The World Health Organization: A History

According to its Constitution, the mission of the World Health Organization (WHO) was nothing less than the 'attainment by all peoples of the highest possible level of health' without distinction of race, religion, political belief, economic status, or social condition. But how consistently and how well has the WHO pursued this mission since 1946? This comprehensive and engaging new history explores these questions by looking at its origins and its institutional antecedents, while also considering its contemporary and future roles. It examines how the WHO was shaped by the particular environments of the postwar period and the Cold War, the relative influence of the US and other approaches to healthcare, and its place alongside sometimes competing international bodies such as UNICEF, the World Bank, and the Gates Foundation. The authors re-evaluate the relative success and failure of critical WHO campaigns, from early malaria and smallpox eradication programs to struggles with Ebola today.

Author: Marcos Cueto, Theodore M. Brown, Elizabeth Fee
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 04/11/2019
Pages: 388
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 1.40lbs
Size: 9.00h x 8.40w x 0.70d
ISBN: 9781108728843

About the Author
Brown, Theodore M.: - Theodore M. Brown is Professor of History in the School of Arts and Sciences and of Public Health Sciences and Medical Humanities in the School of Medicine and Dentistry at the University of Rochester, New York. He is an Associate Editor (History) of the American Journal of Public Health.Cueto, Marcos: - "Marcos Cueto is Professor of the Casa de Oswaldo Cruz, Fiocruz, Rio de Janeiro the main Brazilian biomedical institute, and is co-editor of the journal História, Ciências Saúde - Manguinhos. His book, co-authored with Steven Palmer, Medicine and Public Health in Latin America: A History (Cambridge, 2015) won the 2017 George Rosen award of the American Association for the History of Medicine."Fee, Elizabeth: - Elizabeth Fee passed away on October 17, 2018. She was at that time the senior historian at the National Library of Medicine. She was a prolific scholar who authored, co-authored, and edited many books including the co-authored book with Theodore M. Brown, Making Medical History: The Life and Times of Henry E. Sigerist (1997).