‘Globalizing public health': A Canadian ‘KT tool' incorporating five proposals for a global governance for public health

‘Globalizing public health’ is an interactive conceptual and theoretical framework (CD-ROM) focusing on the evolutionary transformation of public health within the context of the past 25 years of globalization, and on governance for public health in a new world order. In Canada, ‘globalizing public health’ is considered as an innovative research-based knowledge translation (KT) tool impacting the field of public health by establishing new reflection and action paths for its present and for its future.

The KT research leading to this innovative framework was first aimed to allow a critical analysis of the globalization of public health and of global governance for public health. Second, it was aimed at developing a theory on globalizing public health. The research goals have been specified as follows: 1) build a conceptual framework that enables us to i) analyze the links between public health and globalization (synchronic perspective of the model), and ii) better understand the transformation of public health during the 1980-2008 period (diachronic perspective of the model); in other words, develop a socio-historical model of globalizing public health that introduces a conceptual coherence between the two perspectives (synchronic and diachronic), while explaining the evolutionary transformation of public health over the past 25 years, and 2) propose new trains of thought for a global governance for public health, while taking into account the preceding model.  By situating our research directly within complex thinking, we have proposed a multi-reference and cross-cutting reading on the globalization of public health and its stakes. We have chosen to conduct qualitative research favouring the collection of documents and a qualitative write analysis. Based on a perspective that is both trans-disciplinary and socio-historical, this research has mobilized theoretical reflection as well as factual data garnered from various literature sources (sociology, socio-anthropology, international relations, economics, medicine, public ethics, and linguistics).