Reciprocity in global health: How successes from the global south can inform global health interventions in Canada and the U.S

Tsitsi B Masvawure, Mary Ndu and Charity Oga-Omenka

PLOS Global Public Health, 2026, vol. 6, issue 8, 1-14

Abstract: Global health has traditionally functioned as a project of high-income countries (HICs) addressing health challenges in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). This “outward facing” orientation has created conceptual and operational boundaries that obscure the persistence of health inequities within HICs and perpetuates the false assumption that resource-rich nations have resolved fundamental health equity challenges in their own countries. In this essay we argue that HICs have global health problems of their own and should be considered legitimate sites for global health intervention. We propose an approach to doing global health in the global north that is based on reciprocal learning and where solutions to global health problems can also be found outside the borders of HICs. Complementing the extant scholarship on the need to decolonize global health, this essay highlights LMIC-led successes that can inform global health practice in the U.S. and Canada thus positioning global health as a truly egalitarian project.

Date: 2026
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.plos.org/globalpublichealth/artic ... journal.pgph.0007208 (text/html)
https://journals.plos.org/globalpublichealth/artic ... 07208&type=printable (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:plo:pgph00:0007208

DOI: 10.1371/journal.pgph.0007208

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in PLOS Global Public Health from Public Library of Science
Bibliographic data for series maintained by globalpubhealth ().