Studying at York
Global Visions & Local Actions: The History & Politics of International Health - HIS00056M
Module summary
This module studies the history and politics of international and ‘global’ health. The constituent seminars historicize the many factors influencing the development, running and evaluation of these initiatives in different national settings in Asia, Africa, Latin America and, not least, Europe. Sessions will examine attitudes and administrative realities within various international organisations based within Europe and the Americas, their offices within the different national capitals and, perhaps most importantly, within diverse field contexts, where policies were often recast in response to variety of social, economic and political challenges.
Rather than reiterating the widely held assumption that global health programmes were implemented top-down, after being advocated by organisations linked to the industrialised ‘north’ on the ‘global south’, this set of seminars will underline the usefulness of studying the history of the many complexities of project implementation in a diversity of locales. In this way, this module will describe the complex links between international health and development organisations, national governments and local administrative structures, and privately and publicly-run service providers. The seminars will also examine the role of the target populations in determining the final shape of health campaigns. This module will involve discussions about cutting edge methodologies, not least the use and interpretation of a range of primary materials, including unpublished documents, documentary films and oral interviews. This discussion of historiographical and methodological issues will allow an examination of links between academia, bodies claiming to provide independent policy assessment, and those involved indesigning public health advocacy projects. This module will provide in-depth training in how a very specific form of historical research and analysis can feed productively into health policy at all levels of governance.
Module will run
| Occurrence | Teaching cycle |
|---|---|
| A | Autumn Term 2019-20 |
Module aims
The module aims to:
- Develop skills of source analysis and interpretation;
- Assess a range of source material and relevant secondary works; and
- Develop students’ powers of evidence-based historical argument, both orally and in writing.
Module learning outcomes
After successfully completing this course students should:
- be familiar with the key themes in a historical literature that looks at developments in international and global health in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries
- be able to problematize and historicize primary materials relating to international and global health in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries
- understand how historians of health, medicine and science have engaged with - and have sought to influence - international and global health policy in the late nineteenth, twentieth and twenty-first centuries
Module content
Teaching Programme:
Students will attend eight weekly two-hour seminars in weeks 2-9.
Seminars may include the following themes:
- The rise of tropical medicine in imperial and non-imperial contexts
- The rise of the Rockefeller Foundation and the League of Nations
- The birth of the United Nations and the formation of the World Health Organization
- The worldwide malaria eradication programme
- The global smallpox eradication programme
- The global primary healthcare mission and the production of universal health coverage
- The rise of new epidemic disease emergencies, such as AIDS
- Globalization and the rise of ‘global’ health
Assessment
| Task | Length | % of module mark |
|---|---|---|
| Essay/coursework Essay 4000 Words |
N/A | 100 |
Special assessment rules
None
Additional assessment information
Students will complete a 2,000 word procedural essay for formative assessment, due in week 6 of the autumn term. They will then submit a 4,000 word assessed essay for summative assessment in week 2 of the spring term.
For further details about assessed work, students should refer to the Taught Masters Degrees Statement of Assessment.
Reassessment
| Task | Length | % of module mark |
|---|---|---|
| Essay/coursework Essay 4000 Words |
N/A | 100 |
Module feedback
Following their formative assessment task, students will receive written feedback consisting of comments and a mark within 10 working days of submission. All students are encouraged, if they wish, to discuss the feedback on their procedural work during their tutor’s student hours. For more information, see the Statement on Feedback.
For the summative assessment task, students will receive their provisional mark and written feedback within 20 working days of the submission deadline. The tutor will then be available during student hours for follow-up guidance if required. For more information, see the Statement of Assessment.
Indicative reading
For term time reading, please refer to the module VLE site. Before the course starts, we encourage you to look at the following items of preliminary reading:
Medcalf, Alexander and Sanjoy Bhattacharya, ed. Tropical Diseases: Lessons From History. Hyderabad: Orient BlackSwan, 2014. Available for free download here.
Medcalf, Alexander, Sanjoy Bhattacharya, Hooman Momen, Monica Saavedra, Margaret Jones, ed. Health For All: The journey to Universal Health Coverage. Hyderabad: Orient Blackswan Private Limited, 2015. Available for free download here.
Weindling, Paul, editor. International Health Organizations and Movements, 1918-1939. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995.
Cunningham, Andrew and Bridie Andrews, ed. Western medicine as contested knowledge. New York: Manchester University Press, 1997.
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