For some, “human rights” and “public health” might seem like buzzwords pulled from a sign in the Pit. But a new campus collaboration is trying to show just how important the intersection of those ideas is to the global community.
Monday marked the inaugural address in the UNC Health and Human Rights Lecture Series with a visit from Sofia Gruskin, director of the Program on Global Health and Human Rights at the University of Southern California.
The lecture series is the brainchild of Benjamin Meier, a public policy professor at UNC. The Department of Public Policy, the Institute for Global Health and Infectious Diseases and the Center for Bioethics are contributing a total of $10,000 over five years to sponsor the annual series, aimed at bringing a diverse campus together.
“I think there was a recognition that human rights have a crucial role in developing global health,” Meier said. “The goal was to … bring together faculty and students from different disciplines to talk about human rights.”
Meier was complimentary when he talked about Gruskin’s importance to the fields of public health and policy, saying that her work “set the path” for the progression of research.
Dr. Myron Cohen, director of the global health institute, seemed equally excited when he introduced Gruskin to a crowd of about 300 people in the Tate-Turner-Kuralt Auditorium.
“(This event) is way beyond anything I’ve done in 30 years here,” he said.
Gruskin talked in detail about her work with governments of various nations. She primarily focused on the way that data on health is needed to affect human rights policies and vice versa, as current policies can be ineffective.
“The rhetoric of rights is present (in many nations) … but their translation into anything actable is weak or entirely absent,” she said.
