Rural hygiene in the early years of the World Health Organization: another casualty of the Cold War?

Abstract

Rural hygiene was a major program in the League of Nation’s Health Organization (LNHO). During WHO’s early years steps were taken to develop rural hygiene programs in several countries and to incorporate it as part of WHO’s priority program of environmental sanitation. Nevertheless, by the early 1950s these initiatives failed to move forward for various reasons, one of which was the growing importance of the Cold War in America’s foreign policy.