Eric Donald Carter

This book project focuses on the development of Latin American social medicine (LASM), which had a strong influence on normative policy frameworks that led to broad-based public health improvements across the region in the middle of the twentieth century. Despite the concurrent rise of social medicine in various countries of the region, there has been no comprehensive piecing together of the institutional, intellectual, and interpersonal connections that made social medicine a Pan-American movement. Supported by archival research in three Latin American countries (Argentina, Chile, and Costa Rica), this book will shed light on the ideological roots of social medicine, how institutional and interpersonal networks supported the diffusion and development of social medicine in Latin America, and how ideas in social medicine translated into policy.