ABSTRACT
This chapter begins by considering some of the ways in which political structures influence health landscapes through a political economy approach. It focuses on the impact of health-related government policies as a clear pathway through which politics and health become intertwined. The chapter describes critical geographies of health that explore the subtle ways in which power relations are implicated in health. Geographers have made the connections between power and space explicit through analysis of topics such as territoriality, control of resources, and surveillance—all of which can be considered in terms of their impacts on health. The most obvious way in which politics and health are intertwined is through government policies that directly affect health and healthcare. Political economy approaches to health emphasize the role of political and economic structures in constraining or enabling particular activities. These approaches draw from Marxist theory, arguing that individuals and groups are constrained or empowered unequally, calling attention to who has power to make decisions.
