‘Powerful, greedy old men are bad for your health’: Towards a public health teaching curriculum for ‘geopolitical health’
1
Office of the President, Global Network for Academic Public Health, Washington DC, United States
2
Association of Schools of Public Health in the European Region, (ASPHER), Brussels, Belgium
3
School of Public Health, Physiotherapy and Sports Science, University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland
Popul. Med. 2026;8(Supplement Supplement 1):A3195
ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND:
Geopolitical forces significantly impact on health. The public health community has been naïve about geopolitical trends, specifically how neoliberalism fuels wealth inequality, drives populism, culture wars, and performative cruelty, escalating toward conflict and autocracy. The information revolution and ‘techno feudalism’ accelerate these trends, through industrial scale disinformation. Since 2025, global health stability has been further undermined by the erosion of the international order.1,2
METHODS:
Geopolitics has largely been ignored in Public Health Curricula. Inclusion is essential: 1) For learning: providing a framework for understanding how power, ideology, and technology influence global health. This is needed to understand the role of non-state actors, multinational corporations, and new forms of digital influence. This knowledge is essential armour for public health practitioners to be effective in health diplomacy.3 2) To provide tools - equipping current and future public health professionals with analytical tools to respond to these complex challenges, to learn in multidisciplinary settings and to collaborate effectively in partnerships, coalitions and campaigns with ethicists, behavioural scientists, political scientists, international lawyers and other relevant disciplines.4 3) To strengthen the personal resilience and resolve of public health practitioners confronted with ethical and moral challenges as seen in the pandemic and propelled further by the destruction and disruption of global health and care systems post 2025. 5-6
RESULTS:
We describe key headings which need to be taught by schools or developed with other disciplines and academic partnerships.7
CONCLUSIONS:
The geopolitical health curriculum bridges the gap between curriculum areas 'Global Public Health' and 'Public Health in Conflict, War and Peacebuilding'. It is also related to curriculum areas ‘leadership and management, including collaboration, partnerships and implementation science’, ‘Knowledge for Policy and Action’, and ‘Public Health Advocacy’. It is essential for modern leadership, requiring a reaffirmation of ethical principles like solidarity and the responsibility to act.
Geopolitical forces significantly impact on health. The public health community has been naïve about geopolitical trends, specifically how neoliberalism fuels wealth inequality, drives populism, culture wars, and performative cruelty, escalating toward conflict and autocracy. The information revolution and ‘techno feudalism’ accelerate these trends, through industrial scale disinformation. Since 2025, global health stability has been further undermined by the erosion of the international order.1,2
METHODS:
Geopolitics has largely been ignored in Public Health Curricula. Inclusion is essential: 1) For learning: providing a framework for understanding how power, ideology, and technology influence global health. This is needed to understand the role of non-state actors, multinational corporations, and new forms of digital influence. This knowledge is essential armour for public health practitioners to be effective in health diplomacy.3 2) To provide tools - equipping current and future public health professionals with analytical tools to respond to these complex challenges, to learn in multidisciplinary settings and to collaborate effectively in partnerships, coalitions and campaigns with ethicists, behavioural scientists, political scientists, international lawyers and other relevant disciplines.4 3) To strengthen the personal resilience and resolve of public health practitioners confronted with ethical and moral challenges as seen in the pandemic and propelled further by the destruction and disruption of global health and care systems post 2025. 5-6
RESULTS:
We describe key headings which need to be taught by schools or developed with other disciplines and academic partnerships.7
CONCLUSIONS:
The geopolitical health curriculum bridges the gap between curriculum areas 'Global Public Health' and 'Public Health in Conflict, War and Peacebuilding'. It is also related to curriculum areas ‘leadership and management, including collaboration, partnerships and implementation science’, ‘Knowledge for Policy and Action’, and ‘Public Health Advocacy’. It is essential for modern leadership, requiring a reaffirmation of ethical principles like solidarity and the responsibility to act.
| eISSN: | 2654-1459 |
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