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Professor Dame Hazel Genn speaks at World Health Organization Conference on health equity
13 June 2019
Professor Genn was a panellist at the High-level Conference on Health Equity – Accelerating Progress Towards Healthy and Prosperous Lives for all in the WHO European Region, organised by the World Health Organization.
The conference took place in Ljubljana, Slovenia from 11–13 June 2019 and aimed to provide evidence and information on the solutions to reduce health inequalities and accelerate progress towards better health, well-being and prosperity for all in the European Region.
Professor Dame Hazel Genn, Professor of Socio-Legal Studies at UCL Laws and Director of the UCL Centre for Access to Justice, spoke at the final plenary panel session on ‘Putting health equity at the centre of sustainable development and inclusive economics’.
Professor Genn outlined why health inequity is a rule of law issue, and how law is hugely influential on social determinants which impact one’s health - including income, housing, education, and nutrition.
She discussed her involvement in Health Justice Partnerships, where integrated health and legal services (primary care and hospitals) are designed to address the causes of ill health - which the law can address. The movement can be scaled and that has the potential to improve the health of the public from the bottom up.
Professor Genn, through the UCL Centre for Access to Justice (UCL CAJ) and in collaboration with The Legal Education Foundation, has led the developing work on a national health justice strategy. The initial step resulted in publication of a Health Justice report which describes the current provision of social welfare legal advice in healthcare settings across England and Wales.
Find out more about the conference