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Published on June 4, 2026

How should global health researchers understand the world, define their values, and act collectively in the face of profound inequity? These were amongst the questions that framed this year’s Critical Social Science Perspectives in Global Health Research Symposium, which brought together 91ÑÇÉ« researchers using critical social science perspectives and methodologies to examine the actors, systems, and structures that shape the global health enterprise.

Keynote speaker Dr. Andrew Pinto invited participants to move beyond describing inequitable health outcomes and toward a more explicit analysis of the forces that produce them. Drawing on his work at the , Dr. Pinto situated health within the unequal distribution of money, power, and resources, reminding the audience that global health issues such as child mortality, maternal mortality, life expectancy, and pandemic outcomes are patterned by social and political conditions rather than biology alone ¹. He challenged global health researchers to ask not only what causes illness, but who benefits from existing arrangements, whose lives are valued, and whether research contributes to redistributing power or reinforcing inequity.

Dr. Pinto’s keynote emphasized global health as a contested field, shaped by colonial histories, institutional power, donor priorities, and unequal access to resources. He argued that ethics in global health requires more than good intentions; it demands humility, introspection, solidarity, and social justice ². Through examples ranging from pandemic inequities and vaccine access to precarious work, migrant health, and community-based research, Dr. Pinto demonstrated how social determinants of health must be understood as political determinants of health. His central message was clear: research alone rarely produces change unless it is connected to collective action, community priorities, and broader movements for social justice.

The 2025 Seed Grant recipient presentations, which came next in the line up for the day, extended this call to make systems of power more visible. Dr. Fawzia Gibson-Fall’s work examined the role of security actors in global health, raising questions about militarization, civilian capacity building, and the everyday presence of military logics in health protection. Her project convened a wide range of actors in London, Toronto, and soon Senegal, including those working in humanitarian delivery, epidemiology, peacekeeping, water, and international human rights law, to build a community of concern around civil-military relations in global health.

Dr. Rachel Silver shared updates on her research examining the impacts of global aid austerity, particularly following the dismantling of USAID and reductions in international development funding more broadly. Building on conversations and early research supported through the CPGH Seed Grant, Dr. Silver reflected on how the project has since expanded into a larger longitudinal initiative supported through Spencer Foundation funding, examining how communities and institutions are navigating uncertainty, donor dependency, and shifting global funding landscapes.

The symposium also featured several short presentations from current DI members preparing applications for the next round of Seed Grants including projects that spanned the core themes of the DI mission.  Across the workshop, presenters showed that critical global health research is not only about identifying health challenges but about tracing the systems that make those challenges possible. Whether examining social determinants, aid austerity, militarization, digital biodiversity governance, language inequities in rehabilitation, or air pollution exposure, the presentations collectively asked how hidden structures become visible and how visibility might lead to accountability.

This year’s workshop demonstrated the continued importance of critical social science approaches in global health. It affirmed that global health is never neutral, but instead shaped by history, politics, institutions, technologies, and power struggles. Most importantly, the workshop challenged researchers to move from description to action, and to consider how their work can support more just, accountable, and collectively imagined health futures.

1.         Sharma M, Pinto AD, Kumagai AK. Teaching the Social Determinants of Health: A Path to Equity or a Road to Nowhere? Acad Med. 2018;93(1):25-30.

2.         Pinto AD, Upshur RE g. Global Health Ethics for Students. Dev World Bioeth. 2009;9(1):1-10.

Watch the full symposium here:

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