The Human Rights Forum of the American Public Health Association (APHA) seeks abstracts for the 2023 APHA Annual Meeting and Expo. The goal of the Human Rights Forum is to advance the idea that human rights are an essential foundation for public health—research, policy, and practice. 

Human rights are identified as a guide for public health. Under this rights-based approach to health, health disparities can be understood as rights violations embedded in multiple levels from structural to individual. Additionally, this framework allows space for strategies to empower individuals in order to restrict, demand, and embolden government action to respond to the diversity of violations presented throughout different contexts. The right to health provides a normative framework with universal standards to articulate government responsibilities and evaluate health outcomes; empirical evidence supports the assertion that the existence of the right leads to positive health outcomes.

The Human Rights Forum seeks abstracts this year that analyze the different manifestations of injustices and human rights violations or programs and policies that work to address those violations. We are particularly interested in both domestic and international abstracts and session proposals that address human rights in relation to the following:

• Abstracts Transferred from Student Assembly
  
• Decolonizing Global Health and Effects of Global Capitalism
  Submissions in this category may address a range of issues such as understanding and characterizing the problem, developing policies, and implementing innovative programs and interventions.
• Exported Deception: Transnational Abortion Opposition and U.S. Influence
  U.S. based entities responsible for the erosion of civil liberties for LGBTQIA+ communities and reproductive rights at home are also strategically exporting their hateful agenda abroad. Panelists will thoroughly examine the tactics of the transnational abortion opposition movement with a specific focus on: the exportation of anti-abortion centers (AACs) to Mexico, the role of “big tech” in abortion content suppression and the spread of abortion misinformation globally, and the positioning of these components within the larger context of global human rights abuse/attacks. The formal recognition of anti-abortion players in the U.S and international political systems and the broader NGO landscape provide them with a sheen of authority that allow them to propagate and flourish. Well known anti-abortion activists and NGOs operate in these spaces, coordinate heavily with regressive governments, and are creating a global movement to rollback human rights gains for historically marginalized populations, women and girls, and young people and youth in all their diversity. Particularly at the UN, there has been a significant increase in “anti-gender” language that goes beyond anti-abortion to wider anti-SRHR and anti-LGBTQIA+ narratives, with compounding impacts at the country-level for  states. This session was designed to give attendees clear examples of how the domestic anti-abortion movement threatens reproductive health outcomes at the global scale, a framework to discuss these threats as interconnected pieces of an anti-human rights agenda and direct attendees towards thinking about ways the public health community can strategize towards a reality that centers reproductive health, rights and justice. 

  This session will provide attendees clear examples of how the domestic anti-abortion movement threatens reproductive health outcomes at the global scale, a framework to discuss these threats as interconnected pieces of an anti-human rights agenda and direct attendees towards thinking about ways the public health community can strategize towards a reality that centers reproductive health, rights and justice.

• Human Rights Forum Poster Session
  TBD (This poster session will include the following abstracts: 526699, 533707, 529001, 538017, 532610, and 533410)
• Human Rights Forum and Women's Caucus Collaborative Session
  TBD (This is a collaborative oral session with the women's caucus. It will include the following abstracts from the human rights forum 538171 and 521985)
• Human Trafficking Oral Session
  TBD
• Incarceration Oral Session
  TBD
• Peace, Human Rights and Public Health
  
• Public Health Impacts of War and Conflict and the Role of Health Professionals in Prevention
  
• Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Health Oral Session
  TBD
• The Impact of COVID-19 on International Health - Poster Session
  
• Violence and Mental Health Oral Session
  TBD

Abstracts must be submitted under one of the categories above. All submissions must relate to human rights as a basis for public health. Abstracts are limited to 250 words. Referral to web pages or URLs may not be used for abstracts. An author may not submit the same abstract to more than one Section, SPIG, Caucus or other Forum of the APHA. Oral presentations are generally 13-15 minutes in length, with 4 presenters per session being standard. Those presenting posters should display and be available to answer questions throughout the scheduled 60-minute poster session. If you have any questions, please contact the Co-Chairs Programming Officers.

Abstracts should be submitted in one of the following two formats:

1. Structured abstract format (suitable for abstracts on scientific research):

• Background
• Objectives
• Methods
• Results
• Conclusions

2. Alternative format (suitable for abstracts about policy, programs, interventions, and other types of research evaluations):

• Background
• Description
• Results or Lessons Learned
• Recommendations

Please Note: APHA does not provide any financial support for author attendance at the Annual Meeting. All expenses incurred for presenting at APHA are the sole responsibility of the author. Presenters must pay their own APHA membership, registration, travel, and lodging.

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Ready?

Program Planner Contact Information:

Silicia Lomax,
lomaxs@sas.upenn.edu


and

Sabrina Sanchez, MA
sabrina.sanchez@ucsf.edu