Surprisingly Health and Human Rights as a unique field (one concept) is a young, but rapidly growing and dynamic field. When we think about public health, unconsciously we consider it as a human right, these two words had evolved parallel but it took a long time until finally this field was introduced as a unique concept. The first time that human rights were explicitly named in a public health strategy was only in the late 1980s, when people looked at rights of HIV/AIDS patients seriously. Prof. Jonathan Mann’s observations were one of the early efforts to highlight the field.
Jonathan Mann’s 3 basic observations:
Human rights abuses can dramatically affect health
Health can be dramatically worsened when human rights are ignored
Health and human rights can act synergistically
Today I learned about Jonathan Mann Award for Global Health & Human Rights, the deadline for nominees is January 15th, 2008. I believe this award and the announcement around it, can help to internalize this field among health policy makers and practitioners. For more info click here.
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