CSDH Tackling the Social Roots of Health Inequities
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The Commission on Social Determinants of Health: Tackling the Social Roots of Health Inequities
Alec Irwin, Nicole Valentine, Chris Brown, Rene Loewenson, Orielle Solar, Hilary Brown, Theadora Koller, Jeanette Vega
PLoS Medicine | www.plosmedicine.org June 2006 | Volume 3 | Issue 6 | e106
Available online at: http://tinyurl.com/roxq9
PDF available online at: http://www.plos.org/press/plme-03-06-irwin.pdf
"...The CSDH was launched in March 2005 in Chile and has held subsequent meetings in Egypt, India, and Iran. Commissioners will next meet in June 2006, in Kenya. Currently, knowledge networks have begun their operations, and joint work plans are being developed with a lead group of partner countries. Brazil, for example, has launched its own national commission on social determinants, which will work closely with the global CSDH to stimulate uptake of SDH policies nationally, across the Americas, and in the Portuguese-speaking countries of Africa. [http://www.determinantes.fiocruz.br/ ]
A WHO reference group appointed by the director-general has begun to develop sustainable strategies to incorporate SDH perspectives into WHO policies and programs. When reduced to their most fundamental formulation, scientific claims on social determinants often seem to be common sense. One hardly needs sophisticated epidemiological models to see that it is inefficient to treat children for diarrhea or respiratory ailments, and then send them back to slum-like living conditions that virtually guarantee new bouts of infection. But translating such common sense into public policy has proven difficult in many settings. The CSDH seeks to understand the reasons for this failure and to learn from cases where action on SDH has worked.
CSDH: http:/www.who.int/social_determinants/en
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Claudio Schuftan
mailto:claudio@hcmc.netnam.vn