Vivek Neelakantan, "The Emergence of International Health Policy in Southeast Asia, India, and Sri Lanka, 1937–1978" (Palgrave Macmillan, 2026)

Examining the emergence of international public health policy between the 1930s and 80s, The Emergence of International Health Policy in Southeast Asia, India, and Sri Lanka, 1937–1978

(Palgrave Macmillan, 2026) by Dr. Vivek Neelakantan sheds light on the

role that rural community health initiatives in South and Southeast Asia

played in the movement towards ‘primary health care’ and ‘health for

all,’ articulated ultimately at the 1978 International Conference on

Primary Health Care in Alma-Ata, Kazakhstan. The author argues that the

movement was not directed exclusively from the headquarters of the World

Health Organization (WHO) in Geneva, but also by institutions such as

the Rockefeller Foundation’s International Health Division in rural

Southeast Asia, and through local community initiatives including the

Bandung Plan for Health in Indonesia.

The book illustrates how an exclusive association of global health with the emergence of the WHO in the 1950s fails to