PHA-Exchange> PHA 2 Media coverage- British Medical Journal- STORY 3: Global university course launched on health advocacy

[UNNIKRISHNAN P.V. (Dr)]

BMJ  2005;331:256 (30 July), doi:10.1136/bmj.331.7511.256-a 


 

 

 
 

 
 

 
 

 
 

 
 

 

 

 

 
 

 
 

 
 

 
 

 
 

 

 

 

 
 

 
 

 

 

 

 
 

 
 

News extra


Global university course launched on health advocacy

Cuenca Tessa Richards 
A new global university, the International People’s Health University,
marked its official launch last week by running a five day course for
health activists on primary health care and the political economy of
health. The course was run at the Faculty of Medical Sciences of the
University of Cuenca, Equador, immediately before the People’s Health
Assembly. 
The course was attended by 61 people, from 25 different countries, with
a strong representation from Latin America and other low and medium
income countries. Most of those attending were doctors already involved
in or committed to developing skills in health advocacy to augment their
work as public health physicians, specialists in primary care, or within
non-governmental organisations. 
The convenor, David Legge, associate professor of public health at La
Trobe University, Australia, told the BMJ about the aim of the course,
which he and his colleagues plan to run biannually, back to back with
major international meetings. 
"The course has been designed to stimulate, train, and link up a new
cadre of health activists to join the founder members of the People’s
Health Movement [ <http://www.phmovement.org> www.phmovement.org] and
continue its work." 
The global community of health activists needs to be strengthened, Dr
Legge emphasised, to press for action to counter growing health inequity
and gross global injustice. A message which echoes the call put out last
week by Global Health Watch 2005-6 ( <http://www.ghwatch.org>
www.ghwatch.org) and its campaign tool, Global Health Action (see box). 
"It addresses issues that are poorly covered, if at all, in conventional
public health courses and undergraduate courses on international
health," Dr Legge said, "And we will use the experience of running this
first course to develop the programme further. We will also provide
details and key educational resources on the university’s website
[details of the current course are already up on
www.iphcglobal.org/iphu.org/faculty.htm] so that they are widely
available." 
Topics covered included framing health as a human right as opposed to a
need for which health services are supplied (depending on the capacity
to pay for them), macroeconomics and health, primary health care, trade
and health, sex issues in health, patient rights and access to
pharmaceuticals, health sector reform, and health research. 
Fran Baum, director of the Community Health Research Unit at Flinders
University, Australia, underlined the importance of funding community
driven and community based research. 
"Currently, the medical technological model dominates thinking about
health and disease and defining research priorities," she said.
"Furthermore, there is no obligation on researchers to undertake
research that is socially useful or to define its outcome in terms of
what benefit it brings to the community. More research is needed on the
underlying determinants of health and long term assessment of complex
community based interventions." 
Health and wealth inequity worldwide 
*	2.7 billion people live on less than $2 (£1.15; €1.66) a day—a
rise of 20% since 1987 
*	Healthy life expectancy is 39 in Africa compared with 66 in the
developed world 
*	The annual amount of development help spent on health by all
developed nations—$10bn—is equivalent to the amount spent on ice cream
in Europe 
*	Although the wealth of the developed world has risen by more
than 150% since 1960, aid per capita has risen by just 10% 
*	The power and wealth of multilateral corporation has grown out
of hand. Of the 100 largest economic entities in the world, 51 are
businesses 
*	The combined sales of the top 20 businesses are 18 times the
combined income of the poorest 25% of the world’s population 
Source: Global Health Action, published by Medact (
<http://www.medact.org/> www.medact.org) 
 
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