Books That Have Brought a Lens of Justice to My Work in Global Health

Jonas Attilus

“The opposite of poverty is not wealth… the opposite of poverty is justice.”

—Bryan Stevenson, public interest lawyer,
founder of the Equal Justice Initiative, author of Just Mercy

Global health has taught me that health is routed in so much so more than biomedicine. In order to understand why some people are at risk to die younger than others, we need to understand the economic, social, political and environmental forces that prevent sickness and death or put people at risk. Here are four books that helped me to understand those forces and approach global health with a sense of social justice.

An Introduction to Global Health Delivery by Joia S. Mukherjee

This book provides an essential overview to the social determinants of health (SDOH) in different regions of the world such as Africa and Latin America. It provides details on how politics and economic policies prevent people from having access to care. As one example, during the AIDS epidemic the Clinton administration threatened Brazil with economic sanctions if they made the drugs available without patents to those who needed it. After reading this book, it becomes clear why countries with a history of slavery or exploitation are usually the ones with fragile healthcare systems, lack of access and poor quality of care.

Open Veins of Latin America by Eduardo Galeano

This book helped me understand social injustice and inequities in Latin America specifically. It was banned shortly after its publication in 1973 by Uruguayan poet and writer Eduardo Galeano. (As an interesting historical anecdote, the former president of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez, gave a copy in 2009 to US president Barack Obama) One of my favorite quotes is when the author shares his perception of being Latino: “Along the way we have even lost the right to call ourselves Americans, although the Haitians and the Cubans appeared in history as new people a century before the Mayflower pilgrims settled on the Plymouth coast. For the world today, America is just the United States; the region we inhabit is a sub-America, a second-class America of nebulous identity.” Data on poverty and high maternal mortality for example are not random in Latin America. From the very beginning it was about exploiting people and resources from that part of the continent.  

The Divide: A Brief Guide to Global Inequality and its Solutions by Jason Hickel

This book brings the exploitation of Global North to Global South to a different level to explain inequity. In addition to the colonial past, there are forces such as land grabbing, child exploitation, tax evasion and political support that benefit foreign companies in order to impoverish Global South. Dr. Hickel explains the International Monetary Fund (IMF) doesn’t address fairly the enormous debt burdens of poor countries, a consequence of conquest, colonialism, regime change, and globalization. IMF policies ensure their continued poverty and their control by wealthy nations. He argues that we need to abolish debt burdens in the Global South, democratize the institutions of global governance, and roll out an international minimum wage.

How to Be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi

I love this book for challenging many biases and stereotypes I had towards others, and even myself. It taught me that racism is not a lack of kindness, but the presence or absence of policies and social structures that create advantage to some group over others. Those social, economic and politic advantages are translated in health, wealth and privilege. Racism is a strong force that drives health inequity globally. If you look close enough at nearly any marker of health, you will find racial and ethnic disparities. To engage in global health, we must be committed to antiracism.

Jonas Attilus, MD is originally from Haiti. He graduated from Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. He is pursuing a MPH degree at Rutgers. During his medical degree he went to study abroad in France then in Greece during his MPH study. He is an Internal Medicine applicant for Match 2020. His interests are social medicine, global health, global politics and healthcare systems.