Colonial Origins
Medical missions have been around since the start of colonialism and remain popular today. They originally stemmed from religious missions in the 19th century aimed at displacing traditional healers and “improving” the living conditions of native populations through Christianity and Western customs. Ultimately, the end goal was to “save” native populations, specifically those in Africa. Today, public health in the United States and Europe remains predominantly a state funded entity and primarily intended to protect the state’s interests. A key strategy is to keep other countries healthy to prevent infectious diseases from crossing borders and affecting their own citizens. Even the origins of global health research can be traced back to the colonial era. Early motivations to conduct research on tropical diseases were based on a desire to discover therapeutics that could safeguard the health of Western personnel, colonists, and slaves in order to maximize colonial productivity. Even today, it can be argued that an interest in protecting Western military or commercial affairs from threats such as tropical diseases partly motivates global health research.