274479 Missed Opportunities: The Human Rights Gap in the CSDH Report

Monday, October 29, 2012 : 10:50 AM - 11:10 AM

Audrey Chapman, PhD, MDiv, STM , University of Connecticut Health Center, University of Connecticut, Farmington, CT
     
The 2008 WHO Commission on Social Determinants of Health (CSDH) Report, Closing the Gap in a Generation: Health Equity through the Social Determinants of Health, addresses many of the same issues and expresses many of the same concerns as the health and human rights community's work on the underlying determinants of health. The CSDH's secretariat and some of the knowledge networks that contributed to the final report recommended the Commission adopt key elements of a human rights approach. Nevertheless, the CSDH report did not do so. Nor did it acknowledge shared ground or adopt any elements of the human rights paradigm even when it borrowed from human rights. This presentation will identify some of the likely reasons for the CSDH's refusal. It will also assess the implications for the report and work on the social determinants of health by both the public health and human rights communities.

Learning Objectives:
(1) Compare the approach to the role of the social determinants of health used by the public health/social medicine communities and the health and human rights communities. (2) Identify some of the implications of the refusal of the Commission on Social Determinants of Health refusal to incorporate human rights in its report.

Keywords: Social Inequalities, Human Rights

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: Responsible for research.
Any relevant financial relationships? No

I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines, and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed in my presentation.

Back to: 3115.0: Where are Human Rights in the Global Health Agenda?