Welcome to the Global Health Justice Website!
We aim to advance the struggle for global health justice by providing a platform and resources that explore fundamental drivers of health that are often absent in the conventional global health discourse. We recognize that global and national structures of domination, exploitation, and oppression play a crucial role in perpetuating poverty, disenfranchisement, and inequality – all of which have a profound impact on global health. Our goal is to expand our conversations to identify and better understand how injustice is perpetrated – and to work to transform power dynamics toward a fairer world.
By shedding light on these issues, we hope to promote a deeper understanding of the social and political determinants of health. To this end, we prioritize the perspectives and voices of those from the Global South, whose lived experiences and insights are essential for a truly comprehensive understanding of health justice. We welcome contributions to the website, including relevant articles, videos, and artistic expression (eg, songs, poetry) to further explore these issues. We encourage our UW Global Health alumni to contribute to increase our collective awareness of the situation around the world. Our website is a collaborative effort of faculty, staff, students, and alumni of the University of Washington Department of Global Health.
Global Theft
Deliberate trade mis-invoicing robs Africa of huge sums
March 19, 2026
Philip Nyakundi and colleagues at Global Financial Integrity released a report on 28 January 2026 that quantifies the enormous financial loss to African countries due to rich country corporations’ mis-invoicing the value of commodity transactions. The loss of resources and capital flight comes at great cost to public welfare and overall development. The total losses by mis-invoicing alone matches the combined total annual inflows of Official Development Assistance (ODA) and Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) to Africa, meaning Africa loses as…
Reimagining Aid
Despite calls for integration, vertical programs and NGOs continue to dominate US health assistance
March 15, 2026
Analysis by the Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF), and the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) suggest that the new approach to US bilateral health assistance maintains much of the vertical programming that the original strategy was designed to eliminate. The America First Global Health Strategy (AFGHS) published in September 2025 stated that vertical programs resulted in “lack of coordination…..duplication, and missed opportunities to maximize and leverage investments across multiple diseases. This vertical disease-specific approach has also made integrating programs…
Decolonization
Can decolonization come from the colonizers?
March 1, 2026
Michelle Amri and colleagues analyzed 91 articles on decolonizing global health, and noted a considerable lack of consensus regarding what ‘decolonization’ means. They concluded that decolonization of global health involves: Overhauling existing unequal power structures, Establishing agency and self-determination of the Global South, Epistemic reformation and epistemic and ontological pluralism, Education, and Inclusivity, solidarity, and allyship. They noted that only only 22% of first authors of retrieved articles had an affiliation in a low- and/or middle-income country. Can decolonization emanate…
War/ Militarism
Exclusion of genocide-related deaths from surveillance frameworks grossly underestimates child mortality
March 7, 2026
Reuben Granich, Somya Gupta, and Victoria Rose argue that the systematic exclusion of politically sensitive causes of death, such as genocide, enormously underestimates the numbers and causes of childhood deaths worldwide. Genocide-related child deaths in Gaza represent one of the leading global causes of childhood mortality. They recommend recognizing and coding genocide as a preventable cause of death for accountability, accurate health metrics, and urgent humanitarian response. The authors state that although official reports cite 60,199 deaths in Gaza as…
Structural Violence
Jocalyn Clark: Doctors were Complicit in Epstein’s Abuse
February 26, 2026
Recent coverage of Jeffrey Epstein’s abuse has focused public attention on the case, yet Jocalyn Clark highlights that this focus often obscures critical issues: the rights, health, and pursuit of justice for survivors, as well as the role of the medical profession in enabling harm. Clark’s analysis of the ‘Epstein files’ reveals that prominent physicians contributed to legitimizing Epstein, providing access and a sense of safety that shielded those in power and perpetuated harm. Examined through a global health justice…
Medical Apartheid
CDC Accused of Funding an Unethical Vaccine Trial in Guinea-Bissau
December 24, 2025
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), along with the Pershing Square Foundation and the Bluebell Foundation, has awarded a $1.6 million grant to an unsolicited proposal for a single-blind randomized control trial of the hepatitis B vaccine at birth in Guinea-Bissau. The trial will randomize newborns to receive the hepatitis B vaccine at birth or to receive no hepatitis B vaccine at birth. Universal hepatitis B vaccination at birth is proven to significantly reduce infections and transmission…
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