About the Lecture

The presentation will discuss concepts like Health Equity, ‘Social Determinants of Health’, Social Accountability and Rights based approaches drawing upon evidence and experience of working with the public health system in India over the last two decades. It will draw upon work done on reproductive health issues within the National Health Mission across different state of India. Using practical examples, the presentation will provide guidance on how health inequities may be identified and understood and how appropriate strategies may be developed to address them, including what kind of research, what kind of health sector response, what kind of monitoring and governance mechanisms may be useful. The presentation will also identify different components of a right to health approach and provides guidance on how existing standards, protocols and guidelines may be used to create a more robust right to health approach in the country.

About the Speaker

Abhijit Das is the Founder and Managing Trustee of the Centre for Health and Social Justice, in New Delhi and Clinical Associate Professor in the Department of Global Health at the University of Washington, Seattle, USA. A medical doctor by training Abhijit has over 30 years of work on health governance and citizen participation and men and gender equality. He has fostered South to South learning through networks like COPASAH (www.copasah.net) and MenEngage Global Alliance (www.menengage.org). He has served as an expert on various policy bodies in India including the Ministry of Health, the Planning Commission, the National Human Rights Commission and UNWomen. He is on the advisory boards of several Academic Centres in different Universities across the world and has been invited as a speaker to several international conferences including the UN and the EU on issues related health maternal health, family planning, HIV/AIDS, gender and masculinity.