Global Health

(3 Credit Hours) · Undergraduate

Global Health is a relatively new though rapidly expanding field of enquiry in which scholars and public health practitioners seek to understand the challenge that globalization presents for human health. Globalization has led to a shift from national to global medicine in which the leading determinants of health are no longer circumscribed by the territorial boundaries of individual states, leaving nations less able to control the health outcomes of their citizens. The causes of this globalization are still not fully understood, and its effects are hotly debated, especially with respect to its potential benefits and negative consequences for human health. This course seeks to provide a conceptual framework for identifying the different types of global change that impact public health and for understanding the key drivers of this change. More particularly, the course investigates how the new stakeholders in healthcare have shaped medical services to serve their own vested interests and ideological commitments. including national governments, international agencies, advocacy groups, commercial companies, and the pharmaceutical industry. The course concludes by assessing the current state of public health in light of the globalization and 'commodification' of healthcare at the beginning of the 21st century.