5.10: Assignments

From Body to System

Choose one health outcome occurring in a specific country, region, or community. Possibilities include maternal mortality, asthma, diabetes, HIV/AIDS, malaria, tuberculosis, mental-health access, heat-related illness, cancer, antimicrobial resistance, occupational injury, or another approved topic.

Your task is to conduct a Global Health Autopsy.

Begin with the immediate health outcome, then trace outward. Explain the biological or clinical problem, but do not stop there. Investigate living conditions, social position, institutions, political economy, environmental conditions, and relevant history. Apply at least three theoretical frameworks from Chapter 5 and identify what each helps you see that another framework might miss.

Conclude by identifying which actor or institution possesses the greatest realistic power to reduce the health disparity and defend your choice.

Suggested length: 1,200–1,500 words.

Evidence requirement: At least four credible sources, including at least two scholarly sources.

Mapping Power in Global Health

Choose one major global health initiative, organization, or controversy. Examples include WHO financing, Gavi, the Global Fund, COVID-19 vaccine access, HIV medicine pricing, malaria eradication, antimicrobial resistance financing, maternal-health funding, or a major philanthropic global-health initiative.

Create a power map answering the following central question:

Who has the greatest influence over what happens, and why?

Your analysis should identify the major actors, where the money comes from, who possesses legal authority, who controls technical expertise or technology, whose interests shape priorities, which communities experience the consequences, and how accountability works when something goes wrong.

Your final product may be a written policy analysis, infographic plus commentary, narrated presentation, or another format approved by your instructor.

Whatever format you choose, the argument must be analytical rather than descriptive. Do not merely tell us who participates.

Show us who has power.

Make the Invisible Impossible to Ignore

Choose a global health problem that has become politically normalized despite causing substantial preventable suffering.

Imagine you have five minutes before an international funding committee that can commit significant resources to your issue.

Make the case.

Your pitch must establish the scale of the problem, explain why it remains under-recognized, identify which groups bear the greatest burden, use at least one Chapter 5 theory to explain why the problem persists, and propose an intervention that addresses more than individual behavior.

The strongest projects will also address a difficult question:

Why should this problem receive funding instead of another equally deserving health priority?

You may submit the assignment as a written brief, recorded advocacy pitch, multimedia presentation, or another instructor-approved format.