The role of education in promoting health and human rights.

• Author: Otieno, Alex

For some time now, health professionals working on health promotion have considered government policies as significant components of a structural approach to addressing individual- and community-level outcomes. However, most of us have not yet identified the links between disease and injury prevention, premature mortality and human rights. In fact, it is not strange for health professionals to view human rights as the domain of lawyers, political scientists and activists. It is my contention that developments in the contemporary world suggest this situation needs to be remedied urgently if we are to make progress in reaching national and global health goals.

The link between health--defined by the World Health Organization (WHO) as "a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity"--and human rights gained recognition during the 1990s in universities and among advocacy groups. It became the focus of national and international conferences, academic journals and university courses, as well as centres such as the Harvard University's Francois-Xavier Bagnoud Center for Health and Human Rights. It also formed part of the guidelines and mandate of WHO and the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), as well as lawsuits such as those initiated by South Africa's Treatment Action Campaign to compel the Government to treat its citizens with antiretroviral medicines.

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By its very nature, linking health and human rights calls for combining academic research and teaching with a commitment to service and policy development. The late Dr. Jonathan Mann, a renowned researcher and champion of human rights, and his colleagues worked on linking health with human rights in dealing with the challenges arising from the HIV/AIDS pandemic and from abuses perpetrated by state and non-state actors. Case study analyses of Iraq, Afghanistan, Timor-Leste, Guatemala, Colombia, Rwanda and Haiti offer evidence that human rights abuses have had dire consequences on health. The connection is also apparent in contested issues, such as women's reproductive rights, female genital mutilation, and the treatment of refugees and internally displaced people, as well as the rights of ethnic and minority groups. The work mission and activities of institutions such as the Physicians for Human Rights, Global Lawyers and Physicians, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International further suggest...