Universal Health Coverage, Priority Setting and the Human Right to Health.Benedict Rumbold,Octavio Ferraz,Sarah Hawkes,Rachel Baker,Carleigh Crubiner,Peter Littlejohns,Ole Frithjof Norheim,Thomas Pegram,Annette Rid,Sridhar Venkatapuram,Alex Voorhoeve,Albert Weale,James Wilson,Alicia Ely Yamin &Daniel Wang -2017 -The Lancet 390 (10095):712-14.detailsAs health policy-makers around the world seek to make progress towards universal health coverage, they must navigate between two important ethical imperatives: to set national spending priorities fairly and efficiently; and to safeguard the right to health. These imperatives can conflict, leading some to conclude that rights-based approaches present a disruptive influence on health policy, hindering states’ efforts to set priorities fairly and efficiently. Here, we challenge this perception. We argue first that these points of tension stem largely from inadequate (...) interpretations of the aims of priority setting as well as the right to health. We then discuss various ways in which the right to health complements traditional concerns of priority setting and vice versa. Finally, we set out a three-step process by which policy-makers may navigate the ethical and legal considerations at play. (shrink)
Right to Health Litigation and HIV/AIDS Policy.Benjamin Mason Meier &Alicia Ely Yamin -2011 -Journal of Law, Medicine and Ethics 39 (s1):81-84.detailsDomestic litigation has become a principal strategy for realizing international treaty obligations for the human right to health, providing causes of action for the public’s health and empowering individuals to raise human rights claims for HIV prevention, treatment, and care. In the past 15 years, advocates have laid the groundwork on which a rapidly expanding enforcement paradigm has arisen at the intersection of human rights litigation and HIV/AIDS policy. As this enforcement develops across multiple countries, human rights are translated from (...) principle to practice in the global response to HIV/AIDS, transforming aspirational declarations into justiciable obligations and implementing human rights through national policies and programs. (shrink)
(1 other version)Frameworks for Understanding Dilemmas of Health Care in a Globalized World: A Case Study of Reproductive Health Policies in Peru.J. Jaime Miranda &Alicia Ely Yamin -2005 -Politics and Ethics Review 1 (2):177-187.detailsThe way health is conceptualized determines the actions taken to protect and promote it and, in turn, the actors responsible for such actions in an increasingly inter-dependent world. This essay presents a brief description of health policies in Peru during the last ten years in order to analyze the implications of paradigms of medical ethics, human rights and quality of care. These paradigms offer distinct ways of formulating, applying and evaluating health policies and understanding the relationship among different actors at (...) various levels. Building upon other detailed analyses of sexual and reproductive health policy in Peru (Coe, 2004; Miranda and Yamin, 2004), as well as critical appraisals of health services models (Gericke, Kurowski, Ranson and Mills, 2005; Krieger, Northridge, Gruskin, Quinn, Kriebel, Davey Smith, Bassett, Rehkopf and Miller, 2003), this article advocates the importance of construing and promoting health as a human right. (shrink)
Litigating health rights: can courts bring more justice to health?Alicia Ely Yamin &Siri Gloppen (eds.) -2011 - Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.detailsThis book examines the potential of litigation as a strategy to advance the right to health by holding governments accountable for these obligations. It asks who benefits both directly and indirectly—and what the overall impacts on health equity are. Included are case studies from Costa Rica, South Africa, India, Brazil, Argentina and Colombia.