Report of the WHO Commission on Macroeconomics and Health: A summary and critique

Abstract

Throughout the 20th century, the Rockefeller Foundation sponsored campaigns against endemic infections: hookworm, yellow fever, tuberculosis, schistosomiasis, malaria, among others. Rockefeller campaigns interpreted these infections as an impediment to labour productivity, investment, and economic development.20,21 Such programmes recognised that endemic infections blocked key infrastructure projects needed to extract raw materials and to transport products and workers throughout the world. After the example of yellow fever and the Panama Canal, these interventions aimed to improve the economic circumstances of enterprises in the imperial countries by improving the health of the imperialised.