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A History of Global Health: Interventions into the Lives of Other Peoples
Over the past century, hundreds of billions of dollars have been invested in programs aimed at improving health on a global scale. Given the enormous scale and complexity of these lifesaving operations, why do millions of people in low-income countries continue to live without access to basic health services, sanitation, or clean water? And why are deadly diseases like Ebola able to spread so quickly among populations?
In A History of Global Health, Randall M. Packard argues that global-health initiatives have saved millions of lives but have had limited impact on the overall health of people living in underdeveloped areas, where health-care workers are poorly paid, infrastructure and basic supplies such as disposable gloves, syringes, and bandages are lacking, and little effort has been made to address the underlying social and economic determinants of ill health. Global-health campaigns have relied on the application of biomedical technologies--vaccines, insecticide-treated nets, vitamin A capsules--to attack specific health problems but have failed to invest in building lasting infrastructure for managing the ongoing health problems of local populations.
Designed to be read and taught, the book offers a critical historical view, providing historians, policy makers, researchers, program managers, and students with an essential new perspective on the formation and implementation of global-health policies and practices.
In A History of Global Health, Randall M. Packard argues that global-health initiatives have saved millions of lives but have had limited impact on the overall health of people living in underdeveloped areas, where health-care workers are poorly paid, infrastructure and basic supplies such as disposable gloves, syringes, and bandages are lacking, and little effort has been made to address the underlying social and economic determinants of ill health. Global-health campaigns have relied on the application of biomedical technologies--vaccines, insecticide-treated nets, vitamin A capsules--to attack specific health problems but have failed to invest in building lasting infrastructure for managing the ongoing health problems of local populations.
Designed to be read and taught, the book offers a critical historical view, providing historians, policy makers, researchers, program managers, and students with an essential new perspective on the formation and implementation of global-health policies and practices.
432 pages, Paperback
Published September 15, 2016
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
January 4, 2018
Not as engrossing as his previous book on malaria. I highly recommend that.
This is more of a textbook/catalog of obscure details, some of which were fascinating to me based on my idiosyncratic interests, but most of which just seemed excessively inside baseball. So for people generally interested in global health I think this is something to skim through for pearls. Maybe for professional historians it's a page-turner. Still impressive overall.
This is more of a textbook/catalog of obscure details, some of which were fascinating to me based on my idiosyncratic interests, but most of which just seemed excessively inside baseball. So for people generally interested in global health I think this is something to skim through for pearls. Maybe for professional historians it's a page-turner. Still impressive overall.
December 2, 2019
Puts the current global health milieu into a lot more context.
This book highlights the tension between a narrow, disease-specific, biotechnological approach to human health versus a broader, social-determinants-of-health approach. The writer's bias towards the latter is obvious, and his evidence equally compelling.
Starts with the blatant colonial roots of what is now considered global health - the global north caring only that their colonial and military presence in global south areas not get sick from infectious diseases such as malaria. The story travels through the Rockefeller foundation, the League of Nations, the World Wars, "third world" countries being fought over by the contrasting policies of the capitalistic west and the socialistic USSR, comparing and contrasting malaria and smallpox eradication campaigns, Alma Ata and a brief focus on primary health care and health systems strengthening, the global recession in the 80's and subsequent structural adjustment programs, and finally wraps up with the West Africa Ebola outbreak of 2014.
It also highlights the distinct lack of historical representation of local staff and women involved in the work.
A big read, but very worthwhile for practitioners in global health work to better understand one's place in the story and to (hopefully) learn from the mistakes of the past.
This book highlights the tension between a narrow, disease-specific, biotechnological approach to human health versus a broader, social-determinants-of-health approach. The writer's bias towards the latter is obvious, and his evidence equally compelling.
Starts with the blatant colonial roots of what is now considered global health - the global north caring only that their colonial and military presence in global south areas not get sick from infectious diseases such as malaria. The story travels through the Rockefeller foundation, the League of Nations, the World Wars, "third world" countries being fought over by the contrasting policies of the capitalistic west and the socialistic USSR, comparing and contrasting malaria and smallpox eradication campaigns, Alma Ata and a brief focus on primary health care and health systems strengthening, the global recession in the 80's and subsequent structural adjustment programs, and finally wraps up with the West Africa Ebola outbreak of 2014.
It also highlights the distinct lack of historical representation of local staff and women involved in the work.
A big read, but very worthwhile for practitioners in global health work to better understand one's place in the story and to (hopefully) learn from the mistakes of the past.
July 8, 2017
A must-read for anyone interested in global health.
March 15, 2023
Offered lots of insight on global health history
July 30, 2024
A must-read!
March 23, 2025
I would be lying if I said this book didn’t turn me into a complete nihilistic re: my future/dream career, but it totally did. Great read though!
June 15, 2025
excellent book for beginners
July 12, 2025
This took me a long while to finish but its really good i pinky promise
October 19, 2025
Overall informative but very repetitive. Also, the author tried to remain someone impartial in topics that required a more critical approach. Read for a public health class.
March 30, 2020
Well that took me a long time, and I kind of knew it would as soon as I started it. Despite only being 300+ pages, it’s very DENSE with tiny font. It’s so dense that it hurt my wrists holding this tome of a novel for prolonged periods of time, so consider the Kindle version.
Reflections:
1) I got pretty jaded and angry when I first started reading this because the history of global health is so very white and male. Back in the 1930s, it was like “this white man named Dave or Tom or some monosyllabic name just graduated college, so let’s put him in charge of...ASIA!” So infuriating.
2) The book is kind of boring honestly, but I think that’s just how I feel about history books in general. I don’t like just being told facts and dates, I want to be PERSUADED. The author would kind of hint at how everything we’ve done in global health has been wrong, but never really got on his soapbox until the last few pages...which kind of makes me sad for him, haha.
3) Horizontal approach is always better than vertical. We all know that, and yet most global health NGOs and organizations still have a single disease mindset, including The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. That’s also very frustrating. The other problem is organizations (like BMGF) focusing on technological approaches to medical problems as opposed to good old fashioned primary health care. Why more organizations haven’t gotten on board with this is beyond me. It’s like the US insists on forcing their secondary and tertiary care focus onto places that don’t even have good health infrastructure in place, likely to get their grant funding and publish their papers with all white male authors...ok, ok, sorry, lost myself for a second. Anyway what I’m trying to say is it feels exploitative.
4) Engage governments, engage communities, be respectful and don’t propagate colonial prejudices. Where possible, address economic and social injustices contributing to poor health.
Reflections:
1) I got pretty jaded and angry when I first started reading this because the history of global health is so very white and male. Back in the 1930s, it was like “this white man named Dave or Tom or some monosyllabic name just graduated college, so let’s put him in charge of...ASIA!” So infuriating.
2) The book is kind of boring honestly, but I think that’s just how I feel about history books in general. I don’t like just being told facts and dates, I want to be PERSUADED. The author would kind of hint at how everything we’ve done in global health has been wrong, but never really got on his soapbox until the last few pages...which kind of makes me sad for him, haha.
3) Horizontal approach is always better than vertical. We all know that, and yet most global health NGOs and organizations still have a single disease mindset, including The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. That’s also very frustrating. The other problem is organizations (like BMGF) focusing on technological approaches to medical problems as opposed to good old fashioned primary health care. Why more organizations haven’t gotten on board with this is beyond me. It’s like the US insists on forcing their secondary and tertiary care focus onto places that don’t even have good health infrastructure in place, likely to get their grant funding and publish their papers with all white male authors...ok, ok, sorry, lost myself for a second. Anyway what I’m trying to say is it feels exploitative.
4) Engage governments, engage communities, be respectful and don’t propagate colonial prejudices. Where possible, address economic and social injustices contributing to poor health.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
August 8, 2025
Essential reading for anyone working in global health, to avoid the mistakes of the past
February 10, 2019
I chose this book to read because I wanted a tutorial to the field of global health, and I find that histories are interesting tutorials to subjects. The author, unknown to me, is a Johns Hopkins professor of medical history and is known for writing a work on the history of malaria.
The book meets my already-high expectations. Written well, it chronicles early attempts to control disease in "foreign" habitats. It talks about how the "white man" acted with self-interest in Panama with yellow fever and with malaria. It holds no punches about the shortcomings of global health efforts, and as a good history, it shares how more primitive early efforts evolved into greater attempts down the road.
The author's most-obvious contribution to this conversation is his insistence to examine the economic and social underpinnings of health. Long-term contributions will work along these lines. Too often, Westerners' contributions were/are focused on attacking one disease (like smallpox or malaria) and are blind to the needs of greater societal structures of healthcare. Of course, disease interventions are also necessary and can have quite an impact (e.g., with smallpox's eradication). But eradication efforts must be coupled with long-term contributions to culture and education.
Women's roles cannot be underestimated. In most of the non-Western world, women can live in an underclass without as much freedom or knowledge. Women who learn, to be frank, do not become prostitutes and can control their environment to prevent the spread of disease.
Overall, I would recommend this book for global-health reading. I plan to soon compare it with a history of public health - interventions into the lives of our own people.
The book meets my already-high expectations. Written well, it chronicles early attempts to control disease in "foreign" habitats. It talks about how the "white man" acted with self-interest in Panama with yellow fever and with malaria. It holds no punches about the shortcomings of global health efforts, and as a good history, it shares how more primitive early efforts evolved into greater attempts down the road.
The author's most-obvious contribution to this conversation is his insistence to examine the economic and social underpinnings of health. Long-term contributions will work along these lines. Too often, Westerners' contributions were/are focused on attacking one disease (like smallpox or malaria) and are blind to the needs of greater societal structures of healthcare. Of course, disease interventions are also necessary and can have quite an impact (e.g., with smallpox's eradication). But eradication efforts must be coupled with long-term contributions to culture and education.
Women's roles cannot be underestimated. In most of the non-Western world, women can live in an underclass without as much freedom or knowledge. Women who learn, to be frank, do not become prostitutes and can control their environment to prevent the spread of disease.
Overall, I would recommend this book for global-health reading. I plan to soon compare it with a history of public health - interventions into the lives of our own people.
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews