Making health global. Spain in the World Health Organization
This Project begins a systematic approach to the internationalization of Spanish medicine and health by the second half of the 20th C through the study of its participation in the World Health Organization. It stands in line with our own field of expertise and with recent developments in the history of international/global health, adding up to the study of one of the most important international agencies.
Though Spain stayed aloof the birth of the WHO, nevertheless it was taken into the organization in 1951 and signed the basic agreement for cooperation in 1952. From there on and until Franco’s death, WHO-Europe applied up to 21 different cooperation and technical advisory programmes in Spain. Of those, we propose to follow two of them, on public health administration and on viral vaccines, as well as a third (on family planning) which did not count with an official Spanish participation; thus we hope to complete our study on the meaning of the effects of WHO norms, reports and suggestions both on the administration and on the general public and the health professions.
Two are our starting hypotheses: first, the up-and- downs of the relationships between the WHO and Spain were basically influenced by internal political circumstances, although the aspirations and interests of the particular experts involved must be taken into account, general public and the health professions Two, as suggested by Sturdy et al (2013) it must be important to reconstruct the activity and membership of the different epistemic communities which provide new knowledge to the organization.
Among our main aims are the following: to study the chronological serialization of collaborative programmes and its results, to understand the precise way of participation of Spain into the WHO, how such relationship contributed to the shaping of medical knowledge and to mobilise intellectual and health resources –which in turn obligates us to identify the participating experts in each programme–. We want to shed light on whether Spain was a passive recipient or whether did it bring any prominence into the significant epistemic communities which legitimise WHO.
SUBPROJECT 1
THE ADMINISTRATION OF PUBLIC HEALTH TO THE THREAD OF RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN SPAIN AND THE WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION UNDER FRANCHISM
MAIN RESEARCHER: Esteban Rodríguez Ocaña
PLACE OF EXECUTION: University of Granada
SUBPROJECT 2
THE FIGHT AGAINST VIVIC DISEASES IN SPAIN THROUGH RELATIONS WITH WHO (1949-1986)
MAIN RESEARCHER: María Isabel Porras Gallo
PLACE OF EXECUTION: University of Castilla-La Mancha
