On World Health Day, April 7, health workers and activists across the globe mobilized in support of a more just and inclusive vision of health. This year’s actions – including local efforts to address social determinants of health, calls for democratized systems, and resistance to privatization – coincided with the release of a preview of the new edition of the People’s Health Movement’s (PHM) flagship publication, Global Health Watch 7.
The preview features the opening chapter of the forthcoming volume, which is based on the contributions of more than 100 activists sharing both political insights and accounts of grassroots struggles. According to Chiara Bodini, co-editor of this edition with Ronald Labonté, the book also builds on the discussions and conclusions from last year’s 5th People’s Health Assembly in Mar del Plata, Argentina. As with previous editions, Global Health Watch 7 will offer a broad overview of the state of global health – examining political and economic foundations, environmental and social factors, developments in global health governance, and popular movements and struggles.
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The chapter released on April 7 lays the groundwork for the rest of the volume. “Global Health Watch is a combination of understanding the root causes of ill health and health inequities, but also the resistance – where oppressed people are collectively trying to find alternatives,” Bodini explains. “The chapter published this week provides a deep analysis of the forces driving global inequalities and the ways in which the environmental crisis is intertwined with the crisis of health, society, and humanity as a whole.”
This is the first edition of Global Health Watch published after the COVID-19 pandemic, which marked its five-year anniversary in March. It comes as no surprise that the book reflects on how health has been reinterpreted since the outbreak. Yet, as contributors to the first chapter note, remarkably little has changed: the obsession with GDP-driven growth persists, intensifying existing threats to health and ushering in new ones, and compounding long-standing problems like the commodification of care under capitalism.
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April 7, in addition to being World Health Day as marked by the World Health Organization, is also celebrated as People’s Health Day – a moment to spotlight the devastating effects of commodification of health. Commercialization and privatization, Bodini emphasizes, remain central to understanding these dynamics.
There are several chapters in Global Health Watch 7 that address this issue, she points out, and in more than one way. “Commercialization is not approached only as the privatization of healthcare – making profit from assisting people and treating disease – but also includes other fields such as digital health and the production of harmful products, often referred to as commercial or corporate determinants of health.”
Imagining new health futures
Crucially, Global Health Watch does not stop at providing a critical analysis of capitalism’s effects on health. It also points toward alternatives. In the first chapter of the volume, this includes discussions of well-being economies and ecosocialist frameworks. Two additional chapters in the same section will explore related perspectives from Latin America: one rooted in ecofeminism, and another in ancestral knowledge and practices.
“These two chapters are like a complement to this first one, which is rational analysis focusing on the political economy,” says Bodini. “They illustrate how ancestral wisdoms, visions, and practices that originate from the relationship between people, the earth, and the land can nurture a new, different vision of health from the one we are forced to witness in today’s world.”
The next chapters of Global Health Watch 7 will be published online over the coming weeks, leading up to the official launch of the full volume in June. In the meantime, the editorial team, together with a group of artists, has released a series of comics to make the book’s contents more accessible. Just like the book, these narratives address urgent themes such as the health impacts of war, the pressing need for an overhaul of our health systems, and the importance of ecosystem health.
Chapters of Global Health Watch 7 will be freely available in English and Spanish on the websites of PHM and Daraja Press. For more on the making of this edition, listen to the accompanying podcast.
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