Global Health and Foreign Policy

Feldbaum, Harley; Lee, Kelley; Michaud, Joshua

Foreign policy links to development assistance for health trends Foreign-policy considerations underlie much of the remarkable growth in development assistance for health, from rising concerns about the national security and economic implications of health disparities to the perception of health assistance as an important ''soft power'' tool, to shifting domestic political perceptions of global health issues (33, 34) . In some cases, development assistance for health has been clearly and directly linked to national security. Since 2001, many donors have supported ''health security'' aid to reduce the threat of natural and intentional outbreaks of infectious diseases (35) (36) (37) . For example, aid for international influenza surveillance and pandemic planning and response programs was virtually nonexistent prior to the emergence the H5N1 avian influenza virus, but with the growing perception that an influenza pandemic presents a direct security threat (38) , more than $2 billion was provided to combat the disease between 2004 and 2008 (39) .