On 27 Jul 98 at 12:33, Wolf Kirsten wrote:

> In spite of the negative impact, can we as health promoters take
> advantage in the next milennium of the fact that the world "is
> becoming a smaller place"?

The world will not become a *smaller place*, Wolf. The *global
village* metaphor is pretty inaccurate. Electronic telecommunication
will be available for those living in so-called developed countries
and they will use it for their own benefits. The socio-economic
and technological gap between countries will increase, simply because
*we* can use technology earlier and on broad-scale basis for all
kinds of purposes including business and education.

Globalization in terms of culture refers to the increasing dominance
of White Anglo Saxon Protestant culture. Cultural diversity among the
*Haves* will be reduced and we will be *enabled* to communicate with
each other more easily and perhaps more efficiently. But all this
applies mainly to *developed* countries in the first place.

Regarding public health and health promotion, this type
of globalization will lead to a kind of uniformization of concepts,
policies and strategies, but not necessarily because we want this,
but we share similar social, economic, and environmental problems,
like unemployment, poverty, demographic changes, etc.

Eberhard Wenzel MA PhD
Griffith University
School of Public Health
Deputy Director, Queensland Centre for Public Health
Nathan, Qld. 4111
Australia
Tel.: 61-7-3875 7103
Fax:  61-7-3875 6709
e-mail: [log in to unmask]
WWW Virtual Library Public Health at:
    http://www.ldb.org/vl/index.htm

Show me a thoroughly satisfied man -
and I will show you a failure.
Thomas A. Edison (1847-1931)