Politics of Global Health

Learning Outcomes

Learning Outcomes

Having successfully completed this module you will be able to:

• Identify and explain global political challenges associated with safeguarding and promoting human health.
• Demonstrate empirical knowledge of a range of past, present and potential disease risks.
• Evaluate and generate ideas for responding ethically to global health challenges.
• Analyse and critique the assumptions underpinning economic, foreign and security policies related to health.
• Engage critically and sensitively with other disciplinary perspectives on global health issues.
• Explain, apply and critique theories of international relations in the context of global health.

This module provides you with a timely opportunity to engage with big ideas and high-stakes issues in a dynamic and complex area of scholarship and policymaking. Today, the public health burden of infectious diseases (e.g. COVID-19, Ebola, HIV/AIDS, pandemic influenza, cholera and Zika) is an ongoing concern worldwide, and the control of non-infectious diseases (diabetes, tobacco-related illnesses, violent injuries, etc.) is increasingly the subject of international and global cooperation. Topics explored in Politics of Global Health include: emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases; the health impact of trade and aid policies; the role of the World Health Organization in the context of global health governance; the interconnectedness of war and disease; biotechnology research risks and the problem of biological weapons; health in foreign and security policy; and global health ethics. The overall aim of the module is to enable you to acquire a stronger, critical and cross-disciplinary understanding of these topics and the conceptual and empirical connections between them.

Teaching and learning methods

Student learning will be achieved through a combination of interactive lectures, group-based tutorial discussions and debates, and independent study. Learning activities and assessment tasks are designed to encourage critical thinking, intellectual autonomy, and evidence-based argument.

Resources & Reading list

General Resources

Biosecurity Dilemmas: Dreaded Diseases, Ethical Responses, and the Health of Nations.

Textbooks

Colin McInnes and Kelley Lee (2012). Global Health and International Relations. Polity.

Alison Bashford (ed.) (2006). Medicine at the Border: Disease, Globalization and Security, 1850 to the Present. Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan.

Christian Enemark and Michael J. Selgelid (eds.), (2012). Ethics and Security Aspects of Infectious Disease Control: Interdisciplinary Perspectives. Farnham: Ashgate.

Solomon Benatar and Gillian Brock (2011). Global Health and Global Health Ethics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

William H. McNeill (1998). Plagues and Peoples. New York: Anchor Books.

Sara E. Davies (2009). Global Politics of Health. Cambridge: Polity.

Stefan Elbe (2010). Security and Global Health: Toward the Medicalization of Insecurity. Polity.

Jeremy Youde (2012). Global Health Governance. Cambridge: Polity.

Laurie Garrett (2001). Betrayal of Trust: The Collapse of Global Public Health. Oxford University Press.

David P. Fidler and Lawrence O. Gostin (2008). Biosecurity in the Global Age: Biological Weapons, Public Health and the Rule of Law. Stanford University Press.

Summative

This is how we’ll formally assess what you have learned in this module.

Referral

This is how we’ll assess you if you don’t meet the criteria to pass this module.

Repeat Information

Repeat type: Internal