Announcements

Peace through Health

Released Wednesday, October 15, 2008 by Jessica Liauw
Peace Building Through Health Initiatives

    Peace Through Health (PtH) is a recently developed academic discipline that analyzes the impact of health interventions in warring countries to peace development.  As an area of study, PtH literature illustrates the link between peace and health through an understanding of the negative impacts of war on human health. This includes developing a comprehensive understanding of what constitutes health and how both physical and structural violence contribute to the degradation of this health. Furthermore it highlights the importance of the health sector in working to expand peace in areas of conflict, along with the values, morals, and legal frameworks involved in PtH work. By initiating several PtH projects around the world, educators and health care providers have come to learn that as physicians, there are many potentials and limitations to this type of health care. In the last decade or so, several peace through health initiatives have been implemented and taken on the forms of humanitarian ceasefires, the restriction of weapons and war strategies, and the unification of individual and social healing in war zones. In several countries, these initiatives have developed into powerful centres of healing and peace building, and have illustrated the magnitude of the impact health care workers can have on addressing injustices in war.               

As outlined by the Peace through Health project at McMaster University, there are ten approaches utilized in PtH. They are as follows: [Source: http://www.humanities.mcmaster.ca/peace-health/AboutPtH/About-PtH.htm ]   

1. Health-related superordinate goals
superordinate goal is one that transcends the separate goals of conflicting parties in which both sides join efforts to address health issues (e.g. ceasefire for immunization).   

2. Evocation and extension of altruism 
Health care workers are sometimes able to resist the objectification and demonization that usually accompany war through the extension of health care to out-groups (e.g. Palestinian-Israeli health service partnerships).   

3. Discovery and dissemination of facts 
Health professionals are often in the best position to discover and disseminate accurate information that is essential to a proper assessment of the situation and to counter falsity propagated by media (e.g. health in Iraq after Gulf War).   

4. Redefinition of the situation 
Often, war can be portrayed as a game, a test of manhood, a competition of civilizations, a cosmic contest of good and evil. Health workers can promote different understandings of war to both warring parties and at a global level as well (e.g. nuclear weapons as a public health problem).   

5. Healing of trauma 
Injuries caused by war can dramatically impede a society's recovery.  Health workers can utilize methods of trauma-healing that are linked to cultural processes of reconciliation and peace building to decrease this rehabilitation time period (e.g. Butterfly Gardens in Sri Lanka).   

6. Contribution to civic identity 
In cases where societies have been divided by identity conflicts, providing equal health care can strengthen a peoples' sense of belonging to the society or state that has provided it to them. This decreases desires to join groups with competing claims on their identity  (e.g. WHO work in Croatia).   

7. Contribution to human security 
With an adequate and equitable health care system that addresses people's basic needs, people have an essential form of security. The lack of it can lead to or propagate violence or war to achieve it.   

8. Diplomacy, mediation and conflict transformation 
With skills in diplomacy, mediation and conflict resolution, health care workers can utilize these to address conflict (e.g. Peacebuilding in Afghanistan).   

9. Solidarity and support 
All PtH mechanisms involve solidarity and support for victims of war. Some include the direct accompaniment of victims or potential victims by health workers, along with direct advocacy (e.g. Physicians for Humans Rights- Israel)    

10. Dissent and non-cooperation 
Health care workers can refuse to cooperate when called on to collaborate in unjust wars or preparations for such wars, or in the development of inhumane policies or weapons of war. They will have the support not only of a wide body of international law but also of declarations directed specifically at health workers.                 

If you are interested in exploring this realm of health care further, or initiating PtH centered initiatives through Queen's Medical school, or connecting with PtH workers around the world, let's talk! Please feel free to email me (Jesleen Rana) at 8jr29@queensu.ca. Some terrific resources are listed at http://www.humanities.mcmaster.ca/peace-health/Resources/ref.htm, and http://www.medicalpeacework.org, so please feel free to look through them. I also have a lot of hard-copy resources as well if you are interested. There are amazing doctors and health workers around the world who would be thrilled to see more medical students in peace through health initiatives, and who can be valuable learning resources for us, AND who would be more than willing to help us develop and expand PtH initiatives out of our school!   

Cheers! Jesleen Rana (8jr29)