DRAFT PROGRAM
PROMOTING THE RIGHT TO HEALTH FOR ALL
June 27-30, 2007
The International People's Health University (IPHU) is a 4 day intensive course during the US Social Forum organized by representatives of the People's Health Movement (PHM). This course will introduce approximately 40 student/activists working with diverse U.S. populations to both the challenges and the most effective approaches to promoting the right to health. (Anticipating approximately 40 students will enroll in the entire course. Currently enrolled students who wish to claim academic credit will be provided with appropriate documentation. We also anticipate that walk-ins will join each day for the specific issues being addressed.)
OVERVIEW
This short course examines the dynamics of health and disease and their interrelationships with other challenges of life in 21 st Century U.S. Health problems at any age anywhere, evolve within particular social, political, cultural, and economic realities, as do their solutions. Physical responses to the circumstances of modern living have been medicalized, deferred to costly professional experts to resolve – yet many are excluded on the basis of income, race, disability, age, sexual orientation, educational background, or some combination of these and still other factors. Responding to the health challenges faced by so many here in the US and around the world can be overwhelming and immobilizing. In the IPHU process, students gain skills needed to promote health within under served or marginalized communities. Information is incorporated into a holistic analysis and then elaborated within small working groups. Participants will identify effective strategies, campaigns and actions to address people's health concerns and/or ameliorate risks to their health.
COURSE OBJECTIVES
1. To examine the complex social, economic, political, and related factors contributing to poor health status;
2. To provide students with an understanding of health and disease patterns, particularly the inextricable relationship between poverty, economic globalization, and health conditions as they vary between regions and populations, and inner city or rural areas versus more wealthy areas in the States and around the world;
3. To prepare students with the essential communication skills necessary to work effectively with at-risk populations and the legal, medical, and policy makers involved in these health outcomes.
COURSE FORMAT
Four hours daily with two short breaks. Two hours of formal lectures/panels and case studies followed by 2 hours of informal, smaller and more issue focused working groups designed to determine and support appropriate and effective actions promoting the right to health.
READINGS
The Alma Ata declaration, People's Health Charter, and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights will serve as required basic reading materials with which students will be expected to be familiar upon beginning the course. Additionally, students are encouraged to consult Global Health Watch 2005-06: An Alternative World Health Report. Zed Books 2005. Readings from appropriate internet sites and supplemental readings will be distributed from time to time as needed.
COURSE CONTENT
Themes/Content Areas. The social determinants of health, sustainable and equitable access to quality healthcare, the political economy of health, and health challenges associated with globalization, environmental degradation, water privatization, militarism, racism, and climate change, among others, will all be addressed and woven into each day. (Details, faculty and specific resources to be added as the class composition and specific interest areas are clarified. Some materials, cases, faculty will be “borrowed†from other PHM workshops.)
The daily lecture or panel and case study discussions will be followed by 6-8 problem focused student/instructor groups working together to elaborate strategies for addressing an identified problem.
Day 1: Introductions, Basic Concepts :
I. First 2 Hours–Faculty Panel Legge, Shannon, McCue
A. Introduce faculty and students. Why here, now, with what backgrounds?
B. What is PHM -- Why PHM? Introduction to the PHM global campaigns and PHM's visions
C. Social Determinants of Health
D. Primary Health Care. Clarify and give examples demonstrating how the PHC concept is not just about providing accessible health care at a community level; but also addressing social, economic, and physical determinants of health, and doing all of this in a way that is sustainable and promotes equity.
E. The Right to Health -- Focus on social exclusion, poverty, minorities, women, disabled persons, etc. We will look at morbidity/mortality risks associated with socio-economic disparities, gender inequalities and racism. Understanding health as a human right is a way of replacing the dominant construction of health as a commodity or a factor of production. This would include more information about the Right to Health Care global campaign.
Faculty: TBA
II. Working groups (restricted to those enrolling for the full program)
Groups convene to start working on strategies, campaigns to address specific challenges associated with ... (for example, a. achieving universal health care, b. immigrant health rights, c. militarism and health, d. water health, e. industrialized agriculture and health, f. prison health, g. homelessness and health).
Day 2: Diseases of Corporate led Globalization )
I. First 2 Hours
Role of Privatization in People's Health: the connections between trade, agriculture, militarization and poor health. We will explore the health implications of Corporate greed and lack of governmental controls including the effects on our health from our food, water, environment and energy choices, to “lifestyle,†products, patterns, media, and entertainment and the growing militarization of our culture. We will also look at the privatized health care system in the United States and how this “model†is being promoted by corporate interests around the world as well as in the US. We will also look at the current complicit role of medical/public health research in supporting the status quo. Faculty: TBA
II. Working groups
continue to work on proposals for campaigns/strategies for PHM US during the second half of the workshop. “Drop ins†will form a separate sub-group and get a “phm 101†– Information/discussion format with the content of Day 1.)
Day 3: Health Risks of Membership in Excluded Minority Populations
I. First 2 Hours Panel and Case Presentations:
A. Reproductive Health Risks for young, poor, minority women
B. Infectious Disease Risks for imprisoned, GLBT, Minorities, Homeless
C. Elevated Risks of NCDs among rural, impoverished, minority populations
D. Suffering elevated risks of violence, environmental degradation, climate change – women, minorities, disabled, immigrant populations
Faculty: TBA
II. Working groups
continue to work on proposals for campaigns/strategies for PHM US. They begin to develop a presentation of their progress to share with the larger group. New “drop ins†will again form a separate sub-group and get a “PHM 101†– information discussion format focused on review the content of Days 1 & 2.
Day 4: What works?
I. First 2 Hours:
A. How do we turn public health knowledge into political action? We will look at positive models, legislative tools, from the U.S. and abroad.
B. Working group leaders will share with the whole group their strategies for change as developed over the preceding 3 days. Comments, questions, queries, elaborations taken from the whole group to create most effective campaign strategies.
C. Concluding remarks. Evaluation by the whole group.
II. Working groups
come together for the last time to finalize their campaigns and future work plans. Students requiring certification from their schools or employers will be provided with appropriate evaluative tool. Last chance for walk-ins to go over summary of materials covered in prior 3 days.
