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Vol. 32, 2010
DOI: 10.1093/epirev/mxq006
Advance Access publication:
April 27, 2010
Global Health and Foreign Policy
Harley Feldbaum*, Kelley Lee, and Joshua Michaud
* Correspondence to Dr. Harley Feldbaum, Global Health and Foreign Policy Initiative, Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced
International Studies, Johns Hopkins University, 1717 Massachusetts Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20036 (e-mail:
[email protected]).
Accepted for publication March 10, 2010.
Health has long been intertwined with the foreign policies of states. In recent years, however, global health
issues have risen to the highest levels of international politics and have become accepted as legitimate issues in
foreign policy. This elevated political priority is in many ways a welcome development for proponents of global
health, and it has resulted in increased funding for and attention to select global health issues. However, there has
been less examination of the tensions that characterize the relationship between global health and foreign policy
and of the potential effects of linking global health efforts with the foreign-policy interests of states. In this paper, the
authors review the relationship between global health and foreign policy by examining the roles of health across 4
major components of foreign policy: aid, trade, diplomacy, and national security. For each of these aspects of
foreign policy, the authors review current and historical issues and discuss how foreign-policy interests have aided
or impeded global health efforts. The increasing relevance of global health to foreign policy holds both opportunities
and dangers for global efforts to improve health.
commerce; disease outbreaks; economics; health policy; international cooperation; public health; security
measures; world health
Abbreviations: AIDS, acquired immune deficiency syndrome; FCTC, Framework Convention on Tobacco Control; GATT, General
Agreement on Tariffs and Trade; HIV, human immunodeficiency virus; IHRs, International Health Regulations; SARS, severe
acute respiratory syndrome; TRIPS, Agreement on Trade-Related Intellectual Property Rights; WHO, World Health Organization.
broader issue of understanding the relationship between
global health and foreign policy, are the subject of this review.
INTRODUCTION
Global health issues have long been a concern for foreignpolicy-makers. From sanitary cordons instituted to prevent
plague from entering Croatia’s Dalmatian Coast to the
international sanitary conventions, which began in 1851,
to the victories over malaria and yellow fever that permitted
the construction of the strategic Panama Canal, health and
disease have been intertwined with the pursuit of foreignpolicy interests. However, over the last 2 decades, globalization has made global health more relevant across multiple
aspects of foreign policy than ever before. Fidler calls this
a ‘‘revolution’’ in the political status of global health, noting
that ‘‘nothing in the prior history of national and international efforts on public health compares to the political
status public health has reached today’’ (1, p. 45).
While the global health community has welcomed this
elevated political priority, there has been less examination
of why states incorporate global health into their foreignpolicy agendas or what interests states pursue when they
engage on global health issues. These questions, and the
Theoretical perspectives on global health and foreign
policy
In an insightful examination of this subject, Fidler (2) suggests 3 possible interpretations of global health’s rise onto
foreign-policy agendas. The first interpretation argues that
global health is an important objective of foreign policy in
itself, and that ‘‘health has become a preeminent political
value for 21st century humanity’’ (2, p. 183). This perspective
concludes that global health can transform the state interests
that have historically defined foreign policy. Echoing this
position, Kickbusch et al. write that ‘‘foreign policy is now
being driven substantially by health’’ (3, p. 971), and Horton
suggests that health can move ‘‘foreign policy away from a debate about interests to one about global altruism’’ (4, p. 807).
Fidler’s second perspective views global health as
‘‘merely a tool, an instrument of statecraft the value of
which extends no farther than its utility in serving the
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Global Health and Foreign Policy
material interests and capabilities of the state’’ (2, p. 185).
Far from being transformational, global health is simply
another issue that foreign-policy-makers weigh against
other state interests. This perspective, based on the realist
theory of international relations, explains the recent political
prominence of global health as a result of the growing impact of disease upon traditional security concerns: ‘‘When
diseases threaten, or show the potential to threaten, national
security, military capabilities, geopolitical or regional
stability, national populations, economic power, and trade
interests, foreign policy makers take notice’’ (2, p. 184).
Fidler’s final perspective sees the relationship between
global health and foreign policy as an evolving dynamic
between foreign-policy imperatives and the science of
global health. This perspective does not discount that state
interests drive foreign policy, but it recognizes that influence
runs both ways, arguing: ‘‘Scientific principles. . . channel
action on health in specific directions that neither ideology
nor power politics can alter’’ (2, p. 186).
Methods and limitations
In this article, we examine the available literature on
global health and foreign policy for evidence supporting
1 or more of these theoretical perspectives. We review
published articles organized around 4 key dimensions in
the relationship between global health and foreign policy:
aid, trade, diplomacy, and national security. Use of these
4 dimensions, modified from Fidler’s hierarchy of foreignpolicy governance functions (5), enables a detailed study of
the relationship between global health and specific areas of
foreign-policy practice.
A limitation of this paper is that stringent selection criteria for inclusion of published articles are not useful for addressing such interdisciplinary questions. An understanding
of the relationship between global health and foreign policy
benefits from examining papers across a broad range of
public health, political science, and international relations
literature and from incorporating case studies of interactions
between global health and foreign policy that are difficult to
target with search strategies. We conducted searches in numerous databases (PubMed, MEDLINE, Social Science
Citation Index, JSTOR, EconLit, and Science Direct),
selecting articles that either directly addressed the relationship between global health and foreign policy or were case
studies of an interaction between global health and 1 or more
of the 4 dimensions of foreign policy. Thus, this paper is not
a comprehensive assessment of every published article
related to this subject; rather, we seek to provide a review
of key existing literature that illuminates the relationship
and tensions between global health and the aid, trade,
diplomacy, and national security aspects of foreign policy.
AID AND HEALTH
States engage in development assistance (including development assistance for health) for multiple reasons and
with differing levels of commitment, but there is typically
an explicit or implicit recognition of the value of such assistance to countries’ foreign-policy objectives (6, 7). In
Epidemiol Rev 2010;32:82–92
83
1961, when US President John F. Kennedy created the US
Agency for International Development, he explicitly acknowledged the US security interest in providing aid to ward
off the collapse of developing-country governments, which
‘‘would be disastrous to our national security, harmful to our
comparative prosperity, and offensive to our conscience’’
(8). The United States and other countries continue to frame
development aid in a foreign-policy context by linking aid to
national security and economic interests (9, 10).
The foreign-policy rationale for aid has been clearly reflected in historical trends in development assistance. Since
the end of World War II, large donor states have tended to
focus bilateral and multilateral aid to support countries
judged to be strategically linked to national security and
economic interests (11–18). The basic institutional architecture for multilateral development aid—the World Bank, the
International Monetary Fund, and the United Nations, along
with specialized United Nations agencies such as the World
Health Organization (WHO)—were created after World
War II with the immediate goal of rebuilding and modernizing war-damaged societies and safeguarding the security
of Western powers (19). Between the 1960s and the 1980s,
aid from the United States and other Western countries ‘‘reflected anti-communist Cold War tensions’’ and focused on
‘‘containing Soviet influence in Latin America, Southeast
Asia, and Africa’’ (20, p. 2). Promises of substantial US aid
packages to Egypt and Israel facilitated their signing of the
1978 Camp David peace agreement, and since 1978 these
2 countries have ranked at the top of the list of recipients of
US foreign assistance (21, 22). The top 6 recipients of US
aid in 2008 were (in descending order) Israel, Afghanistan,
Egypt, Jordan, Pakistan, and Iraq, indicating a clear preference for aiding strategically important partners instead of
the poorest states (20).
Development assistance for health
Development assistance for health has generally followed
the same trends as overall development assistance, but it is
worthwhile to note 3 key, recent trends: the dramatic increase in funding, the growing number of actors and institutions, and the overwhelming focus on a single health
condition, human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)/acquired
immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) (23, 24).
According to 1 estimate, development assistance for
health increased 4-fold from 1990 to 2007, from $5.6 billion
to $21.8 billion per year, with more than half of this increase
coming after 2000 (25). This represents a change from
previous decades, which were characterized by low,
stagnant levels of health assistance (26). This increasing
volume of aid comes from and is funneled through an ever
more complex set of actors: In a 2008 article, McColl (27)
estimated that there are more than 40 bilateral donors,
26 United Nations agencies, 20 global and regional funding
mechanisms, and 90 distinct initiatives involved in development assistance for health.
Efforts to fight HIV/AIDS received most of the increased
development assistance for health. International resources
for HIV/AIDS grew from a relatively paltry $292 million in
1996 to over $10 billion in 2007, quadrupling from 2001 to
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Feldbaum et al.
2007 alone (28, 29). While HIV/AIDS support drew just 5%
of all development assistance for health in 1998, by 2007 it
constituted 47% of all development assistance for health
(30). This trend is likely to continue: The Obama administration’s proposed global health budget dedicates fully 70%
of US official development assistance for health to HIV/
AIDS (31). It is worth noting that while the growth in US
development assistance for health increased an impressive
208% between 2001 and 2007, it was eclipsed by the growth
in aid for government/civil society/democratization efforts
(often highly linked to foreign-policy objectives), which
grew 260% during the same period (32).
Foreign policy links to development assistance for
health trends
Foreign-policy considerations underlie much of the remarkable growth in development assistance for health, from
rising concerns about the national security and economic
implications of health disparities to the perception of health
assistance as an important ‘‘soft power’’ tool, to shifting
domestic political perceptions of global health issues
(33, 34). In some cases, development assistance for health
has been clearly and directly linked to national security.
Since 2001, many donors have supported ‘‘health security’’
aid to reduce the threat of natural and intentional outbreaks
of infectious diseases (35–37). For example, aid for international influenza surveillance and pandemic planning and
response programs was virtually nonexistent prior to the
emergence the H5N1 avian influenza virus, but with the
growing perception that an influenza pandemic presents
a direct security threat (38), more than $2 billion was provided to combat the disease between 2004 and 2008 (39).
Other development assistance for health efforts is linked
in a more indirect fashion to foreign policy and national
security goals. Iraq, for example, received the greatest share
of health-related development assistance of any country in
the North Africa/Middle East region during 2002–2004, reflecting US and European interests in using health as part of
its effort to foster a stable, pro-Western government there
(40). Still other development assistance for health programs
has been justified on the basis of the relatively intangible
benefits it provides, such as increased goodwill or trustbuilding. For instance, the US President’s Emergency Plan
for AIDS Relief has been touted as promoting positive views
of the United States on the African continent (41, 42).
Foreign-policy extensions of domestic political priorities
have also shaped development assistance for health.
Perlman and Roy observed that ‘‘the orientation of [development assistance for health] had been heavily influenced
by political changes in the United States and Great Britain’’
(7, p. 14). For example, during the conservative Thatcher
(United Kingdom) and Reagan (United States) administrations, funding for family planning and social services was
cut sharply to reflect these governments’ priorities. The
President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, the largest
bilateral health aid program ever, had origins rooted in
US domestic politics, as President George W. Bush proposed the program partly in response to lobbying from his
political base (43).
Foreign policy and development assistance for health
The character and amount of development assistance
for health has major implications for the health of populations in poor countries, because external donor support
can comprise a large percentage of their health spending
(28, 44). This makes development assistance for health
that is guided more by donor interests than by scientific
evidence or the priorities of recipients a concern for global
health proponents (45). While there is some evidence of
increasing correlation between development assistance
and recipient countries’ overall burdens of disease (25),
multiple studies demonstrate a continuing and significant
disconnect between aid and the burden of health conditions, including maternal mortality (46) and malaria (47),
and the disability-adjusted life years measure (48). However, even in cases where development assistance for
health has been driven primarily by narrow foreign-policy
concerns, health benefits can be realized; for example, US
health aid for Egypt, an integral part of US Middle East
policy, has helped the country achieve dramatic declines
in child mortality (49). Thus, foreign policy’s powerful
influence on development assistance for health leaves
many pressing global health battles underresourced but
allows global health efforts that do align with foreignpolicy interests to receive significant political support
and funding.
TRADE AND HEALTH
The relationship between trade and health forms part of
a long history of commercial exchange between human
societies, dating from the 19th century BC through the
extension of trade to India and China along the Silk Road
and the expansion of trade by sea from the 15th century
onward (50, 51). As trade has evolved in geographic reach,
scale, mode, and type of commodity, so too have the human
health implications. Most directly, the coming together of
human populations through trade can spread communicable
diseases, and commodities exchanged also have the potential to harm (e.g., tobacco) or promote (e.g., fruits and
vegetables) health.
Since 1945, the world trading system has expanded rapidly. Built on the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade
(GATT) signed in 1947 and expanded through the creation
of the World Trade Organization in 1995, the world trading
system has grown from 23 member states to 153. Today,
the World Trade Organization oversees the implementation
of more than 20 trade agreements covering a vast range of
trade matters, including agriculture, trade in services, and
trade-related intellectual property rights. There is also
a growing number of regional and bilateral trade agreements (52). With this growth has come tensions in the
trade-and-health relationship due to frequent conflict between economic interests and global health goals (53).
Here, we examine these tensions by reviewing trends in
trade in health-related goods and services and the broader
effects that traded goods and services can have on health
and disease.
Epidemiol Rev 2010;32:82–92
Global Health and Foreign Policy
Trade of health-related goods and services
Trade in health-related goods, such as pharmaceutical
agents, medicinal products, biologic agents, and medical
or surgical equipment and appliances, has grown rapidly
since the 1990s, notably in the Americas (54). While the
GATT sets out rules to facilitate the trade of health-related
goods, notably through tariff reductions and nondiscriminatory treatment, health-related goods are recognized as requiring specific provisions given the need for stringent
quality standards. Insufficient regulation of blood products,
for example, led to the inadvertent trade-facilitated transmission of HIV/AIDS and hepatitis C (55).
Another key issue in the trade of health-related goods is
the health impact of standardizing patent rights under the
Agreement on Trade-Related Intellectual Property Rights
(TRIPS). Given concerns that patent-protected drugs would
be too expensive for the world’s poor, the Declaration on the
TRIPS Agreement and Public Health (known as the Doha
Declaration) affirmed in 2001 the right of World Trade Organization member states to interpret and implement TRIPS
in a manner that supports public health and, in particular,
access to medicines (as permitted under GATT Article
XX[b]) (56). A clarification in 2003 specified when countries can import drugs produced elsewhere under a mechanism known as ‘‘compulsory licensing’’ (57). Despite the
World Trade Organization’s claim that the Doha Declaration
removed the ‘‘final patent obstacle to cheap drug imports’’
(58, p. 1), the limited capacity of developing states to
actually implement the available flexibilities, especially
given the stricter protections found in many bilateral and
regional trade agreements (known as ‘‘TRIPSþ’’ measures),
demonstrates the power of economic interests over public
health considerations (59). The WHO has convened an
Intergovernmental Working Group on Public Health, Innovation and Intellectual Property Rights to seek an international agreement to balance innovation and access to
medicines, but agreement has remained elusive and negotiations continue (60, 61).
Public health advocates argue that trade in goods with the
potential to harm, such as arms, tobacco, and toxic and
hazardous waste (known as ‘‘public bads’’), should be restricted and that such goods should not be included in trade
liberalization efforts (62, 63). However, such arguments
have been successfully opposed by the industries behind
such trade, often with the support of major governments,
in order to protect their economic interests.
Countries also increasingly trade in health services, traditionally regarded as nontradable, as a result of advances in
information and communication technologies, increased international mobility of service providers and patients, and
growing participation by the private sector in health care
(64). Under the World Trade Organization’s General Agreement on Trade in Services, trade of health services is categorized under 4 modes: cross-border delivery of samples or
services, consumption of health services abroad, establishment of health facilities by a foreign-based concern, and
movement of health personnel across borders (65, 66).
While the extent to which trade occurs varies across these
modes, there is a general trend towards increased trade in
Epidemiol Rev 2010;32:82–92
85
health services (67, 68). There are potential opportunities
arising from such trade, including efficiency, specialization
and quality gains, public sector cost savings, expansion of
service provision, export revenues and remittances, transfer
of technology and skills, and increased patient choice. The
risks concern distributive consequences for domestic
patients and the possible ‘‘brain drain’’ of health professionals from resource-scarce countries (69).
Health impact of trade policies
There is a broad body of literature on the health effects of
trade in non-health-related goods and services. Trade of
food has received particular attention, especially with regard
to issues such as access to an appropriate quantity (underand overnutrition) and quality of food, factors that influence
eating habits, and broader environmental issues (70). The
regulatory framework for trade of food is focused on the
World Trade Organization’s Agreement on the Application
of Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures and the Codex
Alimentarius Commission. Both, along with GATT Article
XX(b), are concerned with preventing the spread of foodborne diseases while minimizing the required restrictions on
trade, but application of restrictions is often controversial
(71). For example, the appropriateness of trade restrictions
on beef from countries affected by bovine spongiform encephalopathy, such as the United Kingdom, Canada, and the
United States, on the grounds of protecting public health has
been subject to ongoing dispute (72). Similar disputes over
the public health risks of trade in poultry products (H5N1),
apples (due to fire blight), and genetically modified organisms have highlighted the ongoing tensions between promoting trade and protecting health (73).
More broadly, unfair terms of trade and their contribution
to health inequalities within and across countries has been
the subject of scrutiny. The persistence of trade protectionism by many countries—in the form of agricultural subsidies, for instance—disadvantages low-income countries
seeking economic growth through exports (74). Economic
pressure and the desire to attract foreign direct investment
sometimes engender poor occupational and environmental
health regulations (75).
In summary, there has historically been friction between
trade and health concerns, implying a need for greater coherence between trade and health policy (76–79). While
countries have sometimes restricted trade to prevent the
spread of disease, interactions between trade and health
have generally been dominated by support for economic
interests over health concerns and by a desire to minimize
the impact of disease upon trade (80).
DIPLOMACY AND HEALTH
Diplomacy is the art and practice of conducting international relations, and it ‘‘provides one instrument that international actors use to implement their foreign policy’’ (81,
p. 318). Diplomacy has traditionally focused on dialogue
and negotiating alliances, treaties, and other agreements.
However, recent usage of the term ‘‘health diplomacy’’
has encompassed not only international agreements on
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Feldbaum et al.
health but also efforts to promote the role of global health in
foreign policy, as well as the use of health interventions to
support foreign-policy objectives.
International agreements and treaty-making
The origins of modern health diplomacy can be traced to
1851, when the first International Sanitary Conference met
to discuss cooperation on cholera, plague, and yellow fever
(82). Countries sought to meet after recognizing that the
faster movement of people by rail and ship was facilitating
the spread of disease and that uncoordinated, sometimes
ineffectual, national quarantine policies interrupted trade
and were causing discontent among merchants (82). With
the founding of the WHO after World War II, prior sanitary
agreements were folded into 1 set of regulations, the International Sanitary Conventions (later renamed the International Health Regulations (IHRs)). The new Conventions
maintained the spirit of the previous negotiations in attempting to coordinate disease control measures while ensuring
the least amount of interference with international trade.
During the final decades of the 20th century, it became
clear to many member states that the IHRs were inadequate:
The regulations covered only 3 diseases, countries were
often noncompliant, and the WHO had limited flexibility
to conduct outbreak surveillance and response (83, 84).
Even with recognition of these weaknesses, attempted revisions of the IHRs stalled until the 2002–2003 epidemic of
severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) (83). SARS
demonstrated the direct and continuing threat that transnational disease epidemics pose to health and economic interests (85) and generated the political momentum
necessary to complete the IHR revision process. In this case,
a threat to state foreign-policy interests was critical to advancing diplomacy on global health.
However, in adopting the revised IHRs, countries gave
the WHO a novel ability to intrude upon state interests,
‘‘privileg[ing] global health governance over state sovereignty’’ by allowing the use of surveillance reports from
nongovernmental organizations and electronic surveillance
systems (83, p. 90). Actions taken by certain countries during the SARS epidemic, especially China’s attempts to conceal disease information, precipitated these new WHO
powers to overcome selfish state interests. Despite this apparent victory of global health over narrow state interests,
a number of countries and commentators have argued that
the IHRs actually undervalue ‘‘equity between developed
and developing nations’’ (86, p. 482) and risk fragmentation
of poor countries’ health systems and ‘‘national health priorities set up by developing countries’’ (87, p. 13). These
objections center on the IHRs’ primary focus on disease
surveillance, which some argue may be of greater importance to wealthy countries seeking protection from new epidemics than for poor countries with large existing disease
burdens (87). Thus, ‘‘the WHO’s authority in infectious
disease control has been strengthened partly because it
suited the interests of Western states to allow this to happen’’ (88, p. 308). Whether the IHRs primarily benefit wealthy states seeking to avoid epidemics or can also address
burdens of disease in poorer countries will depend upon the
nature of future efforts to build surveillance and response
capacity in support of the IHRs.
The second critical diplomatic agreement on health was
the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC).
Approved by the World Health Assembly in 2003, the FCTC
represents the WHO’s first-ever use of its authority to create
a global health treaty to ‘‘reduce the growth and spread of
the global tobacco epidemic’’ (89, p. 936). Unlike the IHRs,
negotiation of the FCTC could not rely on the high political
priority of such efforts. The WHO’s Tobacco Free Initiative
group gathered the extensive evidence that linked smoking
to lung cancer, as well as studies on the negative economic
impact caused by tobacco, which framed the treaty in terms
of the economic self-interests of states (90). The WHO also
highlighted proven interventions that reduce tobacco consumption and formed a fruitful partnership with an effective
coalition of nongovernmental organizations called the
Framework Convention Alliance (91).
While promoters of the treaty had ambitious goals and
abundant scientific evidence to support stronger tobacco reduction policies, the treaty faced opposition from the governments of the United States, Japan, China, and Germany,
all significant tobacco or tobacco-product producers, who
succeeded in weakening the final text with flexibilities and
optional language. Assunta and Chapman conclude that the
‘‘flexibility in the FCTC language offers an ostensible
excuse for. . . parties to the Convention to avoid development of robust comprehensive tobacco control policies’’
(92, p. 755). There is also significant evidence that transnational tobacco companies sought to undermine the negotiations leading to the FCTC (93). Finally ratified in 2005,
the FCTC sets out broad obligations for reducing both
tobacco demand and tobacco production, but the weakened
language of the treaty, continuing opposition from transnational tobacco companies (94), and different levels of commitment mean that enactment of FCTC measures is still
highly variable across signatory countries.
As both the IHR and FCTC cases indicate, diplomatic
health negotiations—even those viewed as triumphs of
global health over foreign policy—are driven by state interests which can either facilitate or undermine global health
objectives.
Foreign policy for global health
Spurred by the passage of the IHRs and the FCTC and the
increasing political relevance of global health, a number of
global health practitioners have advocated for and enacted
policies seeking to apply diplomacy in the service of global
health aims. The Oslo Ministerial Declaration, advanced by
the ministers of foreign affairs of Brazil, France, Indonesia,
Norway, Senegal, South Africa, and Thailand in 2006, declares that ‘‘health as a foreign policy issue needs a stronger
strategic focus on the international agenda’’ and that these
countries have agreed ‘‘to make health a point of departure
and a defining lens that each of our countries will use to
examine key elements of foreign policy and development
strategies’’ (95, p. 1373; 96). Supporting this effort, the Director General of the WHO writes that ‘‘we need to embed
the use of the health lens in foreign policy while we have
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Global Health and Foreign Policy
this chance’’ but warns that this relationship requires ‘‘careful management for mutual benefit’’ (97, p. 498). The
United Kingdom and Switzerland have enacted national
strategies attempting to establish ‘‘policy coherence’’ between their global health and foreign policies (3, p. 971).
A number of middle-income countries, including Brazil
(98), Thailand (99), and Indonesia (86), also highlight
global health in their diplomacy. Finally, Kaufmann and
Feldbaum (100) note how diplomacy can be an essential
tool for resolving global health crises of political origins,
such as the 2003–2004 Nigerian boycott of poliomyelitis
vaccine.
The instrumental use of health for foreign policy
Not all diplomacy on health seeks to achieve global health
goals, and states are increasingly using health interventions
to support ulterior foreign-policy objectives in efforts often
termed ‘‘health diplomacy.’’ One prominent example is the
hospital ship tours of the US Naval Ships Mercy and Comfort, in which these US military assets deliver health, disaster, and humanitarian assistance to underserved
countries. These missions work to improve health but are
also driven by training needs and the intent to ‘‘win hearts
and minds through the use of health interventions’’ (101, p.
3). Broader US investments in global health are also justified
by foreign-policy interests; as a former US Senator stated,
‘‘You do not go to war with someone who has saved the life
of your child’’ (42, p. 219). The United States is not alone in
using health interventions to serve foreign-policy objectives; the Cuban health diplomacy program (102) and
Chinese health cooperation in Africa (103) are other relevant examples. Other related attempts that utilize health as
diplomatic outreach have been termed vaccine (104),
science (105, 106), and disaster (107, 108) diplomacy. Such
efforts have not been without criticism. Ingram observes
that such efforts may ultimately be ‘‘self-defeating,’’ as
‘‘it is precisely the fact that health professionals are not
associated with the policies of states that gives them wider
credibility’’ (109, p. 534).
In summary, diplomacy has been used to craft international agreements to improve global health, but state interests have been critical to either the success or obstruction of
such agreements. The increasing use of health interventions
by states in service of foreign-policy interests also confirms
the strong role of such interests in diplomacy on global
health, and will present the global health community with
ethical and policy challenges.
NATIONAL SECURITY AND HEALTH
While a number of countries have integrated human
security (with its focus on the safety and protection of
individuals rather than states) into their foreign policies
(110, 111), issues of national security remain atop the foreign-policy hierarchy (112). National security is a ‘‘contested concept’’ (113, p. 254) and has been defined both
narrowly as ‘‘the study of the threat, use, and control of
military force’’ (114, p. 212) and more broadly as an action
or event that ‘‘threatens drastically to degrade the quality of
Epidemiol Rev 2010;32:82–92
87
life for the inhabitants of a state, or. . . threatens significantly
to narrow the range of policy choices available to the government’’ (115, p. 133). Resistance to broadening the definition of national security to include public health or
environmental issues has also been apparent. Deudney argues
that ‘‘if everything that causes a decline in human well-being
is labeled a ‘security’ threat, the term loses any analytical
usefulness and becomes a loose synonym of ‘bad’ ’’
(116, p. 448).
King writes that ‘‘although often characterized as an humanitarian activity, modern public health as practiced in the
United States and other Western industrialized nations has
long been associated with the needs of national security and
international commerce’’ (117, p. 763). For example, the
founding of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical
Medicine by Sir Patrick Manson, medical advisor to the
Colonial Office (118), was driven by the need to better understand tropical diseases to assure ‘‘the health of European
soldiers, traders and settlers in hostile climates’’ (117, p.
765). Similarly, the US successes against malaria and yellow fever, which enabled the building of the Panama Canal,
were driven by the desire to control this strategic and economically valuable passage (119, 120).
The close association between public health and national
security was broken in the 20th century by decolonization,
improved sanitation, and the introduction of vaccines and
antibiotics, which together reduced the threat of disease to
powerful countries and their interests (121), and by the
specter of nuclear weapons, which came to dominate national security studies (114). However, by the 1990s, perceptions of increased vulnerability to infectious disease
threats because of increased global interdependence brought
infectious diseases back onto national security agendas.
This was prominently expressed by the US Institute of Medicine: ‘‘[I]n the context of infectious diseases, there is nowhere in the world from which we are remote and no one
from whom we are disconnected’’ (122, p. V).
Acute infectious disease threats and bioterrorism
Acute outbreaks of infectious diseases and the threat of
bioterrorism have dominated recent national security discussions of global health, suggesting that global health issues gain political priority when they threaten state interests
(33, 123). The SARS and H1N1 influenza A epidemics, the
threat of H5N1 influenza A, and, to a lesser extent, the
spread of extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis have
threatened the citizens and economic interests of powerful
countries and have been accepted as national security threats
(124). Similarly, increasing knowledge about the extent of
existing biological weapons programs (125), the rise of nonstate terrorist actors, and the global dissemination of advances in biology (126) have driven many wealthy states
to address bioterrorism as a serious threat to national security. The benefits of designating a global health issue a threat
to national security include high levels of both political
attention and funding (34).
However, the benefits of linking global health to national
security have not come without criticism or costs. McInnes
and Lee argue that the national security agenda on health
88
Feldbaum et al.
has been narrowly framed and ‘‘dominated by the concerns
of foreign and security policy, not of global public health’’
(33, p. 22), while Feldbaum et al. caution that the ‘‘global
and humanitarian objectives of the health field do not fit
readily into the state-centered perspective of national security’’ (127, p. 196). The costs of framing international
cooperation on epidemic diseases in security terms are also
becoming apparent. ‘‘Developing countries are increasingly
suspicious of global health initiatives justified on the
grounds of ‘global health security’ ’’ (128, p. 372) because
‘‘the harvest of outbreak intelligence overseas is essentially
geared to benefit wealthy nations’’ (87, p. 19). Controversy
over sharing of H5N1 influenza A viral samples (86, 129)
and within negotiations over the IHRs (87) are examples of
developing countries’ resistance to the concept of global
health security.
The framing of the HIV/AIDS pandemic as a threat to
national security, predominantly between 2000 and 2005,
also provides insights into the costs and benefits of linking
health issues to national security agendas. This linkage,
which generated attention from the United Nations Security
Council and the United Nations General Assembly, raised
the political priority of HIV/AIDS, which contributed to
efforts to establish the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria and increased the amount of development assistance for health on global AIDS, particularly in
the United States (130, 131). However, much of the evidence used to frame the disease as a national security threat,
including evidence on the prevalence of HIV among African
militaries (132, 133) and its potential to cause instability in
‘‘next wave’’ states (134, p. 4; 135), has been shown to be
inaccurate (136–140). Furthermore, linkage of the disease to
national security agendas may have contributed to the possibly disproportionate focus on the pandemic in national aid
budgets (141) and has been criticized (142) for its potential
to push response to the disease ‘‘away from civil society
toward state institutions such as the military and the intelligence community’’ (143, p. 122) or to push funding towards
countries of strategic importance, rather than those most in
need (127).
Health in conflicts
Health interventions are being used in complex and contradictory ways in conflict situations. The public health
community has sought to implement ‘‘health as a bridge
to peace,’’ claiming that health interventions in ‘‘postconflict societies can be specifically designed in such
a way as to simultaneously have a positive effect upon the
health of the population and contribute to the creation of
a stable and lasting peace’’ (144, p. 96). Other practitioners
have noted that cease-fires arranged for vaccine delivery
(145, 146) and cooperative health projects between previously conflicting parties can provide beneficial and neutral
forums for conflict resolution (147–150). However, critics
say such efforts have ‘‘never yielded a tangible peace
benefit’’ (151, p. 222) and have been driven more by
‘‘ideology’’ than evidence of effectiveness (152, p. 1020).
Militaries and nonstate actors alike are using health interventions to serve their political aims in conflict situations.
In Iraq and Afghanistan, medical and veterinary civilassistance programs are run by the US military ‘‘for supporting pacification, gathering local intelligence, or rewarding
locals for their cooperation’’ (153, p. 69). On the other side,
Burkle reports that the Iraqi insurgents fighting the US military ‘‘made controlling hospitals a priority because by owning the health and social services, the control of the people
soon followed’’ (154, p. 31). In these cases, health interventions are not neutral or designed as a bridge to peace but are
used to gain the support of, or control over, local populations
through the offering or denial of health services.
Tension exists between public health and national security in part because ‘‘the landscape of political insecurity
is not fully congruent with the landscape of need’’ (109,
p. 539). Prioritization of health issues as national security
threats can generate political attention and funding but can
also result in actions directed toward addressing national
security interests that may or may not coincide with public
health needs.
DISCUSSION
Evidence on the linkages between global health, aid,
trade, diplomacy, and national security indicates that state
action on health is often motivated by foreign-policy interests rather than a desire to promote health equity or achieve
humanitarian benefits. These ulterior interests can be economic (protecting trade), diplomatic (preventing epidemics), strategic (preventing bioterrorism), or (often)
combinations of these interests and are salient even in this
new era of rising development aid for health and groundbreaking global health treaties. Conversely, little evidence
supports the notion that ‘‘foreign policy is now being substantially driven by health’’ (3, p. 971). However, global
health has affected the practice of foreign policy on occasions when global health and foreign-policy interests align,
as the cases of SARS and the IHRs demonstrate.
While foreign-policy interests are likely to continue to
determine state engagement on global health issues, selfserving motives for state action on health do not have to
lead to poor outcomes, as evidenced by US aid for Egypt’s
leading to improved child health or the provision of medical
relief by the US Naval Ship Comfort and Cuban medical
professionals after the earthquake in Haiti. Whether we
achieve further successes in global health or our efforts
are undermined by the pursuit of traditional foreign-policy
interests will depend upon the ability of public health practitioners to understand foreign-policy perspectives on health
and promote global health interests in the world of high
politics.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Author affiliations: Global Health and Foreign Policy
Initiative, Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International
Studies, Johns Hopkins University, Washington, DC (Harley
Feldbaum, Joshua Michaud); and Public and Environmental
Health Research Unit, London School of Hygiene and
Epidemiol Rev 2010;32:82–92
Global Health and Foreign Policy
Tropical Medicine, University of London, London, United
Kingdom (Kelley Lee).
This paper was supported in part by the Bill and Melinda
Gates Foundation (grant 40644) and by the European
Commission under the Seventh Research Framework
Programme (IDEAS grant 230489 GHG).
The funders played no role in study design, data collection, and analysis, the decision to publish, or preparation of
the manuscript.
Conflict of interest: none declared.
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