in their hypothesis published in ijhpm, lisa forman and colleagues examined the prominence of the right to health and sexual and reproductive health rights (as well as related language) in four of the key reports that fed into the process of negotiating the sustainable development goals (sdgs). now that the sdgs have been formally adopted, this comment builds on some of the insights of forman a...

in the 21st century, distinctions and boundaries between global health, international politics, and the broader interests of the global community are harder to define and enforce than ever before. as a result, global health workers, leaders, and institutions face pressing questions around the nature and extent of their involvement with non-health endeavors, including international conflict reso...

The global health agenda has been dominating the current global health policy debate. Furthermore, it has compelled countries to embrace strategies for tackling health inequalities in a wide range of public health areas. The article by Robert and colleagues highlights that although globalization has increased opportunities to share and spread ideas, there is still great asymmetry of power accor...

Sector-wide approaches (SWAps) in health were developed in the early 1990s in response to widespread dissatisfaction with fragmented donor-sponsored projects and prescriptive adjustment lending. SWAps were intended to provide a more coherent way to articulate and manage government-led sectoral policies and expenditure frameworks and build local institutional capacity as well as offer a means to...

Following the development discussion in the last volume on the 'politics of health', Jennifer Prah Ruger argues that the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) represents a shift in global health policy that recognizes the importance of addressing health needs on multiple fronts and integrating public policies into a comprehensive set of health improvement strategies. She argues that th...

in this paper we emphasize the importance of questioning the global validity of significant concepts underpinning global health policy. this implies questioning the concept of global health as such and accepting that there is no global definition of the global. further, we draw attention to ‘quality’ and ‘empowerment’ as examples of world-forming concepts. these concepts are exemplary for the g...

This paper explores the extent to which global health governance - in the context of the early implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals is grounded in the right to health. The essential components of the right to health in relation to global health are unpacked. Four essential functions of the global health system are assessed from a normative, rights-based, analysis on how each of t...

New contours of global inequality present new challenges for global health, and require that we consider new kinds of health issues as global. I provide a number of illustrations, arguing the need for a political science of health that goes beyond conventional preoccupations with formal institutional and inter-state interactions and takes into account how globalization has affected the health p...

In this collection review, Cathy Zimmerman and colleague introduce the PLOS Medicine Collection on Human Trafficking, Exploitation and Health, laying out the magnitude of the global trafficking problem and offering a public health policy framework to guide responses to trafficking.

background negotiations surrounding the trans-pacific partnership (tpp) trade and investment agreement have recently concluded. although trade and investment agreements, part of a broader shift to global economic integration, have been argued to be vital to improved economic growth, health, and general welfare, these agreements have increasingly come under scrutiny for their direct and indirect...