Hosted by the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine
In partnership with the UK Faculty of Public Health, the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine hosted a roundtable addressing the importance of the arts and humanities within public health education and training in January 2024.
Watch the full recording here.
By Nathalie Egalité and Allan Arturo González Estrada
This seminar examines some of the moral frameworks proposed or implemented for public health in two different contexts: those put forward by Frantz Fanon in the 1950s-60s, and those developed by philosophers shaping public health policy in 19th/early 20th century Costa Rica.
A key figure in postcolonial thought, psychiatrist Frantz Fanon wrote extensively about the effects of social determinants on the health of his patients, particularly looking into the impacts of colonialism, war, economic marginalisation, and repressive state interventions in Algeria. This seminar argues that distinct moral imperatives pertaining to public health and social medicine can be discerned in Fanon’s literary treatment of patients. Fanon’s texts, embedded in a larger transformative project, remain morally instructive for contemporary evaluations of writing about public health.
A young Costa Rican republic witnessed two significant outbreaks of disease within the first 35 years of declaring independence. During that time, Costa Rica did not have an ethical framework for managing such significant public health crises. After José Maria Castro Madriz, first President of Costa Rica, developed a moral framework for many of the significant interventions of the mid-nineteenth century, new outbreaks challenged the more established state of the 20th century. As many public health measures were not easily accepted by many Costa Rican citizens, this created significant conflict between the state and the population. These ethical conflicts bear a striking resemblance to the world’s most recent public health crisis: SARS-CoV-2.
Read more and watch the seminar here.
By Ayodeji Adegbite and David Bannister
This seminar uses history to examine ideas of ethics and fairness from West Africa: Ayodeji Adegbite focuses on mid-20th century Nigeria to consider African challenges to the Euro-American ethics of global health, and David Bannister looks at the role of the past in shaping current views of fair healthcare in Ghana.
The seminar focuses on two themes:
Reas more and watch seminar here.
By Daniel S. Goldberg
In this seminar, Daniel S. Goldberg discusses the importance of understanding historical patterns of domination, oppression, and subordination to tackle health and social justice; the role of law as a social determinant of health; and the significance of historical fluency in public health law and ethics.
The primary claim of this talk is that historical fluency is critical to effective scholarship and advocacy in public health law & ethics. In explaining such fluency and supporting this claim, several foundational ideas are relevant. First, law is a powerful social determinant of health. Historical analysis of population health problems connected to communicable disease, non-communicable disease, and injury helps demonstrate the deep connections between laws and health outcomes. Second, as to ethics, Powers & Faden’s health sufficiency model of social justice suggests that factors intensifying “densely-woven patterns of disadvantage” are of highest priority. Such factors are most responsible for expanding health inequities and they overwhelmingly track historical patterns of domination, oppression, and subordination. Taken together, these foundational ideas in public health law and public health ethics show why historical fluency is critical to advancing health and social justice. The final portion of the presentation will apply the analysis to a particular case study (the 1900 outbreak of bubonic plague in San Francisco, CA) to illustrate the significance of historical fluency in public health law & ethics.
Read more and watch the seminar here.
By Eqbal Ahmad
Eqbal Ahmad gave this speech on November 4, 1975 at the University of Michigan during the closing session of the three-day “Bicentennial Dilemma: Who’s in Control?” teach-in.
By Odilia Romero
In this fascinating and necessary Talk, Odilia Romero shares why the Latino narrative is oppressive for Indigenous communities. Through her nonprofit CIELO, listen to how Odilia fights for language rights and provides interpretation services to Indigenous communities across the United States.
As a fierce Zapotec leader, Odilia Romero is the co-founder of Comunidades Indigenas en Liderazgo (CIELO), advocating for Indigenous migrant rights in Los Angeles & throughout California. She is also an independent interpreter of Zapotec, Spanish, and English for Indigenous communities & her organizing knowledge & experience are held in high regard, with multiple academic publications, awards, & lectures in universities across the United States, including John Hopkins, USC, and UCLA. Ms. Romero’s work has also been featured in the Los Angeles Times, the New York Times, Vogue and Democracy Now. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community.
Berkeley Center for New Media: History and Theory of New Media Lecture Series
It is a myth of the West’s choosing: perpetual economic growth, advancing through a digestive system of sorts, one that uses technology as one of its core components. In its churn, ecosystems became goods; people, mere consumers. The myth turned the world into a place increasingly inhospitable to human life. An alternative, offered by Abya Yala, lies in separating economic development and the development of new technologies from consumerism. This would place technological creation and ingenuity once again at the service of the common good, not of the market. Technology as tequio; technological creation and innovation as a common good.
Read more here.
OpenLearn film
How does racism manifest itself in schools and workplaces?
Explore the policies that discriminate against Black and Minority Ethnic communities in this immersive film interactive here.
The OpenLearn film, Good Hair, has won the Jury prize for best short film that explores social Issues at this year’s International Black and Diversity Awards in Canada.
The film was also shortlisted for best drama at the British Short Film Awards and received an honourable mention at the London Rocks Film Festival.
The Circle U. European University Alliance brings together students and academics across European institutions. At Circle U.’s 2022 ‘Rethinking Global Health’ Summer School, the group of early career researchers was especially engaged with content on decolonising global health.
They took steps to remotely build a network focused on actions early career researchers (ECRs) can take to be proactive allies for decolonisation efforts. Representing seven institutions, they are working towards Circle U.’s vision of an interdisciplinary European university by sharing perspectives from their specialisms in literature, philosophy, medicine, public health, epidemiology, and health services research.
In 2023 they were awarded a King’s Circle U. Seed Fund grant to hold a two day hybrid meeting, by a range of experts, followed by a half day workshop discussing learning and next steps.
Young, British and Somali at Cambridge University
Decolonising Global Health Archive 
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