ABSTRACT
This chapter suggests that existing arguments about health security are obsolete and no longer fit for purpose because they focus too narrowly on responding to isolated symptoms of poor health versus mitigating wider causes. It proposes that a cosmopolitan approach to health should be taken because it is not confined to the strategic interests of powerful states and actively promotes an ethic of care over an ethos of security. Conceptualizations of the relationship between health and security range from those maintaining a strong link between the two disciplines to those denying that there is sufficient evidence to suggest that health is a security concern. Approaches that take the individual as a referent object of security include human security and critical security studies. Thinking of “health” as a cause of insecurity is ontologically significant, because “health” is delivered through the existing government-run infrastructures of public health.
