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Cited by 48Global Public Health Policies and EpidemiologyPublic health and occupational medicinePublic Health and Social Inequalities

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Power asymmetries in global governance for health: a conceptual framework for analyzing the political-economic determinants of health inequities

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Kentikelenis, Alexander, Rochford, Connor·2019·Globalization and Health
DOI 10.1186/s12992-019-0516-4PMC PMC6881908
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Abstract

Background: Recent scholarship has increasingly identified global power asymmetries as the root cause of health inequities. This article examines how such asymmetries manifest in global governance for health, and how this impacts health outcomes. Results: We focus on the political-economic determinants of global health inequities, and how these determinants operate at different levels of social action (micro, meso, and macro) through distinct but interacting mechanisms. To clarify how these mechanisms operate, we develop an integrative framework for examining the links between global neoliberalism—the currently dominant policy paradigm premised on advancing the reach of markets and promoting ever-growing international economic integration—and global health inequities, and show how these mechanisms have macro–macro, macro–meso–macro, and macro–micro–macro manifestations. Conclusions: Our approach enables the design of theoretically-nuanced empirical strategies to document the multiple ways in which the political economy entrenches or, alternatively, might ameliorate global health inequities.

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Fig. 1 Multiple levels of analysis and the origins of health inequity. Source: Authors, drawing on Jepperson and Meyer [29]
Fig. 1 Multiple levels of analysis and the origins of health inequity. Source: Authors, drawing on Jepperson and Meyer [29]CC BY · PubMed Central

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Metadata

Authors
Kentikelenis, A., & Rochford, C.
Affiliations
  • Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NO)
  • University of Oxford (GB)
Corresponding author
Kentikelenis, Alexander
ORCID
Venue
Globalization and Health
Publisher
Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Published
2019-11
Volume
15
Issue
S1
Pages
70-70
ISSN
1744-8603 (ISSN-L)
DOI
10.1186/s12992-019-0516-4
PMC
PMC6881908
OpenAlex
W2990061494
Cited by
48
References
6
Citations by year
2026: 12 · 2025: 6 · 2024: 8 · 2023: 11 · 2022: 3 · 2021: 7 · 2020: 1
FWCI
3.86
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
Locations
  • Globalization and Health (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • Archivio istituzionale della Ricerca - Bocconi (submittedVersion, cc-by)
  • DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
Funders
Universitetet i Oslo
Topics
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health › Global Public Health Policies and Epidemiology
  • Social Sciences › Political Science and International Relations › Public health and occupational medicine
  • Social Sciences › Health › Public Health and Social Inequalities
Keywords
global health governance, power imbalance, health disparities, political economy of health, neoliberalism, global neoliberalism, international economic integration, conceptual framework
MeSH terms
Humans, Politics, Power, Psychological, Socioeconomic Factors, Global Health, Health Status Disparities, Social Determinants of Health

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