Abstract
Historians of medicine have been influential actors in a broader movement to highlight the social, institutional and administrative benefits of historical research, and its relevance for national and international policy intended to extend and improve contemporary healthcare. Historical perspectives are fundamentally useful to health policy actors because questions about what it is to be healthy, to suffer disease or disability, and the presentation and acceptance of solutions are interwoven in culturally and historically complex webs of meaning. Historians, as they have examined the social and cultural social determinants of health, have also used their work as public engagement, educational and policy resource tools, demonstrating that history is an effective way of making key issues in science, medicine and well-being more administratively responsive and accessible to lay audiences. This article explores such issues through the case study of the long-running World Health Organization (WHO) Global Health Histories project. Established in late 2004, the project’s enduring rationale has been that understanding the history of health helps the global public health community to respond to the challenges of today and help shape a healthier future. It has sought to do this by bringing together researchers and policy-makers into honest and democratic conversations and exchanges of ideas. The aim has been to stimulate a fusion between historical evidence and current policy approaches to many of the most urgent health issues. This article discusses the challenges and opportunities in bringing health history and policy together, and explores the importance of explaining historical method and the need to convince policy partners how history is evidence-based, that it can access and provide useful strategic information from archives of major institutions, and, therefore, a useful contributor to making policy initiatives adaptable and acceptable within complex polities and societies.
Highlights
Historians of medicine have made significant contributions to the broader movement highlighting the relevance and social benefits of historical and humanities research to contemporary policymaking in a number of very distinctive contexts
In terms of health policy, as well as helping policymakers ‘extract real “lessons” from the past’ (Birn, 2009, p. 62), historical perspectives are considered useful because questions about what it is to be healthy and to suffer disease or disability are interwoven in culturally, socially and politically complex webs of meaning
The oral and archival history research carried out for all World Health Organization (WHO) Global Health Histories seminars and training events, as well as this article, shows how all academics keen to engage and partner national, international and global health programmes need toolkits to develop a full understanding of the great complexity of each of these contexts
Summary
Historians of medicine have made significant contributions to the broader movement highlighting the relevance and social benefits of historical and humanities research to contemporary policymaking in a number of very distinctive contexts. 62), historical perspectives are considered useful because questions about what it is to be healthy and to suffer disease or disability are interwoven in culturally, socially and politically complex webs of meaning. Historians probe these meanings critically, the complex negotiations that underpin them, and evaluate decisions concerning the impact of administrative contexts, moral calculations and formal ethical protocols, often working alongside colleagues from other disciplinary backgrounds to better integrate the humanities, social sciences, biomedical sciences, medicine and public health. These examples are part of an increasingly global conversation about the fundamental benefits of historical research to policy
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary 
Published Version (
Free)
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call