Global health in the making: health demonstration areas in Europe, 1950s and 1960s.

Global health is a multifaceted concept that entails the standardization of procedures in healthcare domains in accordance with a doctrine agreed upon by experts. This essay focus on the creation of health demonstration areas by the World Health Organisation (WHO) to establish core nodes for integrated state-of-the-art health services. It explores the origins, theoretical basis and aims of this technique and reviews several European experiences during the first 20 years of the WHO. Particular attention is paid to the historical importance of technical cooperative activities carried out by the WHO in regard to the implementation of health services, a long-term strategic move that contributed to the thematic upsurge of primary health care in the late 1970s.