Randall M. Packard

Authoritative, fascinating, and eye-opening, this short history of malaria concludes with policy recommendations for improving control strategies and saving lives.

A Short History of Malaria

The Making of a Tropical Disease

Over the past century, hundreds of billions of dollars have been invested in programs aimed at improving health on a global scale. Given the enormous scale and complexity of these lifesaving operations, why do millions of people in low-income countries continue to live without access to basic health services, sanitation, or clean water? And why are deadly diseases like Ebola able to spread so quickly among populations? In A History of Global Health, Randall M. Packard argues that global-health initiatives have saved millions of lives but have had limited impact on the overall health of people living in underdeveloped areas, where health-care workers are poorly paid, infrastructure and basic supplies such as disposable gloves, syringes, and bandages are lacking, and little effort has been made to address the underlying social and economic determinants of ill health. Global-health campaigns have relied on the application of biomedical technologies—vaccines, insecticide-treated nets, vitamin A capsules—to attack specific health problems but have failed to invest in building lasting infrastructure for managing the ongoing health problems of local populations. Designed to be read and taught, the book offers a critical historical view, providing historians, policy makers, researchers, program managers, and students with an essential new perspective on the formation and implementation of global-health policies and practices.

Interventions Into the Lives of Other Peoples

A History of Global Health

A sweeping history explores why people living in resource-poor areas lack access to basic health care after billions of dollars have been invested in international-health assistance. Over the past century, hundreds of billions of dollars have been invested in programs aimed at improving health on a global scale. Given the enormous scale and complexity of these lifesaving operations, why do millions of people in low-income countries continue to live without access to basic health services, sanitation, or clean water? And why are deadly diseases like Ebola able to spread so quickly among populations? In A History of Global Health, Randall M. Packard argues that global-health initiatives have saved millions of lives but have had limited impact on the overall health of people living in underdeveloped areas, where health-care workers are poorly paid, infrastructure and basic supplies such as disposable gloves, syringes, and bandages are lacking, and little effort has been made to address the underlying social and economic determinants of ill health. Global-health campaigns have relied on the application of biomedical technologies—vaccines, insecticide-treated nets, vitamin A capsules—to attack specific health problems but have failed to invest in building lasting infrastructure for managing the ongoing health problems of local populations. Designed to be read and taught, the book offers a critical historical view, providing historians, policy makers, researchers, program managers, and students with an essential new perspective on the formation and implementation of global-health policies and practices.

Interventions into the Lives of Other Peoples

A global history of malaria that traces the natural and social forces that have shaped its spread and made it deadly, while limiting efforts to eliminate it. Malaria sickens hundreds of millions of people—and kills nearly a half a million—each year. Despite massive efforts to eradicate the disease, it remains a major public health problem in poorer tropical regions. But malaria has not always been concentrated in tropical areas. How did malaria disappear from other regions, and why does it persist in the tropics? From Russia to Bengal to Palm Beach, Randall M. Packard's far-ranging narrative shows how the history of malaria has been driven by the interplay of social, biological, economic, and environmental forces. The shifting alignment of these forces has largely determined the social and geographical distribution of the disease, including its initial global expansion, its subsequent retreat to the tropics, and its current persistence. Packard argues that efforts to control and eliminate malaria have often ignored this reality, relying on the use of biotechnologies to fight the disease. Failure to address the forces driving malaria transmission have undermined past control efforts. Describing major changes in both the epidemiology of malaria and efforts to control the disease, the revised edition of this acclaimed history, which was chosen as the 2008 End Malaria Awards Book of the Year in its original printing, • examines recent efforts to eradicate malaria following massive increases in funding and political commitment; • discusses the development of new malaria-fighting biotechnologies, including long-lasting insecticide-treated nets, rapid diagnostic tests, combination artemisinin therapies, and genetically modified mosquitoes; • explores the efficacy of newly developed vaccines; and • explains why eliminating malaria will also require addressing the social forces that drive the disease and building health infrastructures that can identify and treat the last cases of malaria. Authoritative, fascinating, and eye-opening, this short history of malaria concludes with policy recommendations for improving control strategies and saving lives.

Howard Frumkin

Ruth L. Berkelman

Peter J. Brown

"Presenting a theoretical model of the social process of "emerging" illness, the volume's introductory chapter identifies critical factors that shape different trajectories toward the construction of public health priorities. Through case studies of individual diseases and analyses of public awareness campaigns and institutional responses, later chapters provide important insights into the reasons why some illnesses receive more attention and funding than others."--Jacket.

Negotiating the Public Health Agenda

Emerging Illnesses and Society

"After reading this book, no one should fail to see tuberculosis in South Africa in the light of social policies and interests which have prevented its control. In turn, it shows tuberculosis to be one measure of the cost in suffering of the emergence of a modern capitalist society in South Africa."—Rodney Ehrlich, Mount Sinai Medical Center, New York "At almost every point, the author has something fresh to say about previous analyses of the origins, nature and spread of the disease. His subtle exposition of the ideological interpretations of the medical profession—from their adherence to a 'virgin soil' theory to more recent notions of relating to the social and biological aetiology of the disease—is particularly original and thought-provoking. . . . Well researched, effectively organised, and wholly readable."—Shula Marks, Institute of Commonwealth Studies, University of London

Tuberculosis and the Political Economy of Health and Disease in South Africa

White Plague, Black Labor

Why does tuberculosis, a disease which is both curable and preventable, continue to produce over 50,000 new cases a year in South Africa, primarily among blacks? In answering this question Randall Packard traces the history of one of the most devastating diseases in twentieth-century Africa, against the background of the changing political and economic forces that have shaped South African society from the end of the nineteenth century to the present. These forces have generated a growing backlog of disease among black workers and their families and at the same time have prevented the development of effective public health measures for controlling it. Packard's rich and nuanced analysis is a significant contribution to the growing body of literature on South Africa's social history as well as to the history of medicine and the political economy of health.

A global history of malaria that traces the natural and social forces that have shaped its spread and made it deadly, while limiting efforts to eliminate it. Malaria sickens hundreds of millions of peopleâ€”and kills nearly a half a millionâ€”each year. Despite massive efforts to eradicate the disease, it remains a major public health problem in poorer tropical regions. But malaria has not always been concentrated in tropical areas. How did malaria disappear from other regions, and why does it persist in the tropics? From Russia to Bengal to Palm Beach, Randall M. Packard's far-ranging narrative shows how the history of malaria has been driven by the interplay of social, biological, economic, and environmental forces. The shifting alignment of these forces has largely determined the social and geographical distribution of the disease, including its initial global expansion, its subsequent retreat to the tropics, and its current persistence. Packard argues that efforts to control and eliminate malaria have often ignored this reality, relying on the use of biotechnologies to fight the disease. Failure to address the forces driving malaria transmission have undermined past control efforts. Describing major changes in both the epidemiology of malaria and efforts to control the disease, the revised edition of this acclaimed history, which was chosen as the 2008 End Malaria Awards Book of the Year in its original printing, • examines recent efforts to eradicate malaria following massive increases in funding and political commitment; • discusses the development of new malaria-fighting biotechnologies, including long-lasting insecticide-treated nets, rapid diagnostic tests, combination artemisinin therapies, and genetically modified mosquitoes; • explores the efficacy of newly developed vaccines; and • explains why eliminating malaria will also require addressing the social forces that drive the disease and building health infrastructures that can identify and treat the last cases of malaria. Authoritative, fascinating, and eye-opening, this short history of malaria concludes with policy recommendations for improving control strategies and saving lives.

Randall M. Packard

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