Theoria

Some may be interested in the following new book.

Global Public Health Vigilance: Creating a World on Alert

Lorna Weir & Eric Mykhalovskiy

Rutledge, 2010

Global Public Health Vigilance is the first social science book to investigate recent changes in how global public health authorities perceive and respond to international threats to human health. Between 1995 and 2005 a new form of global health surveillance was invented, international communicable disease control was made a matter of international security, and international health law was fundamentally revised. Drawing on research conducted at the World Health Organization and the Global Public Health Intelligence Network (Ottawa), the authors analyze the formation of a social apparatus ‐ global public health vigilance ‐ for detecting, responding to and containing international public health emergencies.

This timely volume explores a remarkable period of conceptual innovation in global public health. From the late nineteenth century international public health organizations were legally charged with preventing the international transmission of a small number of infectious diseases. Today the World Health Organization is charged with preventing international public health emergencies, a concept that includes infectious diseases and biological, chemical, environmental, industrial, and radiological disasters. This has brought unprecedented responsibilities to public health authorities, helping to shape a novel project of global public health security.

The authors raise critical questions about the concept of emerging infectious diseases and its institutional the role of the news media in global health surveillance, the impact of changes in international health law on public health reasoning and practice, and the reconstitution of the World Health Organization as a power beyond both national sovereignty and global governance. Global Public Health Vigilance initiates a new research agenda for social science research on public health.