Global health: an analysis of the relations between the processes of globalization and the use of health indicators

The objective of this paper is to discuss the construction of Global Health, identifying its political and epistemological uses. The rhetorical use of global health indicators and their relations to globalization processes are treated here as analyzers. A bibliographic and documentary research on the subject was performed. The analysis has a critical and constructionist perspective about knowledge production and globalization processes in health, and it is based on the work of the sociologist Boaventura Santos. In spite of the use of the adjective 'global', the study highlights the epistemological and political dispute that is in progress in the relations between globalization and health, and the rhetorical use of global health indicators for the construction of policies for poor and developing countries. It is considered that this strategy aims to influence national healthcare systems in a cross-cultural and colonizing perspective that extinguishes local knowledge and traditions, as well as local modes of subjectivity.