THE UNITED NATIONS SECURITY COUNCIL AND GLOBAL PUBLIC HEALTH. WHAT IS THE STORY?

Traditional approaches to study of health concern the mental, physical and social well-being of the individual and of populations, how the body works and how it can be repaired if damaged. International Relations studies were dominated, for a long time by concerns about war, peace and security of states. Health issues that cross national borders are not a new phenomenon and have determined international commitment and collective responses since the 18th Century. By the late 20th Century, territorial space becomes irrelevant in what concerns the infectious diseases spreading. Health requires new understandings of the geography of disease, of the risk factors and of the policy needed. Following health crises, especially the explosion of HIV/AIDS pandemic in the 1980s, in the broader context of globalization the boundaries between these two academic fields begin to fade. Moreover, the world responded to its worst pandemic until now, at the highest security level, the United Nations Security Council, emphasizing that in our interconnected world, the highest attainable health status of the world population needs more than medicine and medical organizations.