Guest Blogger Questions Whether Global Health Research Perpetuates Disparities

In a Humanosphere guest post, Johanna Crane, a medical anthropologist and assistant professor at the University of Washington, writes, “…As interest in and funding for global health exploded, American universities have seen a proliferation of programs, institutes, and departments dedicated to ‘global health.’ Hundreds of U.S. (not to mention Canadian) institutions are now competing for research and training sites in low-income countries, especially in Africa. In some ways, these efforts bring helpful resources to underfunded health care systems, but at the same time they generate a ‘scramble’ for desirable — read: poor — research and clinical sites where Americans can go to ‘do’ global health. In short, global health needs inequality, even values it, in a way that deeply troubles the field’s defining goal of redressing global health disparities…” (2/20).

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