Globalization, Communicable Disease and Equity: A look back and forth

Abstract

Kelley Lee explores the links between globalization and communicable disease and the extent to which globalizing forces may be contributing to widening inequities in the burden of communicable disease. Evidence shows that communicable diseases have long been characterized by inequity, and that different phases of globalization have contributed to this. Lee argues that there are distinct epidemiological patterns in recent decades of certain diseases suggesting that globalization, in its present form, is reinforcing existing, and perhaps even creating new, forms of health inequity.