Global health is political; can it also be compassionate?

• Published in: Journal of global health Vol. 9; no. 2; p. 020306
• Main Authors: Cislaghi, Beniamino, Bukuluki, Paul, Chowdhury, Mushtaque, Miranda, Angelica Espinosa, Kenny, Leah, Kohli, Anjalee, Kusumaningrum, Santi, Brah, Balkissa Harouna, Love, Catherine, Mathpati, Mahesh Madhav, Nkwi, Paul, Ona, Fernando, Porter, John, Ruiz-Casares, Mónica, Saldanha, Neela, Sulaiman, Munshi, Wessells, Mike
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Scotland Edinburgh University Global Health Society 01-12-2019
• Subjects: Child marriage; Empathy; Ethics; Food; Global Health; Health promotion; Humans; Intervention; Politics; Prevention; Public health; Researchers; Teenagers; Values; Viewpoints; United States > US; Bangladesh; Cameroon
• ISSN: 2047-2978; 2047-2986
• DOI: 10.7189/jogh.09.020306

A public health intervention would thus be justified to, for instance, try to stop people from smoking – even if that happened in private without hurting anyone else –because a national health system couldn’t afford having a large majority of the tax-paying middle-age population in hospital for the rest of their life. Most public health interventions are embedded within systems of values that affect what information and options are presented to people (for instance, suggesting condoms as a solution to the spread of HIV rather than abstinence, or vice versa), in ways that profoundly inform and even shape their decisions. Granted, the cross-cultural prevention of harmful traditional practices (such as female genital mutilation/cutting, child marriage, breast ironing or forced feeding) seems to be simpler to tackle, at least from a rights-based approach: Here, the underlining working assumption is that the people who undergo a harmful practice (the victims), if given the choice, would choose not to. Since they are victims because they are not really free, helping them become free will ensure they are not victims anymore.