Explaining and responding to the Ebola epidemic

Benatar, Solomon R.

doi:10.1186/s13010-015-0027-8

Cited by 67 publications

(18 citation statements)

References 15 publications

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“…36 Such features of the lives of the privileged and powerful also generate neglect and denial of the need for the paradigmatic change needed to restructure power relations in ways that could achieve solutions potentially within our grasp. 37,38 In challenging the dominant discourse and agenda for improving global health it is suggested that the major impetus to the 'progress' that has led to only about 20% of people in the world having desirable lifestyles arises not only from the invisibility of power structures but more especially from the invisibility of the belief system wherein power is embedded and that determines the way we think and how we frame our ideas, values, and actions [1] . 30,39 The recent Lancet-University of Oslo Commission on governance for global health 40 is a prominent example of an insightful but incomplete and largely technical diagnosis of global health problems.…”

Section: Challenging the Dominant Belief System And Framingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Politics, Power, Poverty and Global Health: Systems and Frames

Benatar

2016

Int J Health Policy Manag

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Striking disparities in access to healthcare and in health outcomes are major characteristics of health across the globe. This inequitable state of global health and how it could be improved has become a highly popularized field of academic study. In a series of articles in this journal the roles of power and politics in global health have been addressed in considerable detail. Three points are added here to this debate. The first is consideration of how the use of definitions and common terms, for example 'poverty eradication, ' can mask full exposure of the extent of rectification required, with consequent failure to understand what poverty eradication should mean, how this could be achieved and that a new definition is called for. Secondly, a criticism is offered of how the term 'global health' is used in a restricted manner to describe activities that focus on an anthropocentric and biomedical conception of health across the world. It is proposed that the discourse on 'global health' should be extended beyond conventional boundaries towards an ecocentric conception of global/planetary health in an increasingly interdependent planet characterised by a multitude of interlinked crises. Finally, it is noted that the paucity of workable strategies towards achieving greater equity in sustainable global health is not so much due to lack of understanding of, or insight into, the invisible dimensions of power, but is rather the outcome of seeking solutions from within belief systems and cognitive biases that cannot offer solutions. Hence the need for a new framing perspective for global health that could reshape our thinking and actions.

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Section: Challenging the Dominant Belief System And Framingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Politics, Power, Poverty and Global Health: Systems and Frames

Benatar

2016

Int J Health Policy Manag

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“…For example, the responses from the United Nations (UN) and wealthy countries to the recent Ebola crisis have amounted to little more than recommendations for augmented philanthropy to build more resilient public health systems that could contain future outbreaks. 32-34 In our view, the recently successful UN meetings while necessary are insufficient and unlikely to lead to viable and successful progress within the contemporary paradigms of power as they are actually practiced globally. 35 …”

Section: Global Health and Global Health Governance Are Politics Writmentioning

confidence: 98%

History, Structure and Agency in Global Health Governance Comment on "Global Health Governance Challenges 2016 – Are We Ready?"

Gill

Benatar

2016

Int J Health Policy Manag

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Ilona Kickbusch’s thought provoking editorial is criticized in this commentary, partly because she fails to refer to previous critical work on the global conditions and policies that sustain inequality, poverty, poor health and damage to the biosphere and, as a result, she misreads global power and elides consideration of the fundamental historical structures of political and material power that shape agency in global health governance. We also doubt that global health can be improved through structures and processes of multilateralism that are premised on the continued reproduction of the ecologically myopic and socially unsustainable market civilization model of capitalist development that currently prevails in the world economy. This model drives net financial flows from poor to rich countries and from the poor to the affluent and super wealthy individuals. By contrast, we suggest that significant progress in global health requires a profound and socially just restructuring of global power, greater global solidarity and the "development of sustainability."

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“…It will be clear to anyone minimally familiar with public health ethics, and infectious disease/pandemic ethics in particular, that the lessons and themes described above are steeped in ethics; they concern values, wade into areas where well-established value-conflicts exist and ultimately involve questions of, and 'insights' into, what is morally right and wrong. Indeed, beyond these organizational 'lessons learned' documents there have been several recent contributions to the bioethics literature on ethical issues and learnings from this EVD crisis (Donovan, 2014;Kass, 2014;Schuklenk 2014;Upshur, 2014;Benatar, 2015; Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethics, 2015). Yet, explicit attention to the ethical character of the EVD lessons and the normative challenges that will invariably exist in correcting our failures in the future is either lacking or altogether absent in the reviewed organizational 'lessons learned' documents.…”

Section: Who Cares About Ethics?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Ebola and Learning Lessons from Moral Failures: Who Cares about Ethics?: Table 1.

Smith

Upshur

2015

Public Health Ethics

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The exercise of identifying lessons in the aftermath of a major public health emergency is of immense importance for the improvement of global public health emergency preparedness and response. Despite the persistence of the Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) outbreak in West Africa, it seems that the Ebola 'lessons learned' exercise is now in full swing. On our assessment, a significant shortcoming plagues recent articulations of lessons learned, particularly among those emerging from organizational reflections. In this article we argue that, despite not being recognized as such, the vast majority of lessons proffered in this literature should be understood as ethical lessons stemming from moral failures, and that any improvements in future global public health emergency preparedness and response are in large part dependent on acknowledging this fact and adjusting priorities, policies and practices accordingly such that they align with values that better ensure these moral failures are not repeated and that new moral failures do not arise. We cannot continue to fiddle at the margins without critically reflecting on our repeated moral failings and committing ourselves to a set of values that engenders an approach to global public health emergencies that embodies a sense of solidarity and global justice.

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Explaining and responding to the Ebola epidemic

Cited by 67 publications

References 15 publications

Politics, Power, Poverty and Global Health: Systems and Frames

Politics, Power, Poverty and Global Health: Systems and Frames

History, Structure and Agency in Global Health Governance Comment on "Global Health Governance Challenges 2016 – Are We Ready?"

Ebola and Learning Lessons from Moral Failures: Who Cares about Ethics?: Table 1.

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