the global health agenda has been dominating the current global health policy debate. furthermore, it has compelled countries to embrace strategies for tackling health inequalities in a wide range of public health areas. the article by robert and colleagues highlights that although globalization has increased opportunities to share and spread ideas, there is still great asymmetry of power accor...

it is difficult to disagree with the general argument that successful health reform requires a significant degree of policy capacity or that all players in the policy game need to move beyond self-interested advocacy. however, an overly broad definition of policy capacity is a problem. more important perhaps, health reform inevitably requires not just policy capacity but political leadership an...

let us start with an example of health policy analysis in action. within that category of countries loosely known as ‘the west’, quite basic differences exist in attitudes to health policy and also actual health policy. comparing the us with mainland europe and indeed canada, for example, one perceives a difference in attitude on the part of the majority towards collectivism and individualism i...

actors working in global health often portray it as an enterprise grounded in principled concerns, advanced by individuals and organizations who draw on scientific evidence to pursue health equity. this portrait is incomplete. it is also a field of power relations—a social arena in which actors claim and draw on expertise and moral authority to gain influence and pursue career, organizational a...

The Nation’s poor have been a recurring issue in the body politic. Sometimes it has been in response to widespread distress, as in the Great Depression that helped launch Social Security, federally aided public assistance, and unemployment insurance. On other occasions, as in 1964, it has been the anomaly of that “other America” in the midst of plenty that commanded attention. Apparently the ri...

in this comment, i build on shiffman’s call for the global health community to more deeply investigate structural and productive power. i highlight two challenges we must grapple with as social scientists carrying out the types of investigation that shiffman proposes: the politics of  challenging the powerful; and the need to investigate types of expertise that have traditionally been thought o...

public health ethics is a field that covers both factual and ethical issues in health policy and science, and has positive obligations to improve the well-being of populations and reduce social inequalities. it is obvious that various philosophies and moral theories can differently shape the framework of public health ethics. for this reason, the present study reviewed theories of justice in or...

a recent editorial by naoki ikegami has proposed three key lessons from japan’s experience of achieving virtually universal coverage with primary healthcare services: the need to integrate the existing providers of primary healthcare services into the organised health system; the need to limit government commitments to finance hospital services and the need to empower providers of primary healt...

In light of the World Health Organization's declaration that non-dependent drinking contributes more to the global burden of alcohol-related disease than does drinking by those who meet diagnostic criteria for dependence, this paper argues that clinicians, researchers and decision-makers need to consider microsocial and macrosocial impacts of alcohol use, not just addiction and clinical effects...