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Letter writer: Theodore M. Brown; Letter recipient: Maria Brown ; Date created: July 2, 1864 ; Primary source material

According to its Constitution, the mission of the World Health Organization (WHO) was nothing less than the 'attainment by all peoples of the highest possible level of health' without distinction of race, religion, political belief, economic status, or social condition. But how consistently and how well has the WHO pursued this mission since 1946? This comprehensive and engaging new history explores these questions by looking at its origins and its institutional antecedents, while also considering its contemporary and future roles. It examines how the WHO was shaped by the particular environments of the postwar period and the Cold War, the relative influence of the US and other approaches to healthcare, and its place alongside sometimes competing international bodies such as UNICEF, the World Bank, and the Gates Foundation. The authors re-evaluate the relative success and failure of critical WHO campaigns, from early malaria and smallpox eradication programs to struggles with Ebola today.

The making of an international health establishment -- The birth of the World Health Organization, 1945--1948 -- The start-up years 1948--1955 -- The Cold War and eradication -- Overcoming the warming of the Cold War : smallpox eradication -- The transition from "family planning" to "sexual and reproductive rights" -- The vicissitudes of primary health care -- The response to the HIV/AIDS pandemic -- An embattled Director-General and the persistence of the WHO -- The competitive world of global health -- The World Health Organization in the second decade of the 21st century

The World Health Organization's (WHO's) leadership challenges can be traced to its first decades of existence. Central to its governance and practice is regionalization: the division of its member countries into regions, each representing 1 geographical or cultural area.

The term "global health" is rapidly replacing the older terminology of "international health." We describe the role of the World Health Organization (WHO) in both international and global health and in the transition from one to the other. We suggest that the term "global health" emerged as part of larger political and historical processes, in which WHO found its dominant role challenged and began to reposition itself within a shifting set of power alliances.

"This book collects landmark papers from the American Journal of Public Health (also published by American Public Health Association) written over the past 50 years. Each chapter delves into an essential aspect of public health, one which illuminates public health's history then and now"--

The Quest for Health Reform: A Satirical History is an engaging historical book that recounts the chronology of efforts to reform the U.S. health system through the lens of political cartoons published as early as the 19th century through passage of the Affordable Care Act. Co-authored by Executive Director of the American Public Health Association and former Joan H. Tisch Distinguished Fellow in Public Health at Hunter College, Georges C. Benjamin, MD, medical historian Theodore M. Brown, PhD; Susan Ladwig, MPH and Elyse Berkman, The Quest for Health Reform adds narrative to more than 100 yea

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Figures -- Foreword / Navarro, Vicente -- Acknowledgments -- Part I. Health Comrades in Context -- Chapter 1. Introduction: Health Comrades, Abroad and at Home / Birn, Anne-Emanuelle / Brown, Theodore M. -- Chapter 2. The Making of Health Internationalists / Brown, Theodore M. / Birn, Anne-Emanuelle -- Part II. Generation Born in the 1870s–1910s -- Chapter 3. The Perils of Unconstrained Enthusiasm: John Kingsbury, Soviet Public Health, and 1930s America / Gross Solomon, Susan -- Chapter 4. American Medical Support for Spanish Democracy, 1936–1938 / Lear, Walter J. -- Chapter 5. Medical McCarthyism and the Punishment of Internationalist Physicians in the United States / Brickman, Jane Pacht -- Part III. Generation Born in the 1920s–1930s -- Chapter 6. Contesting Racism and Innovating Community Health Centers: Approaches on Two Continents / Geiger, H. Jack -- Chapter 7. Barefoot in China, the Bronx, and Beyond / Sidel, Victor W. / Sidel, Ruth -- Chapter 8. Medical Internationalism and the "Last Epidemic" / Lown, Bernard -- Part IV. Generation Born in the 1940s–1960s -- Chapter 9. Social Medicine, at Home and Abroad / Waitzkin, Howard -- Chapter 10. Find the Best People and Support Them / Braveman, Paula -- Chapter 11. Cooperantes, Solidarity, and the Fight for Health in Mozambique / Gloyd, Stephen / Pfeiffer, James / Johnson, Wendy -- Chapter 12. From Harlem to Harare: Lessons in How Social Movements and Social Policy Change Health / Travis Bassett, Mary -- Part V. Generation Born in the 1960s–1970s -- Chapter 13. Brigadistas and Revolutionaries: Health and Social Justice in El Salvador / Terry, Michael / Turiano, Laura -- Chapter 14. Health and Human Rights in Latin America, and Beyond: A Lawyer's Experience with Public Health Internationalism / Yamin, Alicia Ely -- Chapter 15 History, Theory, and Praxis in Pacific Islands Health / Yamada, Seiji -- Chapter 16. Doctors for Global Health: Applying Liberation Medicine and Accompanying Communities in Their Struggles for Health and Social Justice / Lanford Smith, Lanny Clyde / Kasper, Jennifer / Holtz, Timothy H. -- Chapter 17. Doctors Across Blockades: American Medical Students in Cuba / Remen, Razel / Bondi-Boyd, Brea -- Part VI Conclusion -- Chapter 18 Across the Generations: Lessons from Health Internationalism / Birn, Anne-Emanuelle / Brown, Theodore M. -- Notes on Contributors -- Index

Frontmatter --Contents --Notes on Contributors --Introduction: The Political Landscapes of American Health, 1945-2020 --Part I: Geography, Community and American Health --Introduction --1 Health and Inequality in the Postwar Metropolis --2 Poverty, Health and Health Care in Rural Communities --3 The Politics of Immigration Meets the Politics of Health Care --4 Latinxs and the US Health Care System --5 American Indian Health: The Medicine Wheel versus the Iron Triangle --Part II: Critical Health Conditions: Debates and Histories --Introduction --6 The Politics of Polio Vaccination in Postwar America, 1950-60: Detractors and Defenders --7 Beyond the Cancer Wars --8 A System in Crisis: US Health Care Politics and the AIDS Epidemic --9 The Politics of 'Obesity': Medicalization, Stigmatization and Liberation of Fat Bodies --10 Revising Diagnoses, Reinventing Psychiatry: DSM and Major Depressive Disorder --Part III: The Politics of Children's Health --Introduction --11 US Children's Health Insurance: Policy Advocacy and Ideological Conflict --12 Autism and the Anti-Vaccine Movement --13 Diagnosing Deficit, Promising Enhancement: ADHD and Stimulants on Screen --14 On the Possibility of Affirmative Health Care for Transgender Children --15 Black Infant Mortality: Continuities, Contestations and Care --Part IV: The Institutional Matrix of Health Care --Introduction --16 The Regional and Racial Politics of Postwar Hospitals --17 Health Activism in the 1960s and the Community Health Center System --18 The Veterans Administration and PTSD: Challenges and Changes from Vietnam to Iraq --19 The Pharmaceutical Industry, Drug Regulation and US Health Services --20 The National Institutes of Health: Courting Congress, Creating a Research Infrastructure --Part V: The White House, Congress and Health Reform --Introduction --21 Left Out: Health Security and the American Welfare State, 1935-50 --22 Medicare and Medicaid after the Great Society: Containing Costs, Expanding Coverage --23 Mental Health, Stigma and Federal Reform in the 1970s and 1990s --24 The War on Drugs: Nixon, Reagan, Trump --25 Obamacare and Its Critics --Part VI: Justice, Ethics and American Health --Introduction --26 Roe v. Wade and the Cultural Politics of Abortion: The Shift from Rights to Health --27 Genetics, Health and the Making of America's Triracial Isolates, 1950-80 --28 The Rhetoric and Politics of American Ageism: Notes from a Pandemic --29 Towards a Structural Competency Framework for Addressing US Gun Violence --30 Mass Incarceration and Health Inequity in the United States --Part VII: Public Health and Global Health --Introduction --31 Occupational and Environmental Health in Twentieth-Century America --32 Environmental Health beyond the State: Thinking through the 1970s --33 Bioterrorism, Pandemic and the American Public --34 Health Internationalism in the US and Beyond --35 Pandemics and the Politics of Planetary Health --Bibliography --Index

Examines the diverse, and often conflicted, political status of health in the United States from World War II to Covid-19Explores the histories, cultures, policies and technologies of American health and medicine as they have developed over a 75-year periodBrings together 45 experts from the US, Canada and the UK working across the fields of medicine, health policy, political and social history, political science, environmental studies, law, and cultural studiesUses the lenses of class, poverty, race, gender, sexuality and locality to study the concepts, policies and lived realities of U.S. healthcare and medical treatmentExplores key controversies in American health, including global health and new technologiesBy emphasising the plurality of health experiences, and balancing national and transnational perspectives with the lived realities of diverse communities, this groundbreaking collection expands far beyond biomedical conceptions of health. Together, the contributors take a multi-layered view of the politics of US healthcare by examining it from historical, cultural, medical, sociological, legal, ethical and environmental perspectives. Chapters consider major health institutions and the federal policies that guide them; the intersection between health and social movements; the contours of health and illness with respect to race, gender, sexuality, age and region; and the US's often-conflicted role in global health governance