Global Health is Not About Altruism

by Alanna Shaikh · 2009-04-21 09:17:00 UTC
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(photo credit: magerleagues)

So, I changed my mind about Ashton Kutcher. While malaria awareness is a good thing, celebrity acrobatics are not. The desire to use your personal fame for a worthy cause is laudable, but it's very easy to go from there to using important issues in support of your fame.

However it was intended initially, this stunt by Kutcher comes across as belonging to the second category. This awareness effort isn't about malaria or even bednets. It's about Ashton Kutcher proving he's a good guy by ‘supporting charity.'

Global health doesn't benefit from being celebrity cause of the week.

Here's why: celebrities want to associate themselves with charity because the value and importance of, say, global health, reflects back on the celebrities. For that to work, they have to cast global health as a purely altruistic issue. Something you get involved wit because you are A Good Person Doing Good Things.

That's just not true. Global health is not about altruism. It's about the survival of the human race. It doesn't affect poor, pitiable, people far away. It affects everyone. We care about global health for our own good. Infectious diseases don't respect borders, and if we let entire countries suffer reduced intelligence and GDP because of ill health, that's going to come home to us in the form of war and instability.

Caring about global health doesn't make you a good person. It makes you pragmatic. We won't see widespread commitment to global health until everyone understands that. Celebrities eager to demonstrate their compassion and generosity work against that goal.

Alanna Shaikh
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