From individual health to global health in the search for a better world

Abstract

This unpublished article was originally a lecture given on July 19, 2007 in Salvador de Bahia, Brazil, within the framework of the “Juan César García Conferences”, highest distinction of the congresses of the Latin American Association of Social Medicine. It analyzes the lines of thought that have permeated the health actions of Latin American academic communities during the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, from a right to health approach. Within these, the role played by United Nations agencies, particularly the specialized agencies in Health, especially the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) and the World Health Organization (WHO), deserve to be studied. The analysis of the fields of knowledge responsible for the treatment of the health problem in our region, the conformation of the field of international health and the great inequalities in the current world and its impact on health realize the need to incorporate a new vision of international health. It is necessary to break with the criteria of paternalistic and dependent assistance, which is not successful in developing the potential of developing countries, with the aim of placing them in conditions of contribution to the construction of a better, healthy and safe world.