Global Health Watch 6

Global Health Watch (GHW), now in its sixth edition, provides the definitive voice for an alternative discourse on health. It integrates rigorous analysis, alternative proposals and stories of struggles and change to present a compelling case for the imperative to work for a radical transformation of the way we approach actions and policies on health. It was conceived in 2003 as a collaborative effort by activists and academics from across the world, and is designed to question present policies on health and to propose alternativesGlobal Health Watch 6 (GHW6) has been coordinated by eight civil society organizations – the People’s Health Movement, ALAMES, Health Poverty Action, Medico International, Third World Network, Medact, Sama and Viva Salud. With contributions from across the globe, GHW6 addresses key issues related to health systems and the range of social, economic, political and environmental determinants of health, locating decisions and choices that impact on health in the structure of global power relations and economic governance.

GHW 6 is an essential guide to the many global and national forces that are threatening our health, our planet and our equity. While this analysis is frightening the celebration of the power and force of progressive civil society like the People’s Health Movement is a call to collective action and to remaining hopeful., Global Health Watch 6 will assist readers to better understand the causes and consequences of the health crises now afflicting human and planetary health, from the COVID-19 pandemic to the climate emergency , deaths of despair, and rising health inequities. Even better, the book connects readers to the many organizations, movements, and individuals that are working to create a healthier, more equitable and more sustainable world., At a time when global health often takes little notice of history and resulting power relationships between and within countries, Global Health Watch reliably fills this gap. GHW6, as in previous editions, marshals data and scholarship to support the right to health for all people. It helps answer the call to decolonize global health scholarship and practice. In these times, when pandemics, climate crisis accelerate inequality, it should be required reading for all who work in the field., Its chapters provide an extraordinary collection of evidence, perspectives and importantly a number of propositions to move reflection and activism on health and well-being from exposure and complaint to justice-driven organization, challenge, and action. With COVID-19 and ecological degradation reflecting and intensifying “the acquisitive inequities” of a neoliberal globalization, the GHW contributes analysis that merits debate within different regions and contexts for both self-determined and convergent action to build forward fairer., In our present context of unbridled inequity and ecosystem peril, the appearance of the Global Health Watch (GHW6) is a powerful sign of resistance and consciousness. A tool for people and conscious health workers and scientists, it represents a methodological and ethical alternative to the acritical recitation of health statistics all too common in global health writing. It is the type of the critical independent science we have been calling for, a bold radical science for an ailing world.

The Global Health Watch is a broad collaboration of public health experts, non-governmental organizations, civil society activists, community groups, health workers and academics. It was initiated by the People’s Health Movement, Global Equity Gauge Alliance and Medact as a platform of resistance to neoliberal dominance in health.