A “Counter-Hegemonic” Social Medicine

Abstract

The second wave of Latin American social medicine overlaps with the turmoil of the Cold War as the region experienced processes of anti-communism, military coups, and state violence. A landmark in its history is the establishment of the Latin American Social Medicine Association (ALAMES) in 1984, which today represents the longest-standing transnational organization in the field regionally, exploring the social basis of population health from a leftist political tradition. The association’s account of its origin points to Juan Cesar Garcia and his team at the Pan-America Health Organization (PAHO) as centralizing figures that guided the second wave to new grounds of internationalism. According to the collective, Garcia and the PAHO’s Department of Human Resources helped connect a scattered group of leftist scholars throughout the region’s public universities into the so-called Latin American social medicine Network, enabling a fruitful exchange of ideas and principles that continue to this day.