Social Justice and the Global Economy: Public Health Campaigns

Economic development has the potential to lift people out of grinding poverty and to sustain healthy lives at all income levels. Prevailing models create extremes of wealth and poverty, with vast inequalities in resources and wellbeing between and within countries. With the global economy in crisis, public health advocates are pursuing important alternative strategies to achieve social and economic justice. This presentation reviews the campaign for democratic participation in trade policy, in the face of ongoing trade challenges to access to affordable medicines and water, and to national tobacco control measures; the human rights framework to hold governments accountable for protecting and advancing the rights of populations; and related current trends.