International journal of health policy and management
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Int J Health Policy Manag · Feb 2016
CommentWe Need Action on Social Determinants of Health - but Do We Want It, too? Comment on "Understanding the Role of Public Administration in Implementing Action on the Social Determinants of Health and Health Inequities".
Recently a number of calls have been made to mobilise the arsenal of political science insights to investigate - and point to improvements in - the social determinants of health (SDH), and health equity. Recently, in this journal, such a rallying appeal was made for the field of public administration. This commentary argues that, although scholarly potential should justifiably be redirected to resolve these critical issues for humanity, a key ingredient in taking action may have been neglected. ⋯ But this commentary claims that communities are insufficiently charged, equipped or appreciated to play the role that scholarship attributes (or occasionally avoids to identify) to them. Community is too important to not fully engage and understand. Rhetorical tools and inquiries can support their quintessential role.
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Int J Health Policy Manag · Feb 2016
Searching for the Right to Health in the Sustainable Development Agenda Comment on "Rights Language in the Sustainable Development Agenda: Has Right to Health Discourse and Norms Shaped Health Goals?".
The United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Agenda offers an opportunity to realise the right to health for all. The Agenda's "interlinked and integrated" Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) provide the prospect of focusing attention and mobilising resources not just for the provision of health services through universal health coverage (UHC), but also for addressing the underlying social, structural, and political determinants of illness and health inequity. However, achieving the goals' promises will require new mechanisms for inter-sectoral coordination and action, enhanced instruments for rational priority-setting that involve affected population groups, and new approaches to ensuring accountability. ⋯ In this commentary, we build upon a paper by Forman et al and propose that the significance of the SDGs lies in their ability to move beyond a biomedical approach to health and healthcare, and to seize the opportunity for the realization of the right to health in its fullest, widest, most fundamental sense: the right to a health-promoting and health protecting environment for each and every one of us. We argue that realizing the right to health inherent in the SDG Agenda is possible but demands that we seize on a range of commitments, not least those outlined in other goals, and pursue complementary openings in the Agenda - from inclusive policy-making, to novel partnerships, to monitoring and review. It is critical that we do not risk losing the right to health in the rhetoric of the SDGs and ensure that we make good on the promise of leaving no one behind.