Facilitating interprofessional learning about human rights in public health contexts: Challenges and strategies

Abstract

Occasions when public health practitioners engage in professional learning increasingly involve them in encounters with (a) concepts that originate from unfamiliar disciplines and that may be multidisciplinary, complex and sometimes contested, (b) colleagues who have different discipline and profession backgrounds, and (c) modes of learning and teaching that are unfamiliar. While these factors can enhance both the processes and products of learning, they can also present significant challenges when those learning occasions are designed and facilitated. Drawing on our own reflected-on experience of working in such contexts and a body of related literature, we elaborate on these interrelated challenges and propose three strategies that can help address them. The strategies entail encouragement and support for establishing common commitments and values, perspective-taking and self-reflexivity, conversation and storytelling. Specific examples of challenges and strategies are derived, in particular, from a learning agenda associated with the mainstreaming of a human rights approach to public health. That agenda requires practitioners to understand the concept of human rights, appreciate its relevance for public health work and be capable of integrating a human right perspective into their day-to-day work.

Keywords:

• Interprofessional
• interdisciplinary
• human rights
• public health

Notes

1. In the context of this paper, interprofessional learning encounters involve interactions between public health practitioners from different professional groups who are engaged in learning about a phenomenon and its implications for their own and others' practice. The term interprofessional education is used generally to refer to such occasions. It is assumed that there will be variations across professional groups with respect to the disciplines that inform their practice and interdisciplinary education is sometimes used as an alternative term.

2. In 1988, the Institute of Medicine Committee for the Study of the Future of Public Health defined the mission of public health as “fulfilling society's interest in assuring conditions in which people can be healthy. Public health is distinguished from health care by its focus on community wide – the public interest – rather than the health interests of particular individuals or groups. Its aim is to generate organized community effort to address the public interest in health by applying scientific and technical knowledge to prevent disease and promote health”. (p. 40). To achieve this mission, it identified three core functions for public health: (1) assessment of the health of the population, (2) development of comprehensive public health policies, and (3) assurance of the availability of needed services.