Globalization and Health

Globalization is seen by many as an engine of growth, but in this outstanding book Youde (Univ. of Minnesota Duluth) acknowledges that it has also created significant health disparities. He examines the challenges posed by a globalized health system, including the temptation to neglect the role of gender or environmental degradation in health issues. Globalization—involving the collapse of time, space, and even national sovereignty—actually challenges global health and its governance. For example, Youde cites the case of SARS: little time was needed to spread the disease from China to Canada. Yet while global health institutions such as the WHO quickly contained the outbreak, China’s early reluctance to acknowledge or share information about it was credited to its sense that global health institutions challenged its national sovereignty. Likewise in 2006, when Indonesia refused to share samples of H5N1 influenza virus, it did so on grounds of national sovereignty. Perhaps the biggest challenge examined by Youde is the rise of populist or nationalist political regimes that do not accept a global world order. This is an excellent and useful text that deeply examines multiple issues not conventionally associated with health.



Summing Up: Recommended. Lower-division undergraduates through faculty.

* Choice Reviews *
This informative book provides a survey of how globalization has enabled the spread of disease and of the concurrent development of global public health practices and institutions. * Foreign Affairs *
Youde provides an excellent and invaluable introduction to the relationship between globalization and health. Bringing together a real depth of political insight with a thorough explanation of today’s global health challenges, the book is a must-read for anyone interested in the contemporary global politics of health. -- Simon Rushton, University of Sheffield
Well written and peppered with vivid examples, this is an excellent primer on how globalization has affected health. Youde aptly surveys how expanded opportunities for trade and travel have knit the world together with mixed implications for health. -- Joshua Busby, University of Texas–Austin; coauthor of AIDS Drugs for All: Social Movements and Market Transformations
For anyone who seeks a comprehensive understanding of the links between globalization and health, this is the book to read. Youde illustrates in rich detail the influence on health of viruses, trade, advocates, international organizations, treaties, and other entities. I appreciate especially the balance and nuance in his analysis: he avoids being trapped by ideology and instead, drawing carefully on evidence, demonstrates the ways in which globalization both advances and hampers human well-being. -- Jeremy Shiffman, Johns Hopkins Univer