| HIV, tuberculosis, and malaria represent a triple threat to development and well-being in less-developed nations. Despite amazing variation in HIV, TB, and malaria rates across nations, there are few cross-national assessments of the determinants of these diseases. Utilizing insights from neoliberal modernization and world-systems/dependency perspectives, the analyses examine how infrastructural, social, economic, and environmental factors influence HIV, TB, and malaria prevalence in less-developed nations. The results demonstrate the importance of TB and malaria alongside HIV in contributing to heightened cross-national life expectancy inequality, and also illuminate important indirect relationships among environmental decline, urban growth, GDP per capita, health infrastructure, and disease. In addition, environmental degradation associated with export agriculture is found to be a major factor contributing to elevated rates of malaria prevalence. Overall, the results bring attention back to the forgotten diseases of TB and malaria, and demonstrate important ways that development and dependency conditions combine to influence disease outcomes in poor nations, thereby reproducing conditions of global inequality. |
