This book of essays by medical anthropologists and other health social scientists examines the full measure of the disastrous global health effects of war in the contemporary world. It provides a political economic framework for assessing the war machine.

Affordable and conceptually accessible, this succinct volume captures the distinctive anthropological perspective on global health issues for undergraduates in the social and health sciences. Ideal for professors who want to add an experiential human face, a cultural dimension, and an emic understanding of health in cross-cultural contexts to interdisciplinary course content, Global Health exposes the day-to-day health challenges people around the world face. Key to its message is that, despite strides in improving worldwide health, human impacts on the environment, violent social conflict, and increasing social inequality diminish the success of global health initiatives to protect against illness, disability, and death. Readers, gripped by the impact of undeniable, far-reaching realities such as global warming, infectious disease, food insecurity, water crises, war and genocide, and refugee crises, will learn to apply a holistic, anthropological framework in search of solutions to such complex biosocial conditions.

The fully revised new edition of the defining reference work in the field of medical anthropology A Companion to Medical Anthropology, Second Edition provides the most complete account of the key issues and debates in this dynamic, rapidly growing field. Bringing together contributions by leading international authorities in medical anthropology, this comprehensive reference work presents critical assessments and interpretations of a wide range of topical themes, including global and environmental health, political violence and war, poverty, malnutrition, substance abuse, reproductive health, and infectious diseases. Throughout the text, readers explore the global, historical, and political factors that continue to influence how health and illness are experienced and understood. The second edition is fully updated to reflect current controversies and significant new developments in the anthropology of health and related fields. More than twenty new and revised articles address research areas including war and health, illicit drug abuse, climate change and health, colonialism and modern biomedicine, activist-led research, syndemics, ethnomedicines, biocommunicability, COVID-19, and many others. Highlighting the impact medical anthropologists have on global health care policy and practice, A Companion to Medical Anthropology, Second Edition: Features specially commissioned articles by medical anthropologists working in communities worldwide Discusses future trends and emerging research areas in the field Describes biocultural approaches to health and illness and research design and methods in applied medical anthropology Addresses topics including chronic diseases, rising levels of inequality, war and health, migration and health, nutritional health, self-medication, and end of life care Part of the acclaimed Wiley Blackwell Companions to Anthropology series, A Companion to Medical Anthropology, Second Edition, remains an indispensable resource for medical anthropologists, as well as an excellent textbook for courses in medical anthropology, ethnomedicine, global health care, and medical policy.

Provides a detailed look at how war affects human life and health far beyond the battlefield Since 2010, a team of activists, social scientists, and physicians have monitored the lives lost as a result of the US wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan through an initiative called the Costs of War Project. Unlike most studies of war casualties, this research looks beyond lives lost in violence to consider those who have died as a result of illness, injuries, and malnutrition that would not have occurred had the war not taken place. Incredibly, the Cost of War Project has found that, of the more than 1,000,000 lives lost in the recent US wars, a minimum of 800,000 died not from violence, but from indirect causes. War and Health offers a critical examination of these indirect casualties, examining health outcomes on the battlefield and elsewhere—in hospitals, homes, and refugee camps—both during combat and in the years following, as communities struggle to live normal lives despite decimated social services, lack of access to medical care, ongoing illness and disability, malnutrition, loss of infrastructure, and increased substance abuse. The volume considers the effect of the war on both civilians and on US service members, in war zones—where healthcare systems have been destroyed by long-term conflict—and in the United States, where healthcare is highly developed. Ultimately, it draws much-needed attention to the far-reaching health consequences of the recent US wars, and argues that we cannot go to war—and remain at war—without understanding the catastrophic effect war has on the entire ecosystem of human health.

International health security (IHS) is a broad and highly heterogeneous area. Within this general context, IHS encompasses subdomains that potentially influence (and more specifically endanger) the well-being and wellness of humans. The general umbrella of IHS includes, but is not limited to, natural disasters, emerging infectious diseases (EID) and pandemics, rapid urbanization, social determinants of health, population growth, systemic racism and discrimination, environmental matters, civilian violence and warfare, various forms of terrorism, misuse of antibiotics, and the misuse of social media. The need for this expanded definition of health security stems from the realization that topics such as EID; food, water, and pharmaceutical supply chain safety; medical and health information cybersecurity; and bioterrorism, although important within the overall realm of health security, are not only able to actively modulate the wellness and health of human populations, but also tend to do so in a synergistic fashion. This inaugural tome of a multi-volume collection, Contemporary Developments and Perspectives in International Health Security, introduces many of the topics directly relevant to modern IHS theory and practice. This first volume provides a solid foundation for future installments of this important and relevant book series.

International Environmental Cooperation and the Global Sustainability Capital Framework offers an integrated analysis of international environmental cooperation (IEC) and global sustainability. From a strategic management perspective, the book develops the Sustainability Capital Framework for IEC and global sustainability. The book provides an in-depth examination of the significance of state participation in international environmental agreements (IEAs), and analyzes the structure, life cycle, and evolution of IEAs. Through the Sustainability Capital Framework, the book delineates the core drivers, barriers, incentives, and critical success factors for IEC and global sustainability. - Develops the Sustainability Capital Framework for IEC and global sustainability from a strategic management perspective - Discusses the imperative for IEC through the novel lens of our common vulnerabilities and contingent survivability in the face of global environmental change - Presents a detailed discussion of the structure, life cycle, and evolution of IEAs - Identifies the core drivers, barriers, incentives, and critical success factors for IEC and global sustainability - Analyzes the human and environmental impacts of war, a core barrier to IEC and global sustainability - Highlights the human and moral dimensions of global sustainability

A sweeping history explores why people living in resource-poor areas lack access to basic health care after billions of dollars have been invested in international-health assistance. Over the past century, hundreds of billions of dollars have been invested in programs aimed at improving health on a global scale. Given the enormous scale and complexity of these lifesaving operations, why do millions of people in low-income countries continue to live without access to basic health services, sanitation, or clean water? And why are deadly diseases like Ebola able to spread so quickly among populations? In A History of Global Health, Randall M. Packard argues that global-health initiatives have saved millions of lives but have had limited impact on the overall health of people living in underdeveloped areas, where health-care workers are poorly paid, infrastructure and basic supplies such as disposable gloves, syringes, and bandages are lacking, and little effort has been made to address the underlying social and economic determinants of ill health. Global-health campaigns have relied on the application of biomedical technologies—vaccines, insecticide-treated nets, vitamin A capsules—to attack specific health problems but have failed to invest in building lasting infrastructure for managing the ongoing health problems of local populations. Designed to be read and taught, the book offers a critical historical view, providing historians, policy makers, researchers, program managers, and students with an essential new perspective on the formation and implementation of global-health policies and practices.

This volume will examine the varied roles that women and children play in period of warfare, which in most cases deviate from their perceived role as noncombatants. Using social theory about the nature of sex, gender and age in thinking about vulnerabilities to different groups during warfare, this collection of studies focuses on the broader impacts of war both during warfare but also long after the conflict is over. The volume will show that during periods of violence and warfare, many suffer beyond those individuals directly involved in battle. From pre-Hispanic Peru to Ming dynasty Mongolia to the Civil War-era United States to the present, warfare has been and is a public health disaster, particularly for women and children. Individuals and populations suffer from displacement, sometimes permanently, due to loss of food and resources and an increased risk of contracting communicable diseases, which results from the poor conditions and tight spaces present in most refugee camps, ancient and modern. Bioarchaeology can provide a more nuanced lens through which to examine the effects of warfare on life, morbidity, and mortality, bringing individuals not traditionally considered by studies of warfare and prolonged violence into focus. Inclusion of these groups in discussions of warfare can increase our understanding of not only the biological but also the social meaning and costs of warfare.

Now in its third edition, this textbook serves to frame understandings of health, health-related behavior, and health care in light of social and health inequality as well as structural violence. It also examines how the exercise of power in the health arena and in society overall impacts human health and well-being. Medical Anthropology and the World System: Critical Perspectives, Third Edition includes updated and expanded information on medical anthropology, resulting in an even more comprehensive resource for undergraduate students, graduate students, and researchers worldwide. As in the previous versions of this text, the authors provide insights from the perspective of critical medical anthropology, a well-established theoretical viewpoint from which faculty, researchers, and students study medical anthropology. It addresses the nature and scope of medical anthropology; the biosocial and political ecological origins of disease, health inequities, and social suffering; and the nature of medical systems in indigenous and pre-capitalist state societies and modern societies. The third edition also includes new material on the relationship between climate change and health. Finally, this textbook explores health praxis and the struggle for a healthy world.