1/16
Crisp, Nigel (2010) Turning the World Upside Down: The search for global health in the 21st Century
RSM Books, London.
Davies, Sara (2009) The Global Politics of Health Polity Press, London.
Farmer, P. (2003). Rethinking health and human rights. Time for a paradigm Shift. In Pathologies of
Power. Health, Human Rights and the New War on the Poor. Paul Farmer, ed. Pp. 213-246. Berkeley:
University of California Press.
Farmer, P. (2004). An anthropology of structural violence. Current Anthropology 45(3), 305-325.
Farmer, Paul (2003) Rethinking Health and Human Rights. Time for a Paradigm Shift. In Pathologies
of Power. Health, Human Rights and the New War on the Poor. Paul Farmer, ed. Pp. 213-246.
Berkeley: University of California Press.
Fryatt, R., Mills, A. & Nordstrom, A. (2010). Financing of health systems to achieve the health
Millennium Development Goals in low-income countries. The Lancet 375(9712), 419-426.
Hahn, R. & Innhorn, M. (eds.) (2008). Anthropology and public health:
Jacobsen, K. (2009). Introduction to global health. London: Jones and Barlett Publishers.
Koplan, Jeffrey, et al.(2009) Towards a Common Definition of Global Health. Lancet 373(9679):199397
Lock, M. & Nguyen, V.-K. (2010). An anthropology of biomedicine. Malden: Wiley-Blackwell
Marmot, Michael (2005) Social Determinants of Health Inequalities. The Lancet 365(9464):10991104.
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Nguyen, Vinh-Kim (2010) Introduction: Cote-d'Ivoire and Triage in the Time of AIDS. In The Republic
of Therapy: Triage and Sovereignty in West Africa's Time of AIDS. (Pp. 1-14)
Petryna, A. (2009) When Experiments Travel: Clinical Trials and the Global Search for Human Subjects
Princeton University Press
Sen, A. (2002). Why health equity? Health Economics 11(8), 659-666.
Skolnik, R. (2008). Essentials in global health. London: Jones and Barlett Publishers.
Wilkinson, D. et al. (2001). Effect of removing user fees on attendance for curative and preventive
primary health care services in rural South Africa. Bulletin of the World Health Organization 79, 665671.
Wilkinson, Richard G., and Kate E. Pickett (2007) The Problems of Relative Deprivation: Why Some
Societies Do Better than Others. Social Science and Medicine 65(9):1965-1978.
Useful web links:
World Bank on Health: http://data.worldbank.org/topic/health
Global Health Facts: http://www.globalhealthfacts.org/index.jsp
UN AIDS http://www.unaids.org/en/
Gapminder World: http://www.gapminder.org/world/
The Global Fund – to fight AIDS, tuberculosis & malaria: http://www.theglobalfund.org/en/
Doctors for global health: http://www.dghonline.org/
Global Health Council: http://www.globalhealth.org/
Global Poverty Mapping Project: t www.ciesin.columbia.edu/povmap/index.html
WHO Global Health Observatory: http://www.who.int/gho/en/
WHO Statistical Information System: http://www.who.int/whosis/en/
United Nations Millennium Development Goals Indicators:
http://millenniumindicators.un.org/unsd/mdg/default.aspx
One Health – an initiative that seek to connect environmental, animal, and human
health: http://www.onehealthinitiative.com/
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