Why Global Health Security Should be Managed as a Value-Based Enterprise

Abstract

Efforts to improve global health security should be a key international priority. In this commentary, I argue that while global health security is increasingly perceived as the domain of various professional and academic disciplines, ranging from global health to international relations, it is crucial to recognize it also as a value-based enterprise. Drawing on ethics literature, this commentary shows how a value-based approach is useful for analyzing ethical challenges in global health security in 4 key areas: analyzing the implicit values shaping global health security’s problematic meaning, considering whether solidarity might be useful for grounding compensation for those facing an increased surveillance burden, examining how labelling outbreaks by origin can disguise questions of responsibility, and addressing how reasonable demands of nationalism are balanced. If global health security is not acknowledged as a value-based enterprise, there is a risk that those working in it will not develop the skills required to ask necessary moral questions or provide moral justifications that should be provided about their work, ultimately compromising global health security’s potential to protect populations globally.