Health Security
Health security encompasses many threats to U.S. national interests and the American people, from global outbreak and pandemic surveillance and response, to growing drug resistance, managing technological advances in gene editing, strengthening vaccine confidence, and assessing the impacts of conflict, natural disasters, and other humanitarian emergencies on health systems. The United States has articulated approaches through the Global Health Security Agenda, launched in 2015 with other nations, and the National Biodefense Strategy, released in 2018. However, there remains a need for a stronger, more coherent, better integrated, and more reliably financed U.S. approach to health security.
The CSIS Global Health Policy Center’s work on health and security provides an in-depth analysis of this emerging complex interface between proliferating security threats and extensive global health demands. We analyze how U.S. policies and programs must be adapted and capacities strengthened, in both global health and international security, to advance U.S. national interests in the coming years. Topics explored include: contributions of the U.S. DOD to combat infectious disease; cultivating health security partnerships with governments in geopolitically significant regions; assessing the successes and sustainability of the Global Health Security Agenda; and tracking the epidemiological spread and policy response of the U.S. and key governments to the 2019-2020 coronavirus pandemic.
Featured Project
The CSIS Commission on Strengthening America’s Health Security is our signature effort to bridge political divides and build a U.S. doctrine of continuous prevention, protection, and resilience. We lead a distinguished and diverse group of high-level opinion leaders from both the health and national security worlds, including members of Congress, officials from previous administrations, and leaders from industry, foundations, universities, and non-governmental organizations. The Commission charts a bold vision for the future of U.S. leadership in global health security – at home and abroad, a goal more necessary now than ever.
The Commission has convened experts privately and publicly to discuss these pressing challenges and has produced briefs and reports outlining policies to best address them. In its final report, Ending the Cycle of Crisis and Complacency in U.S. Global Health Security (November 2019), the Commission articulated a robust, long-term approach to ensure continuous protection and resilience against health security threats. To learn more, visit the Commission’s website: https://healthsecurity.csis.org/.
The global coronavirus pandemic and its health and economic toll has made this work more pressing than ever. Find all our COVID-19-related content here and subscribe to receive our weekly Covid-19 newsletter here.
