Human rights and the domains of health system responsiveness share a common goal: furthering the rights of individuals and communities in the context of the health system. If a health system is responsive, it is possible that the interactions which people have within the health system will improve their well-being, irrespective of improvements to their health. This brief report from the World Health Organisation’s Evidence and Information for Policy cluster discusses the human rights context to the provision of health services to the public.
Values, Policies and Rights
The domains of health responsiveness: a human rights analysis
A prescription for gender, health, and human rights
Rosalind Pollack Petchesky. London: Zed Press, 2003.
In order to understand how and why social movements are fighting for women's health and rights you need to have a 21st century notion of these rights. This is a central message of the book Global Prescriptions: Gendering Health and Human Rights. The rights that Rosalind Pollack Petchesky discusses are not those determined by grey-suited lawyers and bureaucrats, and enshrined as fixed, universal, and unalienable principles. They are rights that exist in an era of global capitalism; rights that are influenced by sex, race, class, geography, and ethnicity; rights that are dynamic and malleable; and rights that, above all, are a necessary and irrepressible element of movements for social change. Petchesky views individual and social rights as "two sides of the same coin". She ascribes equal importance to social and economic rights as to those related to reproduction, sexuality, and health; noting that together they form "a single fabric of rights".
Fair play: removing inequities in child health
Gaps in child mortality between rich and poor are unacceptably wide and growing. Poorer children face disadvantages at every step from exposure and resistance to infectious disease, through care-seeking, and to effective treatment. How can policy-makers close these gaps? An international team of researchers explore the options of targeting and universal coverage.
International Migration, Health and Human Rights
This new publication draws attention to important human rights issues that migration poses for health policy-makers internationally, such as the health implications of forced migration as well as detaining and screening migrants at the borders. The book will serve as a guide to emphasise important human rights principles by which governments, policy-makers and other actors can design and implement health policies and programmes in the context of migration. It sets out to demonstrate the need for further attention, research and elaboration of policy approaches in this area.