People's Health Movement PHM

MMS Bulletin #146

Juli 2018

Social determinants of health receive too little attention

Origins, history and forecast

In 1978 at the historic International Conference on Primary Health Care (PHC), WHO and UNICEF advocated PHC to achieve Health for All by the Year 2000. PHC was a strategy to provide more equitable, appropriate and effective basic health care and also address the underlying social, economic and political causes of poor health (‘social determinants’). Its principles included: universal access and equitable coverage; comprehensive care emphasizing disease prevention and health promotion; community and individual participation in health policy, planning and provision; inter-sectoral action; appropriate technology and cost-effective use of available resources (Bryant & Richmond, 2008). These principles were to apply to all levels of the health system and also shape the eight elements or programmes of PHC. Notably, the ‘elements’ of PHC did not include non-communicable diseases or mental ill-health which were dominant in industrialised countries, while in low and middle-income countries (LMICs) they were only just emerging. Their exclusion reinforced a perception that PHC, while promoted as a global policy for health development, was, in reality, aimed mainly at poor countries.

September 2005

Gesundheit für alle oder der Sonnentempel

Ein Bericht von der „People’s Health Assembly“

Über 1300 Personen hatten sich vom 17. bis 23. Juli 2005 in Cuenca im Hochland von Ecuador zur zweiten internationalen Konferenz der Gesundheitsbasisbewegungen, der People’s Health Assembly (PHA2) eingefunden. Ziel war, Gesundheit für alle als grundlegendes Menschenrecht zu verankern, sich zu vernetzen und gegenseitig zu stärken. Gesundheit wurde von den Teilnehmenden als grösstmögliches Wohlergehen verstanden, welches über biologische und medizinische Aspekte hinausgeht und politische, soziale und Umweltfaktoren einbezieht. In der kleinen Schweizer Delegation vertreten waren Helena Zweifel, Co-Geschäftsführerin von Medicus Mundi Schweiz (MMS), und Thomas Vogel, Vorstandsmitglied von MMS.