Citation

Méndez F, Osorio L. Int. J. Public Health 2016; 62(2): 175-176.

Affiliation

Universidad del Valle, Cali, Colombia.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2016, Holtzbrinck Springer Nature Publishing Group)

DOI

10.1007/s00038-016-0892-y

PMID

27778078

Abstract

The prevailing idea of “development” has oriented the emergence of nations since the middle of the twentieth century. The purpose: to assure that the benefits of scientific advances and industrial progress of rich countries are available for underdeveloped areas as well (Sachs 2010). However, every socio-ecosystem today, specially those with vulnerable communities, are met with crisis and conflict directly or indirectly related to environmental deterioration, social injustice and extreme poverty. The connections between these issues and our development models are particularly profound, difficult to engage and are reflected in every sector of welfare and public policy, including of course and in a very special manner: health.

The analysis of current development models requires an understanding of the historical processes that preceded the critical situation of the twenty first century, in particular that which relates to the preponderance of postwar developmentalist and capitalist visions, the fall of the second world (high revenue non-capitalist nations), the erosion of the welfare state and the new versions of transnational colonialism with stark inequalities between the north and the south (Escobar 2011).

The implications of these historical contexts in the public policies of our countries are reflected in the conditions of life of most of the planet’s inhabitants and other living things. Today more than ever we have concentration of wealth in smaller elites, endangered and extinct species, segregation and violence between nations and towards ethnic and cultural minorities, morbidity and mortality by preventable diseases, unbridled growth leading to the deterioration of non-renewable resources, global climate change with extreme weather phenomena, accelerated urban growth and abandonment of the countryside, and we’re just scraping the surface of our present world’s most renowned problems...

Language: en