Health Equity: 08/02/10

Monday, August 2, 2010

[EQ] PAHO/WHO new basic E-Learning course on Health and Human Rights

PAHO/WHO new basic E-Learning course on Health and Human Rights

Pan American Health Organization/World Health Organization (PAHO/WHO) 2010

English Version available online at: http://bit.ly/cLA1Hy

Spanish, French and Portuguese versions will be available soon.

“… to define the terms public health, health, and human rights; and understand the relationships between health and human rights.
“….be able to recognize the most critical human rights instruments that promote and protect the right to health and other related human rights; recognize the differences between binding and non-binding human rights instruments; and identify the international guidelines on the limitations of human rights….”

The course is divided in 3 modules:

Module 1: Relationships between health and human rights in the context of PAHO and WHO strategies;
Module 2: The right to health and other related human rights and fundamental freedoms;
Module 3: The human rights based approach as a transformative strategy of health systems

This course is an essential capacity building tool for public health personnel and other governmental officials, Ombudspersons, judges, legislators, human rights organizations, civil society organizations, universities, journalists, organizations of consumers and all stakeholders who are working on the promotion and protection of health.”

Javier Vasquez, Regional Human Rights Law Advisor -Office of Gender, Diversity and Human Rights (GDR/AD)
Pan American Health Organization/World Health Organization (PAHO/WHO)

http://www.xceleratemedia.com/clients/TATC/clients/PAHO_7_23_2010/

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This message from the Pan American Health Organization, PAHO/WHO, is part of an effort to disseminate
information Related to: Equity; Health inequality; Socioeconomic inequality in health; Socioeconomic
health differentials; Gender; Violence; Poverty; Health Economics; Health Legislation; Ethnicity; Ethics;
Information Technology - Virtual libraries; Research & Science issues. [DD/ KMC Area]

“Materials provided in this electronic list are provided "as is". Unless expressly stated otherwise, the findings
and interpretations included in the Materials are those of the authors and not necessarily of The Pan American
Health Organization PAHO/WHO or its country members”.
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[EQ] Human Development Trends since 1970: A Social Convergence Story

Human Development Trends since 1970: A Social Convergence Story

George Gray Molina is an Oxford-Princeton Global Leaders Fellow, Niehaus Center for Globalization and Governance, Princeton University.
Mark Purser is a research consultant at the Human Development Report Office

Human Development Reports - Research Paper - June 2010

United Nations Development Programme - UNDP

Available online PDF [53p.] at: http://bit.ly/ddrovP

“…….This paper uses a unique data set of the Human Development Index to describe long-run human development trends for 111 countries, from 1970 to 2005. The first part of the paper shows trends by region, period and index subcomponent. We find that 110 of the 111 countries show progress in their HDI levels over a 35-year period. HDI growth is fastest for low-HDI and middle-HDI countries in the pre-1990 period.

The life-expectancy and education subcomponents grow faster than income. The assessment of HDI progress is sensitive to choice of measurement. The second part of the paper focuses on the differences between income and non-income determinants of human development.

First, HDI growth converges, both absolutely and conditionally, when running HDI growth rates on initial levels of HD.

Second, we find that the income and non-income components of HDI change have a near-zero correlation.

Third, we look at determinants of the non-income components of the HDI. We find that income is not a significant determinant of HDI change once we include urbanization, fertility and female schooling.

Fourth, we test the effects of institutions, geography and gender on HDI growth.

We find that the most robust predictors of HDI growth are fertility and female schooling. We check this result using years of women’s suffrage as an instrument for changes in gender relations, and find that it is a significant predictor of HDI progress for the whole sample…..”

http://hdr.undp.org/en/reports/global/hdr2010/papers/HDRP_2010_02.pdf

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[EQ] Human Development and Sustainability

Human Development and Sustainability

Human Development Research Paper
Eric Neumayer, Professor of Environment and Development and Head of Department at the Department of Geogrpahy and Environment, London School of Economics and Political Science

United Nations Development Programme UNDP - June 2010

Available online PDF [35p.] at: http://bit.ly/ayFm0D

“…..The literatures and debates on human development on the one hand and sustainability on the other share much in common. Human development is essentially what sustainability advocates want to sustain and without sustainability, human development is not true human development.

Yet the two strands of research have largely been separate and this paper shows how they can learn from each other. I put forward a concrete proposal on how human development and its measurement in the form of the Human Development Index (HDI) can be linked with measures of both weak and strong sustainability. Weak sustainability is built on the assumption that different forms of capital are substitutable, whereas strong sustainability rejects the notion of substitutability for certain critical forms of natural capital.

Empirical results over the period 1980 to 2006 show that many of the lowest performing countries on the HDI also face problems of weak unsustainability, as measured by genuine savings. Countries with high to very high HDI performance, on the other hand, typically appear to be strongly unsustainable, as measured by ecological footprints, mostly because of unsustainably large carbon dioxide emissions.

Two of the biggest challenges facing mankind this century will be to break the link between high human development and strongly unsustainable damage to natural capital on the one hand, requiring a very significant and rapid decarbonisation of their economies, and assisting countries with very low human development to overcome weak unsustainability by raising their investment levels into all forms of capital on the other….”

http://hdr.undp.org/en/reports/global/hdr2010/papers/HDRP_2010_05.pdf

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