The ninth episode of The Global Health Histories Podcast, hosted by Dr Eline van Ommen (Associate Professor in International History at the University of Leeds), focuses on the role played by health interventions in facilitating peacebuilding in societies fractured by civil war. It examines the concept of health as a common good, an ideal shared by all participants in conflict. In the 1980s the Pan-American Health Organization (the WHO’s Regional Office for the Americas) recognized that the particular importance of immunization was accepted across the political spectrum, as fundamental to child survival. Programmes aimed at preventing childhood infection were developed not only to address a vital health need, but also as a means to build political dialogue and cooperation. This podcast analyses the medical and political successes of this campaign, featuring interviews with two individuals who played prominent roles in the ceasefire immunization programmes in Latin America:

Dr. Ana Maria Henao Restrepo, a physician and infectious disease epidemiologist, is currently the lead for the Research and Development Blueprint for Epidemics within the WHO's Health Emergency Program. In the early 1990s, she was the Pan-American Health Organization (PAHO) immunization advisor in El Salvador and Nicaragua.

Mark Schneider was the Chief, Office of Analysis and Strategic Planning of PAHO/WHO in the 1980s, and Coordinator of the Central American initiative "Health as a Bridge for Peace”. He represented PAHO at several of the Central American peace summits which led to the Esquipulas Accords and to the peace agreements ending the Central American conflicts.

Further Reading

Ciro de Quadros and Daniel Epstein, ‘Health as a bridge for peace: PAHO's experience’, The Lancet, 360, 2002, s25-s26 https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(02)11808-3/fulltext

Leonard Rubenstein, ‘Defying expectations: Polio vaccination programs amid political and armed conflict’, Washington: United States Institute of Peace, 2010. https://www.usip.org/sites/default/files/PB%2064%20-%20Polio%20Vaccination%20Programs%20Amid%20Political%20and%20Armed%20Conflict.pdf

Ian Russell, Laura Wise, and Sanja Badanjak, ‘Breathing Space: Vaccination Ceasefires in Armed Conflict’, PeaceRep Publications, 2021 https://era.ed.ac.uk/server/api/core/bitstreams/3e29e882-1899-487c-9232-c394ef9297fe/content

Mark Schneider, 'Health as a Bridge to Peace', World Health, October 1987 https://iris.who.int/server/api/core/bitstreams/97da7914-f723-4034-8de6-f78205143f53/content

‘Health as a Bridge for Peace’, Making a World of Difference: Stories About Global Health Exhibition. https://www.nlm.nih.gov/exhibition/makingaworldofdifference/collection-detail.html?imgid=28&imgName=OB9416-md