GLOBAL HEALTH ACTION COMMITTEE

What is Global Health

Global health is “the area of study, research and practice that places a priority on improving health and achieving equity in health for all people worldwide” (The Lancet).

“a concept fabricated by developed countries to explain what is regular practice in developing nations.” (The Consortium of Universities for Global Health (CUGH)

At its core, global health is a constantly evolving general guiding principle, an organizing framework for thinking and action, with a vision of a world with equitable access to health and wellbeing for all. This interdisciplinary framework incorporates not just medicine but human rights, environmental science, public health, economics, and more.

AMSA’s Global Health Team

The Global Health (GH) Action Committee executes AMSA’s programming and advocacy efforts in the many interconnected issues global health envelops.

This year, the Global Health team will focus on promoting ethics in global health practices and raising awareness on opportunities available in global health to members at all areas of their training – pre-medical, medical, and residents. We hope to increase student involvement in global health while staying true to the oath we all take – to do no harm.

De-Colonizing Global Health

Global Health has become increasingly popular with undergraduate, medical schools and residency programs increasing global health training opportunities.

Unfortunately, there is a lot wrong with how global health is designed, structured, taught, and practiced.
The decolonization of global health (DGH) must address colonialism including white supremacy, racism, sexism and capitalism. What DGH means and how it is to be carried out means something different to everyone depending on where they stand and from the position they speak.

According to Seye Abimbola, a global health professor at the University of Sydney it is not “possible or advisable to see ‘decolonizing global health’ as one movement. It is such a complex mission, a complex term; in fact, a combination of terms, each with several moving parts ‘decolonizing’ and ‘global health’ that it is impossible for people who use them to mean one or the same thing. I hope we can be comfortable with that.”

Students must demand that their schools offer Global Health curriculum that is critical, and grounded in historical, anti-colonial, and political perspectives.

Will global health survive its decolonisation? (The Lancet 2020)

Decolonizing Global Health: A Moment To Reflect On A Movement (Forbes 2021)

Wellcome’s anti-racist principles, guidance and toolkit

The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House by Audre Lorde

Decolonising Humanitarianism or Humanitarian Aid? (PLOS BLOGS: Speaking of Medicine and Health, 2021)

CUGH Global Health Competency Subcommittee of the Education Committee
Global Health Competencies Toolkit