Presentation delivered in the workshop entitled "Root Out, Reach Out: Medical Students Taking Action on Social Determinants of Health" during the Third People's Health Assembly, July 8, 2012, Cape Town, South Africa

1. Root Out, Reach Out!
Medical Students Taking Action
in Addressing the Social Determinants of Health
Third People’s Health Assembly
Sunday, July 8, 2012, 17:00-19:00
University of the Western Cape

2. From Jakarta to Cape Town
The Role of IFMSA in Global Health Equity
Ramon Lorenzo Luis Rosa Guinto, MD
Regional Coordinator for the Asia-Pacific
Founding Coordinator, Global Health Equity Initiative
International Federation of Medical Students’ Associations (IFMSA)
Third People’s Health Assembly, July 8, 2012, University of the Western Cape

3. • An independent, non-governmental and non-political
federation of medical students' associations throughout
the world
• Founded in May 1951
• 108 National Member Organizations
• 101 countries on six continents
• More than 1 million medical students worldwide
• Recognized by WHO and United Nations

4. Alma Ata, 1978
The International Conference on Primary
Health Care calls for urgent action by all
governments, all health and development
workers, and the world community to protect
and promote the health of all the people of
the world by the year 2000.

5. From Beaglehole and Bonita, 2012

6. Global health inequalities
From Marmot, 2007

7. Source: Dr. Ramon Paterno, University of the Philippines

8. Social Production of Disease
Do we not always
find the diseases of
the populace
traceable to defects
in society?
Dr. Rudolf Virchow
Father of Social Medicine

9. Source: Ravi Narayan, SOCHARA, India

10. Social Determinants
of Health
• Conditions in the social, physical,
and economic environment in which
people are born, grow, live, work,
and age, including access to health
care
• Policies, programs, and institutions
• Social structure, community factors

14. Basic question: What good does it do to treat people’s
Illnesses …
only to send them back to the conditions
that made them sick?

15. Picture of Presidents in
Jakarta MM2011

16. Mission
Our mission is to offer future physicians a
comprehensive introduction to global health
issues. Through our programming and
opportunities, we develop culturally sensitive
students of medicine, intent on influencing the
transnational inequalities that shape the health
of our planet.

18. IFMSA Small Working Group on
Health Inequities

22. Country Initiatives
• Georgia • United Kingdom
• Uganda • Philippines
• Quebec • Norway
• Peru • Taiwan

27. Accra – IFMSA Global
Health Equity Initiative
• Institutional voice for global
health equity within IFMSA
• Accessible clearinghouse of
information and capacity-
building tools
• Dynamic forum for exchange
and dialogue
• Key platform for advocacy
and campaign for global health
equity

28. Next Steps
• Lancet - University of Oslo Commission on Global
Governance for Health
• Third People’s Health Assembly in Cape Town, July 6-11,
2012
• August Meeting 2012 in
Mumbai, India –
“Universal Health Care –
The Time is Now!”
• International Workshop
on Universal Health Care
in Mumbai

29. POOR GLOBAL HEALTH
SICK WORLD
HEALTH INEQUITY
within and among nations
SOCIAL, POLITICAL, ECONOMIC,
CULTURAL, AND ENVIRONMENTAL
Determinants of Health

30. SDH to shape the post-MDG world
eradicate extreme improve maternal
poverty and health
hunger
achieve universal combat HIV/AIDS,
primary malaria and other
education diseases
promote gender equality ensure environmental
and empower women sustainability
reduce child develop a global
mortality partnership for
development

31. Revitalize the SDH movement and
enhance capacity for SDH action
at national and sub-national levels

32. Transformative scale-up of medical
education – integrate SDH thinking

33. The 21st century physician as champion
of social determinants approach to health

34. “The doctor of the
future will give no
medicine, but will
interest his patients in
the care of the human
frame, in diet, and in
the cause and
prevention of disease.”
Thomas Alva Edison

35. The Power of Medicine
"Medicine… has the
obligation to point out
problems and to attempt
their theoretical
solution…The physicians
are the natural attorneys
of the poor…”
Dr. Rudolf Virchow
Father of Social Medicine

36. The Power of Young People
“The youth are
the hope of the
Fatherland.”
Dr. Jose Rizal
National Hero of the Philippines

37. Fathers of Social Medicine

38. Health for All!
Alma Ata, USSR, 1978 Almaty, Kazakhstan, 2008
Thank You Very Much!