"When People Come First is a welcome examination of 'the actual impacts of [global health] initiatives on care, health systems, and governance.'... The authors' empirical accounts of the complexities of the global health landscape expose a litany of assumptions that drive global health and demonstrate why we must be suspicious of these."
Nicole S. Berry, Science "When People Come First would ... Read morebe a valuable accessory in any global health practitioner's toolkit, and essential reading for global health students."
Jocalyn Clark, PLoS Speaking of Medicine blog "When People Come First, edited by medical anthropologists Biehl and Petryna, is an informed, critical examination of current, compelling global health issues; it successfully dispels the notion that a single community or country is alone in its health efforts."
Choice "When People Come First sets a new research agenda in global health and social theory and challenges us to rethink the relationships between care, rights, health, and economic futures."
World Book Industry "When People Come First presents an important contribution to debates surrounding the concept of 'evidence' in global health policy and practice... This anthology, and the debates which it will surely ignite, provides a solid foundation for exploring an approach to global health where people come first."
Sarah Jeavons, New Genetics and Society "When People Come First is a strong and ethnographically grounded collection featuring many of the most talented theorists and writers currently studying global health."
Svea Closser, American Ethnologist "Like with any good ethnography, the stories are real, often troubling, and evocative of real lives in real places. They stimulate anger and outrage. It is a hard book to put down."
Craig R. Janes, Medical Anthropology Quarterly "[An] impressive book ... rich in nuance and complexity."
Salmaan Keshavjee, Lancet "This text has significant potential as a teaching resource both for clinical family medicine and for those exploring global health
the problems it addresses are real, the need for ethnographic rather than program-focused understandings of local reality is well articulated, and the challenge presented by the book to look at things differently is valuable to those learning to practice in any setting."
William Cayley Jr, MD, MDiv, Family Medicine Show Less