Global health. The current scenario and future perspectives

9 Preface We can safely say that in the times we live in, editing a book on Global Health is an ethical imperative. This is how we understand it in the Global Health Program of the “Dr. Salvador Allende G.” School of Public Health at the Universidad de Chile. That is why, a little over a year ago, we decided to undertake this task as an academic but also as a human commitment. Given the circumstances of contemporary society, we hope it will be a valuable contribution to different audiences, including the national, Latin American, and global academic world, and especially to future generations. The main purpose of this book is to communicate and expand knowledge in the field of Global Health to readers in the health sector and other areas. This book provides a broad perspective that transcends disciplines in a time when diverse health problems are gaining renewed importance and require a global, interdisciplinary approach. Since the beginning of this century, the field of Global Health has gained increasing relevance, although it is a discipline that is still developing with imprecise boundaries and different significance depending on who and where it is practiced. In our region, the Alianza Latinoamericana para la Salud Global (ALASAG) was created a bit more than ten years ago under the mission of “promoting the creation and strengthening of collaborations for education and research in Global Health, through regional cooperation, as a response to common challenges, based on our national realities and with a deep respect for the idiosyncrasy and identity of our peoples.” The ideology of ALASAG, whose founding members we are, has been clear from the beginning: understanding Global Health as the best way to approach health as a global public good from a perspective of social justice and universal rights based on equity, ethics, and respect for human rights. This ideology somewhat differentiates us from the prevailing approaches in northern countries. It gives Latin American Global Health a particular identity, which we believe is expressed in the articles on various topics in this book. We also believe that our academic team has the capabilities to examine and formulate propositions in this extensive and innovative field. These ideas are oriented to the development of knowledge in the scientific field but also to those responsible for formulating public policies at the country level and the organizations responsible for international health governance, examining new and old challenges, especially in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic and post-pandemic. This book includes prologues by two distinguished academics of international prestige in the field of Global Health, who, from their perspectives, analyze, contextualize and propose frames of reference that