Equity and Diversity

Teleconference on scope and target of our working group

2008-09-01T00:01:00.000-07:00

Nastaran and Gabriell had a teleconference on Wednesday, 13.08.2008 to discuss and summarize the ideas and comments contributed by members of the group about what should be the target and scope of equity and diversity working group . This would be posted on the blog soon. However still we would welcome additional comments by everyone in ISECN.

Reflections from Mark

2008-08-09T21:58:00.000-07:00

Dear Nastaran

Thanks for making contact. The ISECN looks interesting and I would love to continue communications to share ideas and feed in to our mutual goals. Congratulations on establishing this working group. It also reflects real needs in the brain drain that can occur from developing to developed and from southern to northern hemisphere (there was an article about New Zealand 's losses in this area recently). The sort of initiatives and responses you are cultivating could be an important strategic response to these "brain drain" issues whereby established researchers and experts leave their country of origin for work in US, Europe, etc. Providing incentives to new and emerging researchers to build their capacity and be involved in international opportunities could be an effective way to encourage researchers to maintain work in their home country while also building their careers and feeling the satisfaction of participating ina worldwide public health movement. It will be interesting to see if this program logic fits with the findings of WHO Knowledge Networks on this issue.
All the best
Mark

Scope and target of equity and diversity working group

2008-07-23T03:09:00.000-07:00

Dear all,
We need to reach a consensus on the scope and target of our efforts in Equity and Diversity working group. Gabrielle refereed to it in her list of questions "what kind of inequities do we want to focus on? in which contexts? in which countries?"Here are my perspectives.

Considering the international nature of our group I suggest to target the equity in international level. I mean not to limit ourselves only to some countries. I think we can examine equity and diversity in terms of gender and nationality. They type of equity I believe can be the main focus is equity in access to opportunities for capacity building and empowerment in health research. We can can contribute to providing answers to following questions:

1.Do male and female health researchers have equal access to opportunities for capacity building and empowerment in health research, nationally and internationally? How can we tackle this issue?

2. Do health researchers form developed and developing countries have have equal access to opportunities for capacity building and empowerment in health research internationally? How can we tackle this issue?

Looking forward your comments

Nastaran

Reflections from James

2008-07-23T03:04:00.000-07:00

Hi Nastaran,
Just thought I'd up-date you on the health equity context in Australia. There is a National Health Equity Network which has just been established - with priorities set at the recent Population Health Congress. I have been involved on the working group from this end. Currently this is unfunded but has a small working group across state/territory jursidictions. We are hoping to access funding to employ a co-ordinator in due course. the best contact for more information (or to be part of the network) is Mark Boyd mboyd@vichealth.vic.gov.au The federal government recently announced the establishment of the National Indigenous Health Equalities Council Flinders University recently hosted the Fulbright Symposium (a joint initiative between Australia and the US). There was a strong presence of Commissioners on the Commission of the Social Determinants Health (and lots of discussion about health equity, social inclusion, etc). Will forward the report if/when it becomes available.There was also an Emerging Leaders Group - it would be good to link them (perhaps as a partner) to ISECn and the Equity Working Group. Again, I'll try and do this in due course. The WHO Commission on Social Determinants of Health are scheduled to release their final report on the 28th August. It would be good if the Equity Working Group could respond to this report via the IUHPE Board. Not sure if you've seen this edition of the Health Promotion Journal of Australia (from late 2006) but thought it may be of interest.

James Smith

News

2008-07-06T02:04:00.000-07:00

Hi Dear all,

This is to announce that our weblog has been set up. Please feel free to comment. My first suggestion is to add the current resources and links concerned with equity and/or diversity to our weblog.
Nastaran