Online Program

324158
Resisting Empire and Building an Alternative Future in Medicine and Public Health


Tuesday, November 3, 2015 : 12:30 p.m. - 12:50 p.m.

Rebeca Jasso-Aguilar, PhD, Department of Sociology, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM
Howard Waitzkin, MD, PhD, Department of Sociology and Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Center for Health Policy, University of New Mexico, Loves Park, IL
Public health and health services have played important roles during the rise of empire and during its subsequent decline. Conditions during the 21st century have changed so that a vision of a world without empire has become part of an imaginable future. Latin America has become an especially fertile ground for resistance against neoliberal policies that favored privatization and cutbacks in public services, and for the emergence of alternative policies not based on the neoliberal model.

We offer an updated analysis of several popular struggles in which we have participated during the past decade as researchers and activists.  These struggles include resistance against the privatization of health services in El Salvador and against the privatization of water supplies in Bolivia, as well as efforts to expand public-sector health services in Mexico.  Such scenarios convey a picture very different from that of the historical relation between empire and health – a picture that shows a diminishing tolerance among the world’s peoples for the public health policies of empire and a growing demand for public health systems grounded in solidarity rather than profitability. This change involves demands for popular participation in policies related to natural resources such as water, as well as health services and medications. The struggles considered here confirm certain core principles of public health: the right to health care, the right to water and other components of a safe environment, and the reduction of illness-generating conditions such as inequality and other social determinants of ill health and early death.

Learning Areas:

Public health or related research

Learning Objectives:
Describe the roles played by public health and health services in the rise and subsequent decline of empire. Analyze several popular struggles in Latin America that demonstrated resistance against neoliberal policies favoring privatization and cutbacks in public services, and that fostered the emergence of alternative policies not based on the neoliberal model. Explain the diminishing tolerance among the world’s peoples for the public health policies of empire and a growing demand for public health systems grounded in solidarity rather than profitability. Discuss how these struggles confirm core principles of public health: the right to health care, the right to water and other components of a safe environment, and the reduction of illness-generating conditions such as inequality and other social determinants of ill health and early death.

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: I initiated the study and prepared the abstract.
Any relevant financial relationships? No

I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines, and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed in my presentation.