Political Science in Global Health - Call for Papers #globalhealth

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Special Issue, “Political Science in Global Health”- Call for Papers

– SEPTEMBER 3, 2014POSTED IN: UNCATEGORIZED

“Political Science in Global Health”
Special Issue of Global Health Governance

Guest Editor:
Eduardo J. Gómez, PhD
King’s College London

The application of political science theory and method to the study of global health is a
relatively new area of scholarly research. While political scientists have a long track record
of studying the health policy-making process in the United States and other advanced
industrialized nations, political scientists have only recently investigated the international
and domestic politics of health policy change in developing nations and multilateral
organizations (e.g., the United Nations and the World Bank). In recent years, other political
scientists have explored the domestic and international security aspects of global health.
This recent interest is mainly reflective of the fact that in the field of Comparative Politics
and International Relations, health politics and policy have not been at the forefront of
scholarly research; rather, and understandably so, the study of comparative
democratization, electoral systems, ethnic and social conflict in the field of Comparative
Politics, as well as international security, inter-state negotiations and conflict in
International Relations has been of greater concern. And yet, recent seminal contributions
to the field of comparative and international health politics and policy have kindled political
scientists’ interests in the topic.

The goal of this special issue of Global Health Governance is to analyze the progress that the
political science community has made in the area of global health governance, to explain
why political scientists should be interested in this field, and to consider new areas of
scholarly research.

This series also strives to underscore the importance of undertaking multidisciplinary
research in global health. Of particular importance is addressing the sustained divide
between the political science and public health communities. Some political scientists for
example are concerned about lack of interest in political science approaches to global health
in mainstream public health journals. On the other hand, we wish to address why political
scientists have failed to engage the public health scholarly community and other broader
global health forums.

With this in mind, this special series seeks submissions of research articles addressing the
following two themes and questions:

I. Where are we? And why does global health matter?

For this section of the special series, scholars will address the progress that the
political science community has made in better explaining and understanding international and domestic health politics and policy. For example, articles may
address the following research questions:

a) What new insights have been achieved through the application of
political science theory to global health research?

b) What new empirical challenges and needs have been raised through this
approach to global health?

c) What may be the limitations of the political science approach and how
can other theoretical/methodological approaches be combined with political
science to better understand and explain global health politics/policy?

II. Exploring New Areas of Scholarly Research

In this section, scholars will submit articles addressing new areas of research in
the fields of political science and global health. For example, some may wish to
explore the processes of government response to neglected diseases, such as
cancer, diabetes, malnutrition, obesity, as well as areas of controversial scientific
inquiry, such as stem cell research. Alternatively, some may be interested in
proposing new comparative methodologies and/or theories for better analyzing
the international and domestic politics of global health. Authors may consider
one or more health issues as well as one or more country case studies.

Those interested in contributing must submit abstracts to the guest editor Eduardo J.
Gómez (Eduardo.gomez@kcl.ac.uk) and cc (ghgovernance@gmail.com) by October 1, 2014.
The guest editor will review the abstracts and make decisions by October 15. Authors
whose abstracts are accepted will be invited to submit full manuscripts, which are due by
February 15, 2015. The manuscripts must be uploaded on the Global Health Governance
submission website, which can be found at the following website:
http://mc04.manuscriptcentral.com/ghgj

When submitting your abstracts, please make sure to indicate that you are submitting it to a
special GHG journal series, by including in the subject line “Political Science and Global
Health Special GHG Journal Series.”

Please limit the word count of your submission to 3,000-5,000 words. After the February 15
deadline, all manuscripts will be internally reviewed. Those articles selected will then be
sent out for peer review. Authors will be notified of a decision by April 1, 2015. Revisions to
manuscripts will need to be sent back by May 1, with the goal of publishing the articles in
June, 2015.

If you have any further questions, please contact the Guest Editor for this special series at
Eduardo.gomez@kcl.ac.uk.

Very best wishes and we look forward to receiving your submission.

Marmot: Policy Making With Health Equity at Its Heart

From current issue of JAMA.

Viewpoint | May 16, 2012

Policy Making With Health Equity at Its Heart

Michael G. Marmot, FRCP
Author Affiliation: UCL Institute of Health Equity, University College London, London, England.

In India, there is a cabinet minister for social justice. Would that it were catching, and spread to all government ministers. What a thought: social justice at the heart of all government policy. It would be a radical change from the current set of arrangements, in which many governments are unashamed apostles of self-interest—of their countries, of their partisan supporters or, indeed, of self-interest as a political creed. Given the link between social and economic policy and the health of populations, all ministers should see themselves as ministers of health. Putting these arguments—health and social justice—together implies that health equity should be at the heart of all policy making, national and global.

Economic and financial issues have been dominating global policy making. Health and inequalities in health should feature more strongly. This should be done not to enable physicians or ministers of health to have greater authority, but because economic and social developments have profound effects on health inequalities. Moreover, so crucial are economic and social policy decisions for health and the fair distribution of health, health equity should be an important measure of the effectiveness of social and economic policy making. Progress toward achievement of health equity is a measure of success.

I use the term health equity to have a specific meaning: systematic inequalities in health between social groups that are deemed to be avoidable by reasonable means.1 Therefore any policies that retard action to reduce these avoidable health inequalities are unfair.

Global and national health inequities are substantial—life expectancy varies by almost 40 years between countries. Within countries, too, there are dramatic differences. In the London borough of Westminster, for example, there is a 17-year gap in male life expectancy between the most and least advantaged.2 These inequalities in health within rich countries emphasize that the problem is not simply with the ill-health effects of destitution—serious as they are. More than 40% of the world's population live on US $2 per day or less.3 Few Londoners live on so little, yet there is a stark social gradient in health—the higher the position in the social hierarchy, the better the health. In middle- and low-income countries, similarly, ill-health is not confined to those worst off but there are marked social gradients in health. The implications of the gradient are profound. It means that attention should be focused not only on reduction of poverty, but on improving social and economic conditions across the whole of society to reduce health inequities.

The World Health Organization's Commission on Social Determinants of Health (CSDH) in its report, Closing the Gap in a Generation, stated that such inequities result from inequities in power, money, and resources; a toxic combination of unfair economic arrangements, poor policies and programs, and bad governance are responsible for most of the health inequities in the world.4 In other words, although traditionally efforts to prevent ill health have focused on causes—such as inadequacies in sanitation, nutrition, and shelter in deprived populations, and on unhealthy environments and behaviors among those not deprived—focus should shift to the causes of the causes.

Putting health equity at the heart of policy making is not as utopian as it sounds. The conclusions of the CSDH are that health and health equity are determined by the conditions in which people are born, grow, live, work, and age, and the structural drivers of those conditions. All of these are influenced by economic and social policy. There is fierce debate over economic policy in the face of huge debts faced by rich countries. On one side, the Keynesians argue that to reduce government deficits, a country needs economic growth. On the other side, the notion of expansionary fiscal contraction argues that economic growth will not return until the deficit is reduced by strong fiscal austerity. There are Nobel laureates in economics on the Keynesian side and esteemed economists on the expansionary fiscal contraction side. The criterion of success seems to be return to growth of GDP. This is wholly unsatisfactory. An alternative worthy of consideration is the report of the Commission on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress (established by the French government and led by Joseph E. Stiglitz, Amartya Sen, and Jean-Paul Fitoussi) that argues for broader measures of social and economic progress than simply GDP.5 Following the commission, I propose that there be examination of the effects of economic policy choices on the lives people are able to lead, and hence the likely effect on health equity.

All over Europe, governments are pursuing the deficit reduction alternative. The result of this economic experiment is great physical and mental illness and possibly death. Fiscal austerity leads to unemployment and unemployment leads people to take their own lives,6 among other health disbenefits. In Greece and Spain, more than 1 person in 5 is unemployed. There is evidence that government social spending can mitigate the effects of unemployment on suicide,7 but the governments of Greece and other European countries are being instructed that the price of debt relief is cutting government spending.

Thus, there is a set of policies in place that, predictably, will increase unemployment and damage health. The Greek population is not pleased by this, judging by recent street demonstrations. A German finance minister mused that it might be a good idea to postpone national elections in Greece to avoid derailing the austerity policies.8 Depriving the population of their democratic rights should not be among the solutions to the Greek crisis.

The CSDH places empowerment at the heart of its policy recommendations to enhance health equity globally: empowerment of individuals, communities, and nations. By having material and social resources to have control over their lives, people can lead lives of dignity. To achieve empowerment, there are recommendations on early child development, education, employment and working conditions, health systems, healthy living places, gender equity, market regulations, and fair financing.

Pursuing policies that create unemployment and reduce social protection makes it far less likely that people can lead lives of dignity. When governments cut social expenditures, the effect is greatest on those at the lower end of the social hierarchy, those who are most dependent on cash and in-kind government expenditures. It should be of the highest priority to ensure that government policies do not unfairly increase avoidable health inequalities.

What applies to policies of governments should also apply to global decision making whether on trade, overseas development assistance, or financial flows—put health equity at the heart of all policy making.

AUTHOR INFORMATION
Corresponding Author: Michael G. Marmot, FRCP, UCL Institute of Health Equity, University College London, 1-19 Torrington Pl, London WC1E 6BT, England (m.marmot@ucl.ac.uk).

Conflict of Interest Disclosures: The author has completed and submitted the ICMJE Form for Disclosure of Potential Conflicts of Interest and none were reported.

REFERENCES
1
Marmot M, Allen J, Bell R, Goldblatt P. Building of the global movement for health equity: from Santiago to Rio and beyond. Lancet. 2012;379(9811):181-188
PubMed
2
London Health Observatory. Marmot indicators for local authorities in England, 2012. http://www.lho.org.uk/LHO_Topics/national_lead_areas/marmot/marmotindicators.aspx. Accessibility verified April 23, 2012
3
Chen S, Ravallion M. An Update to the World Bank's Estimates of Consumption Povery in the Developing World: Briefing Note. Washington, DC: Development Research Group, World Bank; 2012
4
Commission on Social Determinants of Health. Closing the Gap in a Generation: Health Equity Through Action on the Social Determinants of Health: Final Report. Geneva, Switzerland: World Health Organization; 2008
5
Stiglitz JE, Sen A, Fitoussi J-P. Report by the Commission on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress. http://www.stiglitz-sen-fitoussi.fr/en/index.htm. Accessibility verified April 23, 2012
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Stuckler D, Basu S, Suhrcke M, Coutts A, McKee M. Effects of the 2008 recession on health: a first look at European data. Lancet. 2011;378(9786):124-125
PubMed
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Stuckler D, Basu S, Suhrcke M, Coutts A, McKee M. The public health effect of economic crises and alternative policy responses in Europe: an empirical analysis. Lancet. 2009;374(9686):315-323
PubMed
8
Hope K, Spiegel P. Greek rhetoric turns into a battle of wills. Financial Times. February 16, 2012