Health and security in foreign policy.

Introduction Historically, health has occupied the lower echelons of national priorities. Over the past decade, however, national policy-makers have increasingly recognized the deleterious impacts that health crises may have on national interests. As a result, particular health issues occasionally have been elevated within national agendas, especially if they have implications for foreign policy and/or they are perceived as threats to national security. Identifying a health issue as a foreign policy or security issue, or both, may lead to higher prioritization and more attention from top policy-makers, in turn, bringing greater political support and more funding.1 While health professionals may welcome the higher profile and greater resources given to their issues, characterizing a health issue as a national priority (and particularly as a security issue) may change the understanding of a health threat, put relatively greater emphasis on the views of those outside the health community and potentially alter the approach to solving the problem. Consequently, care should be taken in deciding which health issues should be given priority on par with national security issues and included explicitly in national foreign policy. We support the assertion that “[w]hile it is clear that health issues often intersect with security issues, not all health challenges represent security concerns”.2 Health issues that do not pose security threats should not be contextualized as such, since doing so may detract from overarching public health and foreign policy objectives. At the same time, however, we believe that efforts to address all types of health issues through foreign policy contribute to overall improvements in diplomatic relations, which may enhance the security of countries.