2024/04/24 by Ramya Kumar, Rajat Khosla, David McCoy · 1 voice · 3 citations
Business, Management and Accounting · Medicine · #Global Health and Surgery #Global Maternal and Child Health #Global Public Health Policies and Epidemiology
paper · doi:10.1371/journal.pgph.0003141
openalex publication_date 2024/04/24 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/31
Recent debates on decolonizing global health have spurred interest in addressing the power asymmetries and knowledge hierarchies that sustain colonial ideas and relationships in global health research. This paper applies three intersecting dimensions of colonialism (colonialism within global health; colonisation of global health; and colonialism through global health) to develop a broader and more structural understanding of the policies and actions needed to decolonise global health research. It argues that existing guidelines and checklists designed to make global health research more equitable do not adequately address the underlying power asymmetries and biases that prevail across the global health research ecosystem. Beyond encouraging fairer partnerships within individual research projects, this paper calls for more emphasis on shifting the balance of decision-making power, redistributing resources, and holding research funders and other power-holders accountable to the places and peoples involved in and impacted by global health research.