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. 2009:2:73-89.
doi: 10.2147/RMHP.S6134. Epub 2009 Oct 14.

"Globalized public health." A transdisciplinary comprehensive framework for analyzing contemporary globalization's influences on the field of public health

Véronique Lapaige  1
Affiliations

"Globalized public health." A transdisciplinary comprehensive framework for analyzing contemporary globalization's influences on the field of public health

Véronique Lapaige. Risk Manag Healthc Policy. 2009.

Abstract

The current phase of globalization represents a "double-edged sword" challenge facing public health practitioners and health policy makers. The first "edge" throws light on two constructs in the field of public health: global health (formerly international health) and globalized public health. The second "edge" is that of global governance, and raises the question, "how can we construct public health regulations that adequately respond to both global and local complexities related to the two constructs mentioned earlier (global health and globalized public health)?" The two constructs call for the development of norms that will assure sustained population-wide health improvement and these two constructs have their own conceptual tools and theoretical models that permit a better understanding of them. In this paper, we introduce the "globalized public health" construct and we present an interactive comprehensive framework for critically analyzing contemporary globalization's influences on the field of public health. "Globalized public health", simultaneously a theoretical model and a conceptual framework, concerns the transformation of the field of public health in the sociohistorical context of globalization. The model is the fruit of an original theoretical research study conducted from 2005 to 2008 ("contextualized research," Gibbons' Mode II of knowledge production), founded on a QUAL-quant sequential mixed-method design. This research also reflects our political and ideological position, fuelled with aspirations of social democracy and cosmopolitical values. It is profoundly anchored in the pragmatic approach to globalization, looking to "reconcile" the market and equity. The model offers several features to users: (1) it is transdisciplinary; (2) it is interactive (CD-ROM); (3) it is nonlinear (nonlinear interrelations between the contextual globalization and the field of public health); (4) it is synchronic/diachronic (a double-crossed perspective permits analysis of global social change, the emergence of global agency and the transmutation of the field of public health, in the full complexity of their nonlinear interaction); (5) it offers five characteristics as an auto-eco-organized system of social interactions, or dynamic, nonlinear sociohistorical system. The model features a visual interface (five interrelated figures), a structure of 30 "integrator concepts" that integrates 114 other element-parts via 1,300 hypertext links. The model is both a knowledge translation tool and an interactive heuristic guide designed for practitioners and researchers in public health/community health/population health, as well as for decision-makers at all levels.

Keywords: conceptual framework; contemporary globalization; diachronicity; knowledge translation tool; nonlinearity; public health; sociohistorical system; synchronicity; theoretical model; theory; transdisciplinarity.

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Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Today’s era of globalization as a double-edge sword for public health: “Global health” versus “globalized public health.”
Figure 2
Figure 2
1980–2008: The series of crises for the new globalizing world (In French: La chaîne des crises du nouveau monde global [NMG]).
Figure 3
Figure 3
Public health and the new globalizing world: The integrator concepts for a double synchro-diachronic perspective of their inter-relationships (in French: Santé publique et nouveau monde global – Concepts intégrateurs pour une double mise en perspective synchro-diachronique). Notes: French – English translation: Champ de la santé publique = The field of public health; Crise de la santé publique = The crisis of public health; NMG-Nouveau monde global = The new globalizing world, Contemporary globalization; NTIC = ICTs; Concepts intégrateurs = The integrator concepts; Globalisation financière = Soft capitalism, Global capitalism; Gouvernance globale = Global governance; Formes f1 à f8 = The forms of globalization [from f1 to f8]; Imaginaires i1 à i5 = The globalization-related imaginations [from i1 to i5]; Logiques l1 à l6 = The logics of globalization [from l1 to l6]; Périodisation 1980–20… = Period 1980–20…; Avant 1980 = Before 1980.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Theoretical model (in French: Modèle théorique).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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