Global health is typically defined in terms of ‘equitable’ approaches to health worldwide. However, equity has different ethical, political, cultural, and historical connotations. Some understandings of equity might not even be compatible with some of the values and principles that a ‘global’ terminology seems to presuppose. For instance, among other things, equity requires balancing one’s local or national interests with the health interests of other communities around the world. What issues are a matter of global responsibility in this sense is itself an ethical and political choice.
Different understandings of equity would give different answers. Moreover, discrimination or stigmatization, inevitably tied to cultures and histories, affect differently what counts as equitable within different contexts.
Defining global health in terms of ‘equity’ raises more questions than it provides answers on the very nature and scope of global health. Turning on ethical, political, and cultural values, such questions illustrate why the humanities can play a central role in global health. This workshop brought together expertise from philosophy, medical geography, history, and anthropology to unpack these questions.
Read more on the Oxford Research Centre in the Medical Humanities website.