Despite the global community’s commitments to health, articulated in the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) and more recently, the 2015 Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), huge disparities remain in health outcomes and experiences between the global North and South. Almost two thirds of the global total of new HIV infections take place in sub-Saharan Africa. Almost all global maternal mortality occurs in developing countries. These inequalities are not limited to infectious disease: approximately 70% of cancer deaths occur in low and middle-income countries.

What are we to make of these global health “facts” when we know what “works” in saving lives? This mini-conference brings together critical scholars of global health to interrogate how we know what we know about global health. We examine global health epistemologies, asking how evidence is measured, interpreted, and translated into policy and clinical practice. Who decides what works, and how? What or whom is obscured by dominant global health discourses and data collection practices, such as randomized controlled trials (RCT)? And at a time when the role of science in policymaking is under attack, how, where, and with whom should we raise sociological critiques of evidence based global health science, practice, and policy?

This mini-conference offers an opportunity to explore exciting new theoretical directions in the sociology of global health. Although some of the tentative panels below on the politics of global health evidence are directly related to the conference theme, we invite papers that address a variety of theoretical issues related to global health, including but not limited to: ●Politics of Neglect: Maternal and Reproductive Health ● Promise and Pitfalls of Pharmaceuticals ● The HIV/AIDS Epidemic and Theory Building within Sociology ● Medical Sociology and Global Health ● Global Health Governance: Who Does Global Health, and How? ● Measurement and Evidence Building in Global Health 2 ● Health Systems or Magic Bullets? ●Interrogating the Epidemiological Transition: Double Burdens of Chronic and Infectious Disease ● Diseases with no borders (Zika, Ebola, H1N1) ● Macro-Variables and Micro-Realities in Global Health

SUBMISSION INSTRUCTIONS: Those wishing to present papers in this mini-conference should submit an abstract of no longer than 250 words by October 30, 2018 through the ESS submission portal at https://www.meetingsavvy.org/ess. Proposals not accepted for the mini-conference will be submitted to the ESS general call for submissions. To submit to this mini-conference, select “Mini Conference Presentation” in the “Submission type” drop-down menu. Supply your title and abstract. After hitting “Next”, select the name of the mini-conference from the keyword drop-down menu. Direct questions about the mini-conference to Siri Suh, Brandeis University (jssuh@brandeis.edu) and Joseph Harris, Boston University (josephh@bu.edu).