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Health in foreign policy

Section Editor: Arne Ruckert, University of Ottawa, Canada
Deputy Section Editors: Raphael Lencucha, McGill University, Canada and Nicole Bergen, University of Ottawa, Canada

A new area of research, sometimes described as ‘global health diplomacy,’ examines how health becomes a priority within a country’s foreign policy deliberations, how this prioritization then affects debates and decisions at a global scale, and finally how global agreements (such as norms, declarations, and conventions), both inside and outside the realm of health, affect a country’s domestic policy environment and decision-making processes with ramifications for health. At its core is how intergovernmental negotiations shape international and national decision making on health issues, how formal and informal health diplomacy is carried out and by whom, and how such actions have demonstrable health (and policy) impacts. Papers submitted under this topic will explore governments’ health and foreign policy positions, processes of intergovernmental negotiations, coherence (or incoherence) between differing foreign policy goals, and how different global health actors work to place health higher as both a domestic and foreign policy priority.

  1. Vaccination can reduce antibiotic use by decreasing bacterial and viral infections and vaccines are highlighted in the WHO Global Action Plan on Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) as an infection prevention measur...

    Authors: Lotte van Heuvel, Saverio Caini, Michel L. A. Dückers and John Paget
    Citation: Globalization and Health 2022 18:85
  2. The spread of COVID-19 has taken a toll on many countries and its healthcare system over the last two years. Governments have sought to mitigate the repercussions of the pandemic by implementing aggressive top...

    Authors: Soojin Kim, Yuki Goh and Jun Hong Brandon Kang
    Citation: Globalization and Health 2022 18:82
  3. A challenging concept to teach, few combined courses on epidemic-related global health diplomacy and security exist, and no known courses are currently available that have been exclusively designed for African...

    Authors: Sebastian Kevany, Shayanne Martin and Mike Reid
    Citation: Globalization and Health 2022 18:56
  4. In 2021, donor countries, the pharmaceutical industry, and the COVAX initiative promoted vaccine donation or “dose-sharing” as a main solution to the inequitable global distribution of Covid-19 vaccines. COVAX...

    Authors: Antoine de Bengy Puyvallée and Katerini Tagmatarchi Storeng
    Citation: Globalization and Health 2022 18:26
  5. Global health diplomacy (GHD) focuses on the actions taken by diverse stakeholders from different nations –governments, multilateral agents, and civil society– to phenomena that can affect population health an...

    Authors: German Guerra, Emanuel Orozco, Paulina Jiménez, Arne Ruckert, Ronald Labonté and Nelly Salgado de Snyder
    Citation: Globalization and Health 2021 17:137
  6. The International Health Regulations (IHR) are a legally binding instrument designed to improve Global Health Security by limiting the cross boarder spread of health risks. All 196 signatories to the IHR (2005...

    Authors: Ahmed Razavi, Samuel Collins, Anne Wilson and Ebere Okereke
    Citation: Globalization and Health 2021 17:69
  7. Noncommunicable diseases (NCDs), including mental health, have become a major concern in low- and middle-income countries. Despite increased attention to them over the past decade, progress toward addressing N...

    Authors: Kanykey Jailobaeva, Jennifer Falconer, Giulia Loffreda, Stella Arakelyan, Sophie Witter and Alastair Ager
    Citation: Globalization and Health 2021 17:68
  8. The 2005 International Health Regulations (IHR (2005)) require States Parties to establish National Focal Points (NFPs) responsible for notifying the World Health Organization (WHO) of potential events that mi...

    Authors: Corinne Packer, Sam F. Halabi, Helge Hollmeyer, Salima S. Mithani, Lindsay Wilson, Arne Ruckert, Ronald Labonté, David P. Fidler, Lawrence O. Gostin and Kumanan Wilson
    Citation: Globalization and Health 2021 17:25
  9. Although the main aims of sanctions are the political and economic pressures on governments, literature has demonstrated the harsh effects of sanctions on the general public, especially on the patients, poor a...

    Authors: Saeed Shahabi, Ahmad Ahmadi Teymourlouy, Hosein Shabaninejad, Mohammad Kamali, Kamran Bagheri Lankarani and Parviz Mojgani
    Citation: Globalization and Health 2020 16:86
  10. The prevention and control of noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) are one of the main challenges of healthcare systems around the world. In addition to the technical level, it requires political negotiations and s...

    Authors: Mahnaz Afshari, Ahmad Ahmadi Teymourlouy, Mohsen Asadi-Lari and Mohammadreza Maleki
    Citation: Globalization and Health 2020 16:41
  11. Achieving maternal health outcomes in the SDGs requires the implementation of more targeted policies and strategies. While the MDGs may have deepened our understanding in this regard, we know little about the ...

    Authors: Kilian Nasung Atuoye, Ethel Barnes, Melissa Lee and Lily Ziyue Zhang
    Citation: Globalization and Health 2020 16:40
  12. In 2018, the Australian Government, through a Senate-led Parliamentary Inquiry, sought the views of diverse stakeholders on Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) implementation both domestically and as part of Au...

    Authors: Claire E. Brolan, Christopher A. McEwan and Peter S. Hill
    Citation: Globalization and Health 2019 15:66
  13. Global health diplomacy (GHD) has become an important field of investigation due to health concerns increasingly entering the foreign policy domain. Much of the existing academic writing focuses on North-South...

    Authors: Jorge Ramírez, Leonel Valdivia, Elena Rivera, Marilia da Silva Santos, Dino Sepúlveda, Ronald Labonté and Arne Ruckert
    Citation: Globalization and Health 2018 14:108