Diseases of Globalization: Socioeconomic Transition and Health

Description

The emergence of a global economy has led to the erosion of local autonomy and national sovereignty with an associated emphasis on the spread of liberal, free-market economics. A clear divide is appearing between those benefiting from and those disadvantaged by this process. Among the most important consequences are changes in the patterns of health and the prevalence of disease. While infant mortality is declining in most countries, and many formerly prevalent diseases are being successfully tackled, the move from subsistence to cash economies brings with it changes in diet, alcohol consumption and high levels of smoking; with the result that non-communicable, 'lifestyle illnesses' such as heart disease and diabetes are spreading rapidly. Similarly, growing divisions of wealth add to the problem, bringing diseases relating to poverty and malnourishment as well as those caused by affluence and over-consumption. Issues covered in this book include equitable and sustainable modernization, the determinants of health, the process of marginalization, and survival strategies on the periphery. The authors draw on primary case study material, largely from societies in the Pacific region undergoing modernization, to provide invaluable information for tracking and assessing the full impacts of these changes.

Christine McMurray is the Demographer at the Secretariat of the Pacific Community. Roy Smith is Co-Director of the Centre for Asia-Pacific Studies, Nottingham Trent University.

"McMurray (demographer, Secretariat of the Pacific Community) and Smith (Centre for Asia-Pacific Studies, Nottingham Trent Univ.) examine the relationship among globalization, development, the distribution of wealth, and health. The authors incorporate a complex set of considerations including politics, economics, and the ways in which globalization affects health determinants, e.g., nutrition, adoption of risky behaviors such as smoking, and environmental factors. Further, they consider, using Mongolia, Uzbekistan, and the Marshall Islands as the foci of case studies, the ways in which these general factors are mediated by cultural and social characteristics of specific countries. Case studies are preceded by general discussions of the relationship among globalization, development, and wealth distribution; the determinants of patterns of health and illness over time and across countries; and the process of marginalization, by which some countries are relegated to the periphery relative to the core of powerful countries, with its associated effects on wealth and health. Applying this framework in the three case countries, the authors conclude that uneven patterns of development have resulted in a distribution of wealth adversely affecting health status in countries designated as marginalized. Most accessible to advanced students and researchers." --- E. Magenheim, Swarthmore College in CHOICE