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From security to risk: reframing global health threats

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journal contribution
posted on 2023-06-21, 06:02 authored by Colin McInnes, Anne Roemer-MahlerAnne Roemer-Mahler
The rise of health issues such as HIV, pandemic influenza and Ebola on international agendas has led to the framing of threats to health as security issues. This has created an uneasy relationship between politics and health, by moving national interests into an area traditionally dominated by scientific rationalities and a predisposition towards cosmopolitan norms. Framing global health threats as risks, however, appears to be less politically charged and divisive, combining an aura of scientific objectivity with a moral call to action. In this article we argue that, despite its technical use in public health, in the policy discourse on global health the risk frame is not immune to values and interests but inherently political. It privileges a specific approach to global health policy which focuses on potential future catastrophes rather than presently existing health problems, emphasizes technological solutions rather than addressing the socio-economic determinants of health, while there is no single risk frame, but rather multiple risk frames existing simultaneously, as seen during the 2014–15 west African Ebola outbreak. However, framing health in terms of risk is useful in understanding how health issues reflect and contribute to the wider Zeitgeist concerning societal vulnerability: that dangers exist which are uncontrollable and are the product of technical progress. The risk frame allows us to place health issues into this wider context, where disease is just one of a number of concurrent dangers, rather than a separately identifiable hazard.

Funding

Pharmaceuticals and Security: The Role of Public-Private Collaborations in Strengthening Global Health Security; G1040; EUROPEAN UNION; ERC-2012-StG_20111124 312567

History

Publication status

  • Published

File Version

  • Published version

Journal

International Affairs

ISSN

0020-5850

Publisher

Wiley

Issue

6

Volume

93

Page range

1313-1337

Department affiliated with

  • International Relations Publications

Research groups affiliated with

  • Centre for Global Health Policy Publications

Full text available

  • Yes

Peer reviewed?

  • Yes

Legacy Posted Date

2018-02-19

First Open Access (FOA) Date

2018-02-19

First Compliant Deposit (FCD) Date

2018-02-19

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