What is global health security?

The term has evolved over time, with different connotations in different contexts. "Global health security" can mean:

Achieving widespread access to essential health services, and protection from environmental and behavioral risks to global public health.  

This definition frames health security as an aspect of human security: the "freedom from want" of life-saving clinical and public health interventions.  This is not just a humanitarian concern: healthy populations are an essential aspect of economic development.  Stimson's Global Health Security team considers the questions of how to strengthen health systems sustainably by looking at the hard numbers -- the technical and financial assistance, programs, and policies aimed at improving health status in the world's low and middle income countries.

Systems and agreements to prevent the cross-border spread of communicable diseases and other threats to public health.

Rapid international trade and travel, an increasingly complex animal-human interface, urbanization, shared global supply chains for pharmaceuticals and foods, and changing human behaviors increase the odds that significant new public health threats will emerge and spread among vulnerable populations worldwide. The Global Health Security team focuses on the evidence base for strengthening global disease detection and response capabilities -- particularly the demands of implementing the International Health Regulations (2005), a commitment to reciprocal responsibility among nations to detect, assess, report, and respond to public health events before they spill across borders.

Tools and instruments to ameliorate the threat of biological weapons and bioterrorism.

Decades-long efforts to prevent the deliberate use of biological weapons through the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BWC) and other measures attained new urgency after the 2001 anthrax assaults against US targets.  The US government adopted new strategies for biodefense and biosecurity, as ubiquitous skills, tools, and knowledge have lowered the barriers to biomedical and biotechnology research that could be deliberately diverted or misused.  The Stimson Global Health Security team considers how this policy framework affects essential public health research, and how to identify and promote effective actions.

This project is led by Stimson senior associate, Dr. Julie Fischer. 

For more information, please contact jfischer@stimson.org.