Continue readingWhose son you are
Whose you’re not
Daughter not by any
Coupling double Xs
The neighbourhood, The house
the hand that rocked the cradle
the hand that didn’t
love that wasn’t
The unfair social embellish
Over one’s random gene bounty
For one brings luck
For another just muck
Tag Archives: social determinants of health
COVID-19 in Karnataka: Strengthening primary health care & action on social determinants of health
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.
Continue readingVulnerability: An article for CMJI
From an article for a special issue of Christian Medical Journal of India on vulnerability published in December 2018 [Download article here]
The word Vulnerability, like many other words in modern English, comes from late Latin vulnerābilis (wounding) or vulnus (wound), according to Webster’s dictionary. In its current use, the word carries a wider meaning beyond impending physical injury or harm, to include the risk of emotional or psychological trauma. It has been widely used in the context of natural disasters. Sudden and often unforeseen natural calamities put a lot of people at physical, socio-economic, political, psychological and emotional harm. However, vulnerability is not only about large populations and natural disasters; individuals or households too can experience vulnerability due to various psychosocial, familial or other life circumstances. In either case – be it individuals or populations – an experience of vulnerability is almost never exclusively due to the individual’s own choices. A large body of work from social sciences, as well as stories and narratives of people who have dealt with vulnerabilities in their life, demonstrates that this experience is almost never caused in isolation. Continue reading
Primary health care and social determinants of health
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