Short-Term Medical Trips

Humanitarian aid expanded due, in part, to increased globalization, media exposure to global needs in the era of the 24-hour news cycle, and awareness of global health interconnectedness. The transnational enterprise of humanitarian aid goes largely unregulated as it is primarily governed by organizational self-policing. For the purposes of this discussion, short-term MSTs encompass trips that are four weeks or fewer and originated to address needs of medically underserved populations. There are a limited number of studies that analyze the outcomes of these trips, and some critics state MSTs do not address underlying issues of poverty and poor health infrastructure in LMICs.