Public Health and Human Rights

Human rights violations are underlying causes of adverse health outcomes for vulnerable people and populations around the world. Public Health and Human Rights provides critical, evidence-based assessments and tools with which to investigate the role of rights abrogation in the health of populations—from repressive laws to social discord, gender-based violence, human trafficking, and violations in conflict. Divided into three sections, this provocative work investigates how the complex interactions between rights and health can best be studied, analyzed, and remedied; how the efforts of human rights advocates affect health outcomes; and how modern public health procedures can assist in documenting, understanding, and preventing human rights violations. Part I illuminates the powerful relationship between rights work and public health practice in Thailand, Russia, Burma, and China and in U.S. prisons. Part II explores new methodologies and new uses of previous practices for rights-based public health research. Part III confronts current policy approaches—such as Brazil's integration of rights, HIV/AIDS programming, and the contradictory and confounding global policies on illicit drugs—and offers recommendations for future programs and strategies. Author InformationChris Beyrer, M.D., M.P.H., is a professor of epidemiology and international health, director of the Center for Public Health and Human Rights, and associate director of the Center for Global Health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. H. F. Pizer is the cofounder and principal of Health Care Strategies, Inc., and author, coauthor, or editor of thirteen medical books. Reviews''A necessary and timely contribution for the public health and for the human rights audience. It can be the 'bible' of approaching the most vulnerable of our world's population, including those affected by HIV/AIDS, genocide, intravenous drug use, trafficking, and gender-specific abuse.''—Hilarie Cranmer, M.D., M.P.H., Harvard School of Public Health''This book is a real contribution for those working to bring health and dignity to communities in need. We have long understood that the violation of the human rights of the poor and marginalized had grave implications for their health and well-being. Now we have a tool kit for investigating those relationships and, more importantly, for doing something about them to improve both human health and human rights.''—Archbishop Desmond Tutu, 1984 Nobel Peace Laureate