Tag Archives: primary health care

COVID-19 in Karnataka: Strengthening primary health care & action on social determinants of health

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On invitation by Societal Action Group of Experts to Combat COVID Calamity in Karnataka (SAGE), I joined few other speakers in this webinar event. In my talk I focused mainly on strengthening primary health care and social determinants of health. Given a wider audience, I anchor my presentation within a wider systemic view of public health and health systems, a perspective often lost in framing most recommendations.

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Moving COVID-19 control from governments to communities

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This is an edited version of an op-ed for a newspaper that did not see the light of day. Some of the ideas expressed may be dated given the rapidly evolving nature of COVID-19, but the op-ed was addressing the nationally applied lockdown situation prevalent then. The central “dogma” though of moving action from a central State to communities applies across national, urban, district and other settings. Updated with links to other talks and stories as well.

“And from making the cure of the disease more grievous than the endurance of the same, Good Lord, deliver us”.

Sir Robert Hutchison
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COVID-19 preparedness in rural settings

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Preparedness checklist for rural primary health care settings

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Primary health care and social determinants of health

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Health, after all, is simply an everyday word that is used to designate the intensity with which individuals cope with their internal states and their environmental conditions

– Ivan  Illich in Medical Nemesis

In 2008, while releasing the final report of the WHO’s Commission on Social Determinants of Health, WHO Director Margaret Chan remarked

…social conditions in which people are born, live, and work are the single most important determinant of good health or ill health, of a long and productive life, or a short and miserable one.

While on one hand the importance of provision of good quality care through a Continue reading →