#WorldinTurmoil: A Reflections on Public Health, the Pandemic, and the Importance of Building Trust

Prof. Ilona Kickbusch, Founding Director and Chair of the Global Health Centre at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva, is interviewed by Prof. Bettina Borisch, Executive Director of the World Federation of Public Health Associations (WFPHA), and shares her thoughts on why politics and public health must go hand in hand, what the weaknesses of public health are and what can be done to strengthen it, the role and needs of young people in public health, and, last but not least, how and where health is created.

By clicking on the link below, you can read the article on the Croakey Health Media website.

Watch the interview by clicking on the link below.

This article is published as part of the #WorldinTurmoil series.

Interview

What Is the Intergovernmental Negotiating Body (INB) Doing?

At a special session of the World Health Assembly, which took place in December 2021, the WHO’s Member States decided to establish an Intergovernmental Negotiating Body (INB), representing all regions of the world. The INB is responsible for drafting and negotiating a convention, agreement, or other international instrument under the Constitution of the WHO to strengthen pandemic prevention, preparedness and response (referred to as the WHO CA+).

In July 2022, during the second meeting of the INB, it was agreed that the WHO CA+ should contain both legally binding and non-legally binding elements. Also, the INB identified that Article 19 of the WHO Constitution is the comprehensive provision under which the instrument should be adopted.

In December 2022, during the third meeting of the INB, the Conceptual Zero Draft (CZD) of the WHO CA+, including its structure, was considered. Moreover, the way forward for the INB negotiation process, including development of a Zero Draft of the instrument was discussed. The INB agreed to develop the zero draft to start negotiations at the fourth INB meeting in February 2023.

WFPHA Condemns Attacks on Democracy in Brazil

On January 8, 2023, a week after Lula da Silva’s inauguration as the new president of Brazil, thousands of supporters of former president Jair Bolsonaro invaded the country’s National Congress, the Presidential Palace and the Federal Supreme Court in the capital Brasília. Bolsonaro’s supporters are refusing to accept that he lost the election and asking for military intervention with Lula’s removal.

As it represents an attempt to incite the Armed Forces to lead the installation of a new dictatorship in Brazil, in total disregard of democratic principles, the WFPHA condemns this outrageous attack on government buildings in Brazil and declares its full support for the Brazilian public health community and Brazilian democrats in their fight for respect for democracy.

#WorldinTurmoil: A Timely Reflection on COVID-19 & Lessons Learned

The new publication of the #WorldinTurmoil series is out!

Dr Rüdiger Krech, Director of the Department of Health Promotion at the World Health Organization (WHO), is interviewed by Prof. Bettina Borisch, Executive Director of the World Federation of Public Health Associations (WFPHA), and shares some reflections on pandemic preparedness, lessons learned from past pandemics, including COVID-19, the WHO’s work, and how the 17th World Congress on Public Health (WCPH2023) can shape the future of Public Health.

By clicking on the link below, you can read the article on the Croakey Health Media website.

Watch the interview by clicking on the link below.

Interview

Public Health Is Not Ensured Once Forever!

By Geir Sverre Braut

“A world in turmoil” is the unifying headline of the upcoming World Congress on Public Health (WCPH 2023) in Italy in May 2023. This somewhat pessimistic statement is followed by a considerably more optimistic expression: “Opportunities to focus on the public’s health”. To take this a bit further, I will claim that the current situation in our world more than ever before calls for, or even cries for, public health work as science and practice to show its potential across geographical borders, political systems, and ideological standpoints.

The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic still reminds us that all countries and populations are interwoven when it comes to the most serious threats to the health of the people. Not only contagious diseases call for our attention across borders. We know that the climate is about to change. We know that such changes will influence health, even though the effects still are quite obscure. From history, we learn that severe deterioration of the health in the populations affected, always accompanies violence and armed conflicts.

Not merely the health is reduced by today’s threats. The differences between people will also increase. The consequences of public health threats are more difficult to handle for those worst off, than for those best off. This is a serious public health challenge in itself.

Even in a world in turmoil, proven strategies and methods for health protection must be maintained. Clean water, fresh air, enough food, and sound nutrition are of crucial importance, not least when physical and social surroundings are under pressure. Basic health care has to be ensured.

Effective preventive measures, like vaccination, have to be prioritized. This is not least important when people are moving or forced from their homes, and then often provided with substandard and crowded housing facilities.

The measures mentioned above build on linear causal chains, which we know well. Just like normal housework, the work can never be done once forever. We have to keep up the intensity from day to day, year to year, and not least from generation to generation.

In addition to known tactics and strategies, we have to think further. We need to enlighten the complex causal chains behind our new challenges. Updated health promotion has to rely upon a multitude of theories, knowledge from several sciences and not least creativity and a huge variety of competence among the public health workers.

What should be seen as the “glue” ensuring public health workers with varying backgrounds stick together? We have to look for the values behind public health as science and practice. Central to this aspect is realizing that the health of every single individual is not only based on individual genetics or personal lifestyle. Important predictors for staying well during a life span, we find in characteristics related to the population we belong to. By combining this population perspective with the right to life for every single human being, we create a solid ideological platform for public health.

Balancing measures based on mass strategies, aiming the whole population, with those aiming the persons at high risk, is at the core of the art of setting up a public health programme. If we focus only on a mass strategy, we may end up favouring those already best off. Therefore, we must ensure that all strategies also keep an eye on possible unwanted side effects.

How should we then analyze and interpret observations related to public health if we accept that public health work requires a multitude of scientific approaches and affects most sides of a society? Obviously, there is no way around making public health work a politically-based activity.

The population itself, every single individual, should have a saying in public health. The only accepted method we know today for this is through democratic processes, where freedom of speech, free elections, and mutual respect between populations and individuals are maintained. An important lesson learned from fighting the pandemic in Norway is that the combination of professional and political argumentations behind necessary public health measures makes the population listen and follow up.