Activities July-September 1998

Executive Summary

This quarter was marked by the tragic death of Jonathan Mann and Mary Lou Clements Mann on September 2nd, 1998, as they were on their way to Geneva. A number of memorial services were held in Boston, Geneva and many other places around the world. The Harvard School of Public Health hosted a memorial service on September 28 which brought together a number of friends and colleagues of Jonathan and Mary Lou, many of whom had been and continue to be closely associated to the work of the FXB Center. Another event which marked the Center's life during this period was the invitation extended by the Director General of WHO, Dr. Gro Harlem Brundtland, to Daniel Tarantola to join her team as a Senior Policy Adviser. It was agreed that he would work for WHO part-time through December, and full time thereafter. Sofia Gruskin would then become the Center's acting Director. Key activities took place during this quarter, as the search for a new Center Director was being pursued.

Following are the activities that marked the third quarter of 1998.

Core Activities

Education and Training

Academic Courses

Preparations continued for the HSPH Women, Gender and Health course to be taught by Sofia Gruskin and Nancy Krieger in the fall. The course, designed as a core course for a program at HSPH on women, gender and health, will focus on constructions of gender and sex and their implications for understanding determinants of population health and creating healthy public policy. It will consider how different frameworks of addressing gender and biological sex shape questions people ask about--and explanations and interventions they offer for--societal patterns of health, disease, and well-being. The course will demonstrate ways of conceptualizing gender in relation to biology and health using case examples pertaining to: breast cancer; smoking; cumulative trauma disorders of hands & wrists; HIV/AIDS; violence; access to health services; and sexual health, reproductive health, and population policy. In all these cases, issues of gender will be related to other social determinants of health, including social class, racism, and other forms of inequality. Implications of diverse approaches will be debated, as part of developing useful strategies for improving physical, mental, and social well-being.

Visiting Scholar Alan Greenberg

Dr. Alan Greenberg has begun his second year as a Visiting Scholar at the Center. The head of the AIDS Epidemiology Division at CDC, Dr. Greenberg is a part-time MPH student at the School of Public Health.

Ruchama Marton

Ruchama Marton joined the Center as a visiting scholar in September. She is currently working on a book on inspiring people to political action, emphasizing as a case study Israeli-Palestinian Physicians for Human Rights, a group which she founded in 1988.

Global Initiatives

50th Anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights

The Health and Human Rights Consortium, of which the FXB Center is a founding member, continues to meet monthly. Preparations continued for the commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the UDHR at the HSPH on December 14.

Operationalizing Cairo and Beijing: A Training Initiative in Gender and Reproductive Health.

This multifaceted project, to be completed by the year 2000, was created in partnership with the World Health Organization and the Women’s Health Project, Witwatersrand University, South Africa. The leadership course was given for the second time August 24-September 11 in Johannesburg, South Africa. Twenty-four people from countries of southern Africa participated. Participants expressed satisfaction with course content, instruction, and relevance to their countries’ specific needs. The modules and session templates that will enable the course to be taught by other trainers at centers of excellence around the world were completed in this period. Fundraising for the initiative continued, as did preparations for the Regional Adaptation Workshop (RAW), to be held in November.

Monitoring the AIDS Pandemic (MAP) Network

The report from the MAP meeting on Eastern Europe was inalized during this period. A summary of its outcome was incorporated into the final version of the MAP report on the global AIDS situation produced at the 12th World AIDS Conference.

Committee on the Rights of the Child Theme Day

FXB Center staff prepared for this discussion day to be held at the UN on October 5, focusing on the topic "Children Living in a World with HIV/AIDS." UNAIDS called on the FXB Center to provide working papers for this discussion day, following a preparatory meeting with members of the Committee on the Rights of the Child, UNAIDS/UNICEF, and WHO.

Dissemination of Information

Health and Human Rights

The international journal Health and Human Rights continued its preparations for the special issue commemorating the 50th Anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Other members of the Consortium for Health and Human Rights were invited to coedit this issue. Authors who have agreed to contribute to this issue include: Kofi Annan, Secretary-General of the UN; Mary Robinson, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights; Ingar Brueggemann, Secretary-General of the International Planned Parenthood Federation; and Gro Brundtland, Director-General of WHO. This issue will be published in time for Human Rights Day on December 10, 1998.

Consortium for Health and Human Rights

"Health and Human Rights: A Call to Action on the Fiftieth Anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights," the statement by the FXB Center and other Consortium members marking the 50th anniversary of the UDHR, was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, no. 280.

Health and Human Rights Reader

The Health and Human Rights Reader, edited by Jonathan Mann, Sofia Gruskin, George Annas, and Michael Grodin, to be published by Routledge, is nearly complete and should be in print early in 1999. The book is being advertised on Amazon.com.

AIDS, Health and Human Rights: An Action Kit

This handbook, to be published jointly by the FXB Center and the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, is a companion volume to AIDS, Health and Human Rights: An Explanatory Manual. It is designed to complement the Manual by providing practical information and guidance about how to respond to specific situations involving human rights and AIDS, and how to apply methods and strategies explained in the manual.

"Human Rights and Public Health: An Overview"

This talk by Sofia Gruskin at the 12th World AIDS Conference in Geneva was published by the International Council of AIDS Service Organizations (ICASO) in English, French, and Spanish and distributed to organizations worldwide.

AIDS Financing Study

The FXB Center and UNAIDS pursued their collaborative study on worldwide financing of AIDS programs. UNAIDS is sending out tabulated data to respondents for verification prior to publication of results, planned for early 1999.

Presentations/Guest Lectures

Sofia Gruskin and Daniel Tarantola were invited to conduct a half-day workshop at UNAIDS headquarters in Geneva on the development of a new global AIDS strategy, with emphasis on the human rights implications thereof. The workshop was attended by the executive director of UNAIDS, Dr. Peter Piot, and about 20 senior staff of the program.

Research

Enhancing HIV/AIDS Care Initiative

This project is jointly carried out by the Harvard AIDS Institute, the FXB Center, other entities within Harvard, and counterpart institutions in selected developing countries. It is financed by the Merck Foundation. Following the launch of the ECI Initiative at the 12th World AIDS Conference in July, Center staff traveled to Bangkok and Chiang Mai, Thailand, in August in order to explore opportunities for partnership on the ECI. A meeting with potential collaborators from Thailand helped trigger a commitment from participants to launch an ECI project in Thailand in early 1999.