Lecturer

Damon Barrett

Slides

SLIDES

Preparation

Please read the following course literature (less than 20 pages total)

1. Gruskin S & Ferguson L. 'Using Indicators to Determine the Contribution of Human Rights to Public Health Efforts' in Grodin, Michael. et al (eds) (2013) Health and Human Rights in a Changing World pp. 202-212 (ebook via GU library)

2. Report of the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Highest Attainable Standard of Physical and Mental Health, UN Doc No E/CN.4/2006/48, 2006 (a rights-based approach to health indicators, paragraphs 22-61 only) Available in course files

3. UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, General Comment No 14 on the Right to the Highest Attainable Standard of Physical and Mental Health, UN Doc No E/C.12/2000/4, 11 August 2000. paragraphs 7-12 only Available in course files

In this session we will discuss the challenge of, and opportunities in, translating the right to health and other rights standards, into something we can measure.

We begin with an introduction to indicator types and sources of data collection. We then look at whether human rights norms, and the right to health, can be translated into indicators.

In groups, we'll then ask what we can learn from the right to health from existing public health data.

In-class discuss instructions

Article 12 of the ICESCR guarantees the right to the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health. But what can we learn about the realisation of the right to health from existing health data?

1. Dig into the WHO's global data on mental health governance and services - this won't take long!

Governance: https://apps.who.int/gho/data/node.main.MHPOLFIN?lang=en
Services: https://apps.who.int/gho/data/node.main.MHCAREDEL?lang=en

2. In small groups, discuss:

What do these data tell us, and what can they not tell us, about the realisation of the right to health in the context of mental health?
What other information might be needed to better understand the realisation of the right to health in the context of mental health?

Additional/Optional reading:

Sample indicators

SDG health indicators https://sdgs.un.org/goals/goal3 See also pp. 195 & 196 in Birn et al Textbook of Global Health for a table of typical indicators.

Human rights indicators http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Publications/Human_rights_indicators_en.pdf See Sample indicators, e.g.: p. 90. the right to health; p. 99 violence against women; p. 101 the right to life

Articles raising critical questions about indicators

Satterthwaite, Margaret. & Rosga AnnJanette., ‘Measuring Human Rights: U.N. Indicators in Critical Perspective’, in Davis et al (eds) Governance By Indicators: Global Power Through Quantification And Rankings (2011). (A really good analysis of the challenges and opportunities in translating rights into measurements, including the benefit of applying a rights based approach in the development of such measurements)

Davis, Sara (2015) ‘Measuring the Impact of Human Rights on Health in Global Health Financing’, Health and Human Rights 17(2) (An examination of the challenges of incorporating human rights into the evaluation work at the Global Fund)