Research
BioMed Central
Open Access
The health impacts of globalisation: a conceptual framework
Maud MTE Huynen*1, Pim Martens1,2,3 and Henk BM Hilderink4
Address: 1International Centre for Integrative Studies (ICIS), Maastricht University, Maasticht, The Netherlands, 2Faculty of Natural Sciences, Open University, Heerlen, The Netherlands, 3Zuyd University, Heerlen, The Netherlands and 4Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency (MNP), Bilthoven, the Netherlands Email: Maud MTE Huynen* - m.huynen@icis.unimaas.nl; Pim Martens - p.martens@icis.unimaas.nl; Henk BM Hilderink - henk.hilderink@mnp.nl * Corresponding author
Published: 03 August 2005 Globalization and Health 2005, 1:14 doi:10.1186/1744-8603-1-14
Received: 31 January 2005 Accepted: 03 August 2005
This article is available from: http://www.globalizationandhealth.com/content/1/1/14 © 2005 Huynen et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Abstract
This paper describes a conceptual framework for the health implications of globalisation. The framework is developed by first identifying the main determinants of population health and the main features of the globalisation process. The resulting conceptual model explicitly visualises that globalisation affects the institutional, economic, social-cultural and ecological determinants of population health, and that the globalisation process mainly operates at the contextual level, while influencing health through its more distal and proximal determinants. The developed framework provides valuable insights in how to organise the complexity involved in studying the health effects resulting from globalisation. It could, therefore, give a meaningful contribution