Good Intentions In Global Health

Explores informal global health action and the importance of intentions of those who volunteer In the past two decades, medical missions have gained popularity among medical professionals, who view these excursions as important ethical interventions. Indeed, the notion of giving back by volunteering in rural or impoverished communities is celebrated as an ideal act of selflessness, one whose effects are unquestionably beneficial to those being served. Good Intentions in Global Health is a groundbreaking exploration of the growing realm of informal global health engagement, shedding light on the intricate interplay between intentions, emotions, and ethical considerations. Drawing on fieldwork in Guatemala, Nicole S. Berry investigates those who volunteer for short-term medical missions, revealing how the intent to do good shapes their everyday understandings of their own actions taken in the global health domain. Berry uncovers how the glorification of medical missions can obscure problems that stem from North American clinicians doctoring in places where they typically do not understand the context. The short-term nature of missions also means that volunteers are not privy to the long-term effects of their actions—the potential harms that may arise from a lack of sustained follow-up care or the utter absence of documentation that they were even there. By relying on gut instincts to reassure themselves that they are doing good, volunteers often bypass a comprehensive assessment of the ethical dimensions underlying their global health work. Good Intentions in Global Health shows why desires and emotions are increasingly important to contemporary global health. She makes the case that we must pay attention to volunteers’ perceptions of their work, however wrongheaded or naïve, in order to truly influence global health on the ground.

"Good Intentions in Global Health is an engaging ethnography of the world of DIY global health. It argues that the intent to do good shapes people's everyday understandings of their own actions taken in the global health domain. Berry opens new ways for critical scholarship to impact global health and health equity"--

A leading economist and researcher report from the front lines of a revolution in solving the world's most persistent problem. When it comes to global poverty, people are passionate and polarized. At one extreme: We just need to invest more resources. At the other: We've thrown billions down a sinkhole over the last fifty years and accomplished almost nothing. Dean Karlan and Jacob Appel present an entirely new approach that blazes an optimistic and realistic trail between these two extremes. In this pioneering book Karlan and Appel combine behavioral economics with worldwide field research. They take readers with them into villages across Africa, India, South America, and the Philippines, where economic theory collides with real life. They show how small changes in banking, insurance, health care, and other development initiatives that take into account human irrationality can drastically improve the well-being of poor people everywhere. We in the developed world have found ways to make our own lives profoundly better. We use new tools to spend smarter, save more, eat better, and lead lives more like the ones we imagine. These tools can do the same for the impoverished. Karlan and Appel's research, and those of some close colleagues, show exactly how. In America alone, individual donors contribute over two hundred billion to charity annually, three times as much as corporations, foundations, and bequests combined. This book provides a new way to understand what really works to reduce poverty; in so doing, it reveals how to better invest those billions and begin transforming the well-being of the world.

This contributed volume motivates and educates across fields about the major challenges in global health and the interdisciplinary strategies for solving them. Once the purview of public health, medicine, and nursing, global health is now an interdisciplinary endeavor that relies on expertise from anthropology to urban planning, economics to political science, geography to engineering. Scholars and practitioners in the health sciences are seeking knowledge from a wider array of fields while, simultaneously, students across majors have a growing interest in humanitarian issues and are pursuing knowledge and skills for impacting well-being across geographic and disciplinary borders. Using a highly practical approach and illustrative case studies, each chapter of this edited volume frames a particular problem and illustrates how interdisciplinary problem-solving can address the greatest challenges in global health today. In doing so, each chapter spurs critical and creative thinking about emergent and future problems. Topics explored among the chapters include: Transforming health and well-being for refugees and their communities Governing to deliver safe and affordable water The global crisis of antimicrobial resistance Low-tech, high-impact interventions to prevent neonatal mortality Communicating taboo health subjects Alternative housing delivery for slum upgrades Transforming Global Health: Interdisciplinary Challenges, Perspectives, and Strategies is a vital and timely compendium for any reader invested in improving global health equity. It will find an audience with researchers, practitioners, policymakers, and program implementers, as well as undergraduate and graduate students and faculty in the fields of global health, public health, and the health sciences.

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This direct, accessible guide uses a human rights perspective to define effectiveness in aid delivery and offer a robust framework for creating sustainable health programs and projects and assessing their progress. Geared toward hands-on professionals in such critical areas as food aid, maternal health, and disease control, it lays out challenges and solutions related to funding, planning, and complexity as individual projects feed into and impact larger health and development systems. Contributors clarify optimum roles of government, academia, NGOs, community organizations, and the private sector in aid delivery to inspire readers' broader and deeper uses of teamwork, communication, and imagination. Throughout, the guiding principles of justice, equity, and respect that underlie foundational documents such as the Millennium Declaration inform this visionary work. Included in the coverage: Assessing the effectiveness of health projects. Scaling-up of high-impact interventions. Aid effectiveness and private sector health organizations. When charity destroys dignity and sustainability. Effective conversations in global health projects. Lessons from the field on sustainability and effectiveness. For professionals in global health and development, Aid Effectiveness in Global Health is a trusted and encouraging mentor. This volume gives its readers the necessary logistical and attitudinal tools to bring about lasting change, and shows how to use them meaningfully in both the short term and the long run.

How do "good intentions" pave the road for empire? Whether it is iatrogenic violence, voluntourism, the misappropriation of gay rights, or NGOs serving as the Trojan Horses of US dominance and neoliberal social reengineering, contributors to this volume expose and analyze the many ways in which the new imperialism involves partitioning the world into tutors and wards, saviours and victims. Underlying the seduction of imperial elite-lore are established modes of socialization and enculturation, ranging from the elaborate and persistent demonization of chief opponents of US empire to the lionization of military actors commonly rendered as heroes. Also scrutinized in this volume are the domestic social and political costs, reaching as far as the displacement of urban populations to make way for the expansion of the informatic industries of empire, paving the way for the unprecedented dominance of corporations in our daily lives.

Healing the Nations. Restoring Shalom. The world is grappling with complex health challenges and disparities, forcing us to confront many pressing questions. How do Christians understand and practice healthcare? What is the biblical view of health and healing? This workbook unravels these queries, offering deep insights into the Christian approach to global health issues. Christian Global Health in Perspective delves into the biblical foundations of health, historical perspectives of Christian medical missions, and strategies for integrating faith with modern healthcare. Health is wholeness in body, mind, and spirit. The authors, seasoned experts in theology and medicine, guide readers through an exploration of how the church can innovatively respond to current global health concerns. This resource is essential for healthcare professionals, church leaders, development workers, and anyone interested in the intersection of faith and health. Reading this book may result in a paradigm shift for some who view remission of disease as the sole focus for healing, when from a biblical perspective, wholeness and shalom form the basis for promoting health. Christian Global Health invites you to join this transformative mission, where faith and healthcare converge for global well-being.