The Centers for Disease Control (U.S.) have released a supplement to their Morbidity & Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR) series, a 116-page report entitled CDC Health Disparities and Inequalities Report -- United States, 2011.
This report is the first of its kind from the CDC, although the Foreward, authored by CDC Director Thomas R. Frieden, notes that it is the first in a "periodic series."
I will likely have much more to say about this Report once I have had a chance to digest it in full, but the Report is obviously a must-read for anyone interested in health equity and the SDOH in the U.S.
ASBH 13th Annual Meeting
October 13-16, 2011
Minneapolis, MN
Hyatt Minneapolis
Theme: Generation(s) and Transformation(s)
The theme for the 2011 ASBH annual conference --"Generation(s) and Transformation(s)"--invites participants to explore and analyze all aspects of the concepts of "generation"-from pediatrics to geriatrics, as well as generative and regenerative practices in medicine-and "transformation," from a focus on the changing landscape of healthcare reform to the development of cutting-edge technologies. The medical humanities and bioethics have themselves played a role in generating new ideas and transforming practices within healthcare. Further, both disciplines now have "generations" of practitioners, complete with such issues as generational change/conflict/collaboration and legacies. We invite scholars in the medical humanities and bioethics to submit papers, panels, and workshops that examine not only healthcare practices involving patients young and old, but also explore generation(s) and transformation(s) in light of policy implications, education of learners at all levels, and critical analysis of the disciplines of medical humanities and bioethics.
Here is a link to the guidelines for submission (PDF).
Over at the excellent Inequalities Blog, which has gotten off to a rip-roaring start, Ben Baumberg has a fascinating post entitled Why evidence-based policy won't tackle inequalities.
There is also some interesting discussion going in the comments, to which yours truly has contributed.
Recommended.
Emma Rich (Loughborough University) has a new paper out in Health (a very cool interdisciplinary sociology journal) entitled ‘I see her being obesed!’: Public pedagogy, reality media and the obesity crisis. Here is the Abstract:
In recent years a proliferation of reality based media focusing on the body, diet and exercise have sought not only to entertain audiences, but also to operate as pedagogical sites through which to encourage populations to undertake surveillance of their own and others’ bodies in order to address a so-called ‘obesity epidemic’ sweeping across western society. This article examines how reality media function within a broader ‘surveillant assemblage’ (Haggerty and Ericson, 2000) of obesity. Specifically, the article explores how this assemblage functions through interdependent connections between parenting, social class and broader political discourses of parenting and health risks which produce affective relationalities of the body.
Health & Human Rights, an international journal based out of the Harvard School of Public Health, has published a theme issue (vol. 12, no. 2) on the social determinants of health.
The articles are available full-text, open-access, and are uniformly well-written and worthwhile. In particular, three of the articles, under the heading "Critical Concepts," address key conceptual issues regarding health equity, human rights, and the social determinants of health. More after the jump.
I view these articles as particularly important because of my belief that the ethical and policy implications of the SDOH evidence base have been underdeveloped for too long, which matters because even the best evidence does not speak for itself. As I have remarked elsewhere, policy is never self-executing, and each of these three articles contributes to the task of translating the SDOH evidence base into just public health policy.
Although I have no hesitation in recommending each of them, I should note here my general skepticism regarding the merit and utility of human rights talk. Such talk often seems to me to raise concerns of postcolonialism and neoliberalism; moreover, I am in general dubious of universalism in applied ethics, of the search for moral Esperanto. For further elucidation of some of the drawbacks of human rights talk, I highly recommend Makau Mutua's fine work on the subject.
In any event, here are the abstracts for the three articles in the Critical Concepts section:
The right to sutures: Social epidemiology, human rights, and social justice
Sridhar Venkatapuram, Ruth Bell, Michael Marmot
Abstract
The article examines the convergences and contrasts between social epidemiology, social medicine, and human rights approaches toward advancing global health and health equity. The first section describes the goals and work of the WHO Commission on Social Determinants of Health. The second section discusses the role of human rights in the Commission’s work. The third section evaluates, from the perspective of social epidemiology, two rights-based approaches to advancing health and health equity as compared to a view that focuses more broadly on social justice. The concluding section identifies four areas where social epidemiologists, practitioners of social medicine, and health and human rights advocates can and must work together in order to make progress on health and health equity.
The social determinants of health, health equity, and human rights
Audrey R. Chapman
Abstract
This article explores the benefits of a rights-based approach to health according greater attention to the social determinants of health, health equity, and the power structure. It uses the report issued by the World Health Organization Commission on Social Determinants of Health (CSDH), Closing the gap in a generation: Health equity through action on the social determinants of health, as a lens through which to address these issues. After presenting a brief overview of the CSDH report, the article compares the document with a rights-based approach to health on three topics: 1) the social determinants of health and the underlying determinants of health; 2) health inequalities and inequities; and 3) power, money, and resources. The article argues that the right to health requires greater attention to the social determinants of health, health inequalities, and power dynamics than these topics have received to date.
Social conditions, health equity, and human rights
Paula Braveman
Abstract
The fields of health equity and human rights have different languages, perspectives, and tools for action, yet they share several foundational concepts. This paper explores connections between human rights and health equity, focusing particularly on the implications of current knowledge of how social conditions may influence health and health inequalities, the metric by which health equity is assessed. The role of social conditions in health is explicitly addressed by both 1) the concept that health equity requires equity in social conditions, as well as in other modifiable determinants, of health; and 2) the right to a standard of living adequate for health. The indivisibility and interdependence of all human rights - civil and political as well as economic and social - together with the right to education, implicitly but unambiguously support the need to address the social (including political) determinants of health, thus contributing to the conceptual basis for health equity. The right to the highest attainable standard of health strengthens the concept and guides the measurement of health equity by implying that the reference group for equity comparisons should be one that has optimal conditions for health. The human rights principles of non-discrimination and equality also strengthen the conceptual foundation for health equity by identifying groups among whom inequalities in health status and health determinants (including social conditions) reflect a lack of health equity; and by construing discrimination to include not only intentional bias, but also actions with unintentionally discriminatory effects. In turn, health equity can make substantial contributions to human rights 1) insofar as research on health inequalities provides increasing understanding and empiric evidence of the importance of social conditions as determinants of health; and, more concretely, 2) by indicating how to operationalize the concept of the right to health for the purposes of measurement and accountability, which have been elusive. Human rights laws and principles and health equity concepts and technical approaches can be powerful tools for mutual strengthening, not only by contributing toward building awareness and consensus around shared values, but also by guiding analysis and strengthening measurement of both human rights and health equity.
(h/t SDOH listserv)
Comics & Medicine: The Sequential Art of Illness
9-11 June 2010
Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine
Chicago, Illinois
This second international interdisciplinary conference* aims to explore the past, present, and possible future of comics in the context of the healthcare experience. Programs in medical humanities have long touted the benefits of reading literature and studying visual art in the medical setting, but the use of comics in healthcare practice and education is relatively new. The melding of text and image has much to offer all members of the healthcare team, including patients and families. As such, a subgenre of graphic narrative known as graphic medicine is emerging as a field of
interest to both scholars and creators of comics.
We are pleased to confirm two important keynote speakers: David Small, author of 'Stitches' and Phoebe Gloeckner, author of 'A Child's Life.'
We invite proposals for scholarly papers (15 minutes), poster presentations, and panel discussions (60 minutes), focused on medicine and comics in any form (e.g., graphic novels, comic strips, graphic pathographies, manga, and/or web comics) on the following—and related—topics:
We also welcome workshops (120 minutes) by creators of comics on the process, rationale, methods, and general theories behind the use of comics to explore medical themes. These are intended to be “hands-on” interactive workshops for participants who wish to obtain particular skills with regard to the creation or teaching about comics in the medical context.
We envision this gathering as a collaboration among humanities scholars, comics scholars, comics creators, healthcare professionals, and comics enthusiasts.
300 word proposals should be submitted by Friday, 28 February 2011 to submissions@graphicmedicine.org. Proposals may be in Word, WordPerfect, or RTF formats with the following information and in this order: author(s), affiliation, email address, title of abstract, body of abstract. Please identify your presentation preference: 1)oral presentation; 2) poster presentation; 3) panel discussion; or 4)
workshop. While we cannot guarantee that presenters will receive their first choice, we will attempt to honor people’s preferences, and We will acknowledge the receipt of all proposals submitted.
Abstracts will be peer-reviewed by an interdisciplinary selection committee. Notification of acceptance or rejection will be completed by 14 March 2011.
This event is co-sponsored by the Medical Humanities and Bioethics Program at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, the Department of Humanities at Penn State College of Medicine, and the Science, Technology and Society Program of Penn State University, and is supported by a grant from the Charles Schulz Foundation.
*Information about the 2010 conference, “Comics and Medicine: Medical Narrative in Graphic Novels,” in London, England can be found at www.graphicmedicine.org.
Applications are currently being accepted for the New York Academy of Medicine's two history of medicine fellowships for 2011-2012 : the Paul Klemperer Fellowship in the History of Medicine and the Audrey and William H. Helfand Fellowship in the History of Medicine and Public Health. For those who were familiar with the Helfand Fellowship in the past, please note that its focus has changed and read the description and application materials carefully.
Information about both fellowships can be found on the Now Accepting Applications page here: http://www.nyam.org/grants/
Questions about the fellowships and the application process may be directed to me (contact information below). Contact information also appears with the applications themselves.
Arlene Shaner
Assistant Curator and Reference Librarian for Historical Collections The New York Academy of Medicine
1216 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10029
Tel: 212-822-7313
Fax: 212-423-0273
Email: ashaner@nyam.org
__________________________________
(h/t H-SCI-MED-TECH)
Johanna T. Crane (University of Washington-Bothell & Office of History at NIH) has an excellent new article out in Behemoth (what a great name for "a journal on civilization") entitled Unequal Partners: AIDS, Academia, and the Rise of Global Health. Here is the Abstract:
The last decade has seen the proliferation of “global health” departments, centers, programs, and majors across top research universities in North America and Europe. This trend has been particularly pronounced in the United States, where it is connected to America's new role as a major sponsor of HIV treatment in Africa. This paper describes the rise of “global health” as a research, funding, and training priority within U.S. academic medicine, and the increasing desirability of “global health partnerships” with institutions in sub-Saharan Africa. Leading spokespersons emphasize that “partnership” with poor nations is central to the mission of global health, an ethic that distinguishes it from older, more paternalistic traditions of international health and tropical medicine. However, at the same time, the field of academic global health depends on steep inequalities for its very existence, as it is the opportunity to work in impoverished, low-tech settings with high disease burdens that draws North American researchers and clinicians to global health programs and ensures their continued funding. This paradox – in which inequality is both a form of suffering to be redressed and a professional, knowledge-generating, opportunity to be exploited – makes the partnerships to which global health aspires particularly challenging.
The article is recommended.
(h/t Somatosphere)
Call for Papers: Disability and Native American/Indigenous Studies
Special Issue of Journal of Literary and Cultural Disability (JLCDS)
Guest Editors, Siobhan Senier and Penelope Kelsey
In Colonizing Bodies: Aboriginal Health and Healing in British Columbia 1900-1950, a Nisga’a elder implores the historian Mary Ellen Kelm: “When we talk about the poor health of our people, remember it all began with the white man” (xv).
This special issue of JLCDS invites scholars to consider two interrelated phenomena: on the one hand, colonialism has produced indigenous disability and illness-through the depletion of traditional sources of food and medicine, enforced containment in boarding schools and substandard reservation housing, trauma, poverty and so on. On the other hand, colonial discourse also pathologizes Native people-construing them as genetically prone to certain illnesses, for instance. Given these colonial phenomena, scholarship is particularly welcome that considers how Native people indigenize the famous disability-rights call, “nothing about us without us”-bringing tribally situated responses, adaptations, and resistance to disability and illness.
JLCDS seeks essays that conjoin the methodologies and content of Disability Studies with Native American/Indigenous Studies. The texts under consideration can range from literature and film, in any genre, to non-print and non-alphabetic media. Topics might include, but are by no means limited to:
Proposals and queries should be sent to Siobhan.Senier@unh.edu and
Penelope.Kelsey@colorado.edu
Proposals are due by March 15, 2011, and proposal selections will be made by May 30, 2011. Completed essays for those selected are due October 1, 2011, and articles will be selected in December of 2011.
Dr. David Bolt
Lecturer, Disability Studies
http://www.hope.ac.uk/boltd
Director, Centre for Culture & Disability Studies ccds.hope.ac.uk
Editor, Journal of Literary & Cultural Disability Studies
http://liverpool.metapress.com/content/121628
Email: boltd@hope.ac.uk
Telephone 0151 291 3346
Postal address@ Faculty of Education, Liverpool Hope University, Liverpool,
L16 9JD
____________________________________________________
I have had the privilege of having some contact with Native American communities in connection with health and illness, and I have virtually always come away deeply affected. I submit that most anyone who works on the social determinants of health, law/policy and chronic illness, inequities, stigma, etc., could not help but feel something similar. For a particularly well-done snapshot of some of these matters, I recommend episode 4 of Unnatural Causes, entitled Bad Sugar.
This sounds like an important CFP, and I very much look forward to reading the theme issue when it comes out.
(h/t H-DISABILITY listserv)
Mohammed Ghaly (Univ. of Leiden) has a fascinating new article out in Bioethics entitled Milk Banks Through the Lens of Muslim Scholars: One Text in Two Contexts. Here is the Abstract:
When Muslims thought of establishing milk banks, religious reservations were raised. These reservations were based on the concept that women's milk creates ‘milk kinship’ believed to impede marriage in Islamic Law. This type of kinship is, however, a distinctive phenomenon of Arab tradition and relatively unknown in Western cultures. This article is a pioneer study which fathoms out the contemporary discussions of Muslim scholars on this issue. The main focus here is a religious guideline (fatwa) issued in 1983, referred to in this article as ‘one text’, by the Egyptian scholar Yūsuf al-Qaradāwī who saw no religious problem in establishing or using these banks. After a number of introductory remarks on the ‘Western’ phenomenon of milk banks and the ‘Islamic’ phenomenon of ‘milk kinship’, this article analyses the fatwa of al-Qaradāwī‘one text’ and investigates the ‘two contexts’ in which this fatwa was discussed, namely, the context of the Muslim world and that of Muslim minorities living in the West. The first context led to rejecting the fatwa and refusing to introduce the milk banking system in the Muslim world. The second context led to accepting this system and thus allowing Muslims living in the West to donate and receive milk from these banks. Besides its relevance to specialists in the fields of Islamic studies, anthropology and medical ethics, this article will also be helpful to physicians and nurses who deal with patients of Islamic background.
I had the great good fortune of meeting (and arguing with) Mohammed Ghaly at a conference held at the ZiF while I was in residence there over the past summer. Ghaly is a gentleman and a scholar, and his work is particularly erudite and insightful.
If you like Ghaly's article, do take a look at his recently published book on Islam & Disability, which is, IMO, one-of-a-kind as an English-language work.