Histories of Health Equity in All Policies: An introduction

From Havana to Chicago, social justice-minded reformers in a variety of contexts have realized that true improvements in the public’s health could only be achieved through addressing underlying factors in the social, economic, and political environment. In this session, we will examine several key historical examples of health-related programs, policies, and campaigns in Africa, Cuba, and the United States. The panelists will address the ideological roots and methods of implementation for intersectoral approaches to public health, as well as the historical contingencies and political factors that influenced the approaches taken by these reformers. Key themes in this session include the relationship between the formal state and popular/community organizations in these efforts; the role of geography and the built environment in enabling and limiting change; and the relationships between rights discourses, including health rights, civil rights, and human rights in shaping policies and practices. Although encompassing a broad swathe of time and space, from the pre-Civil Rights era northern United States to post-revolutionary Cuba, the presentations in this session revolve around the central theme of how the politics of bodies operated within various bodies politic in transforming the social and political landscape.