rediscovering public health and social justice

Rediscovering Public Health and

Social Justice

Celebrating our Work and Carrying it Forward

New Mexico Public Health Association and UNM National Health Disparities 2014 Joint ConferenceApril 2, 2014


Edwin Chadwick

1842

Child Labor

Children’s Bureau 1912

Roosevelt's New Deal

Social Security Program

1935

TuskegeeSyphilis

Study1932 - 1972

Public Health and Social Justice HistoryMajor social reformer

Labor Movement

Labor Movement

Civil Rights Movement


Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

(CDC) 1946

The World Heath

Organization (WHO)

1948

The PillTransforms

women’s lives1960

Growth of Environmentalism with Rachel

Carson’s “Silent Spring”1962

Public Health and Social Justice History

Women’s Movement

EnvironmentalMovement


War on Poverty

1964-1968

Civil Rights Movement 1960- today

Public Health and Social Justice History

Labor Movement, Civil Rights Movement


Universal Declaration of Human RightsAdopted by the United Nations General Assembly on 10 December 1948


Public Health as Social Justice Dan Beauchamp

… makes a case for the importance of tying these two together, that the issues of poverty, racial discrimination, poor housing, unemployment or the abandonment of the aged requires sometimes painful costs that the dominant interests in society are unwilling to pay, and that our public ethics do not seem to fit our public problems.


Justice means (in the broadest sense):

• Each person in society ought to receive his or her due and…

• The burdens and benefits of society should be fairly and equitably distributed.


Beauchamp is speaking here of politics not as partisan politics, but as the more ancient meaning of political life as the search for the common good and the just society.


Market JusticeVs.

Social Justice


• The dominant model of justice in the American experience has been market justice, the norms of which are that people are entitled only to those valued ends such as status, income, and happiness, which emphasize individual responsibility, and minimal collective action.

• The counter narrative of market justice is social justice

Market Justice Vs. Social Justice


Doing Justice: Building an Ethical Paradigm for Public Health

“Doing public health should not be narrowly conceived as an instrument or technical activity. Public health should be a way of doing justice, a way of asserting the value and priority of all human life… the elaboration and adoption of a new ethical model or paradigm for protecting the public’s health. This new paradigm will necessitate a heightened consciousness of the manifold forces threatening human life, and will require thinking about and reacting to the problems of disability and premature death as primarily collective problems of the entire society…(Beauchamp, 1972)”


Social Determinants of HealthWorld Health Organization (WHO) Definition (2008):

The social determinants of health are the conditions in which people are born, grow, live, work and age, including the health system. These circumstances are shaped by the distribution of money, power and resources at global, national and local levels, which are themselves influenced by policy choices.

The social determinants of health are mostly responsible for health inequities - the unfair and avoidable differences in health status seen within and between countries, and more locally, between communities.


What we Mean by Social Determinants of Health

Vicente Navarro critiques the long awaited WHO Commission on Social Determinants of Health report (2008) • Class – the avoidance of this conversation in the report• The Commission’s “studious” avoidance of the category of power (class power as well as gender, race, and national power) and how power is produced and reproduced• Speaks of policies without touching on politics.• It is profoundly apolitical, and therein lies the weakness of the report.• So, we need to talk of politics (not only policies ) and Action !!


What we Mean by Social Determinants of Health

•As public health workers, we must take our work forward and denounce the process of killing… but also the FORCES that do the killing!

• We can recall Edwin Chadwick , one of the great founders of public health, who, as Commissioner of the Board of Health of Great Britain in 1848-1854, declared that the poorer classes of that country were subject to steady, increasing, and sure causes of death.


Public Health and Social Justice Working Group Participants:

Dana Schultz Millen, PhD, MPHRay Baca, BSWErica Newfield, RN, MSNAnne Marie Sekula, BA, RN Harold Vann, MAClara Yuvienco, MPH, CHES

Contact information: (505) 222- 8601 or [email protected]

Tobacco Use Prevention and Control(TUPAC) Program

•11 Program Staff Members•20+ Contracted Partners including

Six Priority Population Networks

CDC Goal Areas for Comprehensive Tobacco Control Programs

1. Cessation for Youth and Adults2. Prevention of Youth Initiation3. Secondhand Smoke Protection

4. Address Tobacco Related Disparities

CDC Goal #4:Address Tobacco Related DisparitiesImportance of Goal 4 elevated within NMEffort to Incorporate Goal 4 into all activitiesActivities include internal and external

program activitiesAnti-Oppression Model introduced in 2006

Definition of Anti-Oppression

Actions and attitudes which

challenge personal, cultural

and institutional oppression

Cultural Bridges to Justice

What does it mean to work from an anti-oppression framework?

Actively working to acknowledge and shift

power towards inclusiveness, accessibility, equity and social justice.

Ensuring that anti-oppression is embedded in everything that you do by examining attitudes and actions through the lens of access, equity and social justice.

Anti-Oppression TrainingOriginal Training hosted by TUPAC

contractorTraining attended by six program staffAction-planning component led to TUPAC

toward adoption of anti-oppression principles in all aspects of program activities

Training for all program staff began in 2007

Cultural Bridges to JusticeTraining ObjectivesFamiliarity with concepts and development of

a common language re. Systemic OppressionUnderstanding of historical, political and

social context for systemic oppression in U.S.Review systemic linkages among various

forms of oppressionDevelopment of an understanding of

oppression as a social determinant of health

Program Efforts to IncorporateAnti-Oppression ModelTraining began for all program staff in 2007,

Required for all contractors beginning in 2008

Additional staff who have since joined the program have been required to attend

TUPAC program has done organizational development work, including Mission Statement, Guiding Principles

Development of Priority Population Networks

Program Efforts to IncorporateAnti-Oppression Model (continued)• Requirement that all TUPAC-funded

Organizations attend anti-oppression training

• Incorporation of definitions, description of anti-oppression model into RFP’s

• Requirement that all contracts address disparities and incorporate anti-oppression principles

TUPAC-Funded Priority Population Communities

•Native American/American Indians•African Americans•Asian/Pacific Islanders•Spanish-Speaking Communities•People Living With A Disability•LGBTQ

TUPAC Mission StatementTo improve lives by eliminating the harm from tobacco abuse

through the implementation of effective strategies that

incorporate an anti-oppression model

rediscovering public health and social justice

Documents

forward justice

social justice market

social justice dan beauchamp

forward beauchamp

social justice10celebrating

public ethics

dominant model of justice

public problems