Global Health and Human Rights: A Thematic Introduction

This textbook explores public health and individual health care through the prism of global human rights and ethical decision-making.

Written by leading experts in this field, the book is divided into three distinctive parts. Part I introduces the theoretical framework through which the core issues can be understood, contrasting a clinical approach to health care with a social determinant perspective and discussing the decolonialisation of global health. Part II discusses how a human rights rationale impacts different social groups, from children to the elderly to those with disabilities, highlighting issues such as abortion and euthanasia. Part III addresses contemporary topics such as infectious diseases, migration, mental health care, the impact of advanced medical technology and climate change. Each chapter features case studies which ask readers to assess complex ethical dilemmas, fostering decision-making based on clear moral reasoning, as well as discussion assignments and further reading.

Also featuring online video lectures, this is an important textbook that will be essential reading for students across the health sciences, including medicine and all related fields.

Cees J. Hamelink is an Athena Professor of Globalisation, Public health and Human rights at the Vrije Universiteit (VU) in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. He is Emeritus Professor Communication Science of the University of Amsterdam and Emeritus Professor Theology and Communication of the VU Amsterdam. He published 21 academic monographs and his most recent book (2023) is on Communication and Human Rights with Polity Press.

Dirk R. Essink is an Assistant Professor of Global Health at the Athena Institute, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, focusing on health systems and transdisciplinarity. His research, concentrated in Vietnam, Lao PDR, Ethiopia, and South Sudan, explores the integration of knowledge for public health policy and transformations. Dirk’s work emphasises social justice, covering quality of care in humanitarian settings, infectious disease control and sexual and reproductive health, nutrition, and research agenda setting. He is skilled in transdisciplinary, mixed methods research.

Marlies J. Visser is a researcher and lecturer at the Athena Institute, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. She is an experienced qualitative researcher and in that capacity has coordinated and contributed to various research projects addressing social determinants of health and access to health care, with a particular emphasis on stigma and discrimination in relation to both physical and mental health conditions, and sexual and reproductive health.