Public Lecture: The Globalization of Chronic Disease - Professor George Weisz (McGill University)


Commentator: Professor David Armstrong (Kings College London)

Chair: Professor Stefan Elbe (University of Sussex)


Kings College London, 5.30-7 pm, 2 October 2015


In his recent book 'Chronic Disease in the 20th Century: A History', Professor Weisz argued that "chronic disease" as a central policy concept (lumping together numerous disparate conditions) developed in the United States in the early 20th century, reaching a peak in the 1950s and 1960s. European nations tended to be concerned with specific diseases like cancer and only began to embrace the more comprehensive "chronic disease" as a term central to healthcare policy in the last years of the 20th century. One of the reasons they did so is because chronic disease had by this time become a global health issue. Organizations like the WHO and World Bank began to emphasize the need to prevent and control chronic diseases ("noncommunicable diseases" or NCDs in global-health-speak) even in very poor countries, which had adapted some of the worst lifestyle features of the western world and which now suffered a "double" disease burden.

In this lecture, Professor Weisz will explore how international health policy gradually extended chronic disease from a problem of rich countries to one affecting lower- and middle- income countries. While epidemiological statistics provided some support for such arguments, these statistics were uneven, in many cases speculative, and occasionally highly controversial. They were convincing to many because they were congruent with the rapid growth of global health institutions and with a variety of ideological positions. Figures associated with WHO and their allies have, in recent years, succeeded in creating a large and vocal advocacy group on behalf of NCD prevention and control. But they have have, however, failed to attract much funding, which still remains largely devoted to infectious diseases.


The lecture is free to attend. Places, however, are limited and will be attributed on first come, first serve basis. To reserve a place, please send an email to Dr David Reubi ([log in to unmask]).

The lecture is part of a larger, 2-day International Workshop on the Politics of NCDs in the Global South funded by the ESRC and the Wellcome Trust. For more information, see http://criticalglobalhealth.org and click on 'workshops'.


Dr David Reubi
Wellcome Trust Fellow
Department of Social Science, Health & Medicine
King's College London
Strand, East Building, Room 3.1
London WC2R 2LS
United Kingdom

Phone: ++44 78 7516 4411
Website: criticalglobalhealth.org<http://www.criticalglobalhealth.org>

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