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Howard Waitzkin (USA) is Professor and Director,
Division of Community Medicine; Professor of Medicine; and
Professor of Sociology, University of New Mexico. At the
University of New Mexico's Public Health Program, he teaches
courses on health communication, comparative international
health systems, and social medicine in Latin America. He
sees patients clinically and teaches in internal medicine
and family practice.
Dr. Waitzkin's previous positions include: Professor and
Chief, Division of General Internal Medicine, Harbor-UCLA
Medical Center; Professor and Director of the Division of
General Internal Medicine and Primary Care, and Professor
of Social Sciences, at the University of California, Irvine;
primary care internist at La Clínica de la Raza,
a community health center in Oakland, California, and Visiting
Associate Professor of Health and Medical Sciences and of
Sociology at the University of California, Berkeley. He
received an M.D. degree and a Ph.D. in sociology in 1972
from Harvard University.
Dr. Waitzkin's work has focused on health policy in comparative
international perspective and on psychosocial issues in
primary care. He coauthored the proposal for a single-payer
national health program that was published in the New
England Journal of Medicine and later was introduced
in the U.S. Congress. He has been involved in advocacy for
improved health access and currently is conducting studies
of Medicaid managed care in New Mexico and the diffusion
of managed care to Latin America, supported by the U.S.
Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, the World Health
Organization, and the National Library of Medicine. His
work on patient-doctor communication and psychosocial issues
in primary care has been funded by the National Institute
on Aging and the National Institute of Mental Health.
In recognition of such accomplishments, the American Sociological
Association bestowed the Leo G. Reeder Award for Distinguished
Scholarship in Medical Sociology, the highest career achievement
award in the social sciences pertinent to medicine (1997).
Selected Publications:
· Howard Waitzkin (2001) At the Front Lines of
Medicine: How the Health Care System Alienates Doctors and
Mistreats Patients... And What We Can Do About I. Rowman
and Littlefield. (In Press.)
· Iriart C, Merhy E, Waitzkin H. (2001) Managed care
in Latin America: the new common sense in health policy
reform. Social Science & Medicine. 52; 1243-1253.
· Waitzkin H, Iriart C, Estrada A, Lamadrid S. (2001)
Social medicine in Latin America: productivity and dangers
facing the major national groups. Lacet. 358:315-323.
· Howard Waitzkin (2000) The Second Sickness:
Contradictions of Capitalist Health Care. Rowman and
Littlefield, updated edition.
· Stocker K, Waitzkin H, Iriart C. (1999) The exportation
of managed care to Latin America. New England Journal
of Medicine. 340:1131-1136.
· Howard Waitzkin (1991) The Politics of Medical
Encounters: How Patients and Doctors Deal With Social Problems.
Yale U. P.
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Global Trade and Public Health Policies
This study will pursue three objectives: 1) to develop
a conceptual framework and methodological approach for clarifying
the relationships between global trade and public health
policies; 2) to assess the decisions and actions of major
groups participating in policy debates concerning globalization,
health care, and public health: government agencies, multinational
banking and trade organizations, international and national
health organizations, multinational corporations, and advocacy
groups; and 3) to present recommendations for policy changes
that link globalization, health care, and public health.
Economic globalization raises fundamental problems for
public health policy. The World Bank and other international
lending agencies have fostered reduction and privatization
of public-sector health and public health services; this
intensely debated orientation has affected policies of the
World Health Organization, the Pan American Health Organization,
and the U.S. National Institutes of Health. Expansion of
multinational corporations (managed care organizations,
consulting firms, pharmaceutical and medical equipment firms,
and industrial corporations) has led to environmental and
occupational health effects, unemployment, loss of health
insurance benefits, and withdrawal from U.S. Medicaid and
Medicare markets.
Growing from previous research on the exportation of managed
care and the implementation of Medicaid managed care, the
proposed work includes an analysis of the research and archival
literature on globalization and public health policy; interviews
with representatives of government agencies, multinational
banking and trade organizations, international and national
health organizations, multinational corporations, and advocacy
groups; and assessment of these organizations' reports available
in the public sphere. This project will include a three-month
research visit to the School of Public Health at the University
of Guadalajara, Mexico, and will lead to several products:
two journal articles, a book, op-ed and similar articles
for newspapers and magazines, and a curriculum module for
policy studies, public health, social sciences, and management.
To my knowledge, this project will become the first systematic
study of the relationships between global trade and public
health policies. As one of the most important and highly
debated policy arenas during the early twenty-first century,
globalization will affect key components of public health,
including public hospitals and community health centers,
other public health agencies, occupational and environmental
health standards, availability and regulation of drugs and
equipment, public-sector programs seeking improved access
to services, and movement of multinational insurance companies
and managed care organizations from U.S. markets depending
on investment opportunities abroad. The development of suitable
policies that link globalization, health care, and public
health has become a crucial challenge.
This project will address the NCS focus on the health challenges
in globalization. Such challenges, as framed by the NCS
announcement, include determination and governance of public
health policies, impact of global trade policies on public
health problems related to inequality and poverty, access
to health care and essential medications, market forces
and consumer demand, and regulatory environments and resource
allocations. In policy making about global trade and public
health, this project's conceptual framework, methodological
approach, and recommendations for change will figure as
innovative and provocative.
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Professor
and Director, Division of Community Medicine 
