Globalization and risks to health.

Every year, the same ritual takes place at changing locations in the Western world. While the heads of the eight leading industrialized nations meet at their annual G8 summit to discuss the global state of affairs, a wide variety of organizations and protesters meet in parallel to decry what they see as the negative effects of globalization. Notwithstanding these protests, whether one sees globalization as a tool to overcome poverty, hunger and disease in the world or whether one feels threatened by its consequences, one thing is certain: globalization is here to stay. Often narrowly defined as the increasing integration of the world’s economies, globalization is in reality a powerful development that presents new challenges at the beginning of this millennium. One major problem is the increasing internationalization of health risks. However defined, this term has many dimensions, including economic, technological, political, social, scientific and cultural aspects. The links between globalization and health are complex and globalization is a multifaceted phenomenon that can affect health in myriad ways. Its consequences can be either direct, at the level of whole populations, individuals and healthcare delivery systems, or indirect, through the economy and other factors, such as education, sanitation and water supply (Woodward et al, 2001). Given the enormous complexity and breadth of the issues, our article cannot hope to cover the entire range of topics that link globalization to health. Instead, we focus on those risks to health and health care that are related to central aspects of the globalization process, namely trade, travel and exchange of information.