Reflections on Emerging Frameworks of Health and Human Rights

This article discusses ways in which the analytical tools of public health can be used in conjunction with emerging theories of human rights to craft effective advocacy strategies, focusing particularly on women's reproductive health and reproductive rights. It notes that public health research, although often presented as an objective scientific inquiry, is actually a value-laden and therefore, highly political endeavor that should be used by advocates to elucidate the connections between women's health and the wider social, economic, and political conditions in which they live. The author points out that such research can then inform theory and practice in the dynamic field of women's human rights. This article suggests an approach to health and human rights collaboration that views women as committed, indispensable members of the collectivities in which they live, and that seeks to identify and implement social structures and cultural configurations that promote and support women's dignity and autonomy and thus, their health and well-being,in that social context. [Descriptors: Reproductive Rights - Overview, International]