Health Equity: 02/24/11

Thursday, February 24, 2011

[EQ] From conflict and crisis to renewal: generations of change

From conflict and crisis to renewal: generations of change

The State of World Population 2010

External Relations Division of UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund

Available online PDF [116p.] at: http://bit.ly/hwiYkD

“……….Conflict today is less about soldiers engaging in battle with soldiers on the other side of a national border and more about combatants struggling for control within a single country and employing any means to break the will of civilians—women, girls, men and boys—by disempowering them physically, psychologically, economically, and socially.

In many of today’s conflicts, women are disempowered by rape or the threat of it, and by the HIV infection, trauma and disabilities that often result from it. Girls are disempowered when they cannot go to school because of the threat of violence, when they are abducted or trafficked, or when their families disintegrate or must flee. In some conflicts, men are also disempowered by sexual violence. Boys, too, are sometimes exploited or forced to become soldiers.

The State of World Population 2010 explores how conflict and protracted humanitarian emergencies affect women and girls—and men and boys—and shows how many women and young people have overcome seemingly insurmountable obstacles and have begun rebuilding their lives and laying the foundation for peace and renewal of their societies……..”

Content:

1 Bosnia and Herzegovina as catalyst of change
2 A resolution and reality: a decade on the ground
3 Women on the front lines of recovery
4 In times of crisis, gender relations in flux
5 Youth: The future of post-conflict societies
6 Living without an anchor: refugees and the internally displaced
7 Imprisoned at home: life under occupation
8 And the next ten years?

• + Bibliography
• + Indicators
• + Notes for Indicators
• + Technical Notes

* * *
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[EQ] Call for Abstracts World Congress Public Health: Towards Global Health Equity: Opportunities and Threats

Call for Abstracts
 Towards Global Health Equity: Opportunities and Threats

The 13th Triennial World Congress on Public Health
April 21-29, 2012 - Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

Abstract Submission Deadline is Friday, October 21, 2011, Midnight Pacific

Deadline in other time zones: 
 1:00 am Mountain time, 2:00 am Central time, 3:00 am Eastern time, 7:00 am Greenwich Mean Time. See World Clock.

The World Federation of Public Health Associations and the Ethiopian Public Health Association


 Website: http://bit.ly/e02iEw

“…... Reducing these disparities is imperative as it is widely recognized that in the "global village", threats to some can easily translate into threats to all. In order to minimize these disparities in global health, identifying the different threats and the opportunities to combat them, is vital.

In its declaration at the 12th World Congress on Public Health, held in Istanbul, Turkey in 2009, the WFPHA adopted a resolution that re-emphasized 
 "Health as a Human Right". 
 
 The declaration noted, Now is the time for all those who affect the lives of others, working in government, industry, and in civil society, and as health care workers, academics, community and faith-based leaders, and citizens, to affirm the fundamental and elemental importance of public goods, including public health, and to assert and practice the basic human values of solidarity, sustainability, morality, justice, equity, fairness and tolerance?

The Congress will harness the synergy and strengths of innovation and experience from the developing and developed worlds. It will address the enormous challenges and opportunities facing public health organizations worldwide in making progress towards collectively attaining global health equity.

Abstracts should demonstrate the role that public health could play in addressing emerging issues and current problems that contribute to global health inequity. Abstracts should also showcase innovations, tools, transferable knowledge, and technology. Highlighting these lessons learned from across the globe, will help us make collective decisions and recommendations to the global health community, thereby, moving us forward towards sustainable global health equity….”

General topics:

Achieving Millennium Development Goals: Vital for Global Health Equity

Armed Conflict and Health Impacts (including Mental Health)

Climate Change and the Impact on Strategies for Global Health

Forums for Public Health In Africa

Global Health, State of the World Economy, Rapid Urbanization and Health System

Health Equity – A Global Social Responsibility

Health Insurance, Social Health Insurance, Micro Insurance; Implications for Public Health

Health Systems Development – Integrating Public Health

HIV/AIDS – Own, Scale-up and Sustain

Household Food Security and Public Health

Human Resources in Public Health; Towards Workforce Strategies

Maternal and Child Health – Achieving MDGs & Sustaining Them

Non-communicable Diseases – Innovative Approaches for Health Promotion

Pandemic and Disaster Preparedness: Lessons learned and challenges ahead

Primary Health Care – A Feasible Road Toward the MDGs

Public Health Laws and Regulations

Resetting Financial Aid for Global Health

Sexual Health and Public Health

Strengthening Capacity Building for Public Health- Public Health Education and Workforce Needs

Strengthening Public Health Organizations for Global Health

The Health of Indigenous and Ethnic Minorities (including Traditional Medicine)

The Public Health Response to Migration

           Contacts:

Laetitia Bourquin Program Manager, World Federation of Public Health Associations

Editor-assistant to Prof. B.Borisch, Editor-in-Chief Pathobiology

IMSP, Geneva Tel: +41 22 379 04 53 Fax: +41 22 379 59 12 mailto: laetitia.bourquin@unige.ch http://www.unige.ch/medecine/imsp/

[EQ] Health Behaviours, Socioeconomic Status, and Mortality

Health Behaviours, Socioeconomic Status, and Mortality:
Further Analyses of the British Whitehall II and the French GAZEL Prospective Cohorts

Silvia Stringhini 1*, Aline Dugravot 1, Martin Shipley2, Marcel Goldberg1, Marie Zins1, Mika Kivima¨ ki 2,

Michael Marmot 2, Se´verine Sabia 1, Archana Singh-Manoux 1,2,3

1 INSERM U1018, Centre for Research in Epidemiology and Population Health, Hopital Paul Brousse, Villejuif, France,
2 Department of Epidemiology and Public Health, University College London, London, United Kingdom,
3 Centre de Ge´rontologie, Hoˆ pital Sainte Pe´rine, Assistance Publique-Hoˆ pitaux de Paris, Paris, France

PLoS Med 8(2): e1000419. doi:10.1371/journal.pmed.1000419 – February 22, 2011

Available online at: http://bit.ly/dXByVS

“……….Differences in morbidity and mortality between socioeconomic groups constitute one of the most consistent findings of epidemiologic research.
However, research on social inequalities in health has yet to provide a comprehensive understanding of the mechanisms underlying this association.
In recent analysis, we showed health behaviours, assessed longitudinally over the follow-up, to explain a major proportion of the association of socioeconomic status (SES) with mortality in the British Whitehall II study.
However, whether health behaviours are equally important mediators of the SES mortality association in different cultural settings remains unknown. In the present paper, we examine this issue in Whitehall II and another prospective European cohort, the French GAZEL study.

Methods and Findings:
We included 9,771 participants from the Whitehall II study and 17,760 from the GAZEL study. Over the follow-up (mean 19.5 y in Whitehall II and 16.5 y in GAZEL), health behaviours (smoking, alcohol consumption, diet, and physical activity), were assessed longitudinally. Occupation (in the main analysis), education, and income (supplementary analysis) were the markers of SES.

The socioeconomic gradient in smoking was greater (p,0.001) in Whitehall II (odds ratio [OR] = 3.68, 95% confidence interval [CI] 3.11–4.36) than in GAZEL (OR = 1.33, 95% CI 1.18–1.49); this was also true for unhealthy diet (OR = 7.42, 95% CI 5.19–10.60 in Whitehall II and OR = 1.31, 95% CI 1.15–1.49 in GAZEL, p,0.001).

Socioeconomic differences in mortality were similar in the two cohorts, a hazard ratio of 1.62 (95% CI 1.28–2.05) in Whitehall II and 1.94 in GAZEL (95% CI 1.58–2.39) for lowest versus highest occupational position. Health behaviours attenuated the association of SES with mortality by 75% (95% CI 44%–149%) in Whitehall II but only by 19% (95% CI 13%–29%) in GAZEL. Analysis using education and income yielded similar results.

Conclusions:
Health behaviours were strong predictors of mortality in both cohorts but their association with SES was remarkably different. Thus, health behaviours are likely to be major contributors of socioeconomic differences in health only in contexts with a marked social characterisation of health behaviours.