Public Health Seminar – Reorienting health systems towards communities: How to achieve it? Dr Anna Matheson

The Alma Ata Declaration, the Ottawa Charter and more recently the international movement towards people-centred health systems – have all persuasively argued for health systems to reorient towards people and community realities. Progress however is stubbornly elusive. This is evident in the increasing burden of non-communicable diseases, the persistence of health inequality by social group and the acceleration of wealth inequality. In this talk I will argue that our limited progress is in part because we have failed to effectively devolve power, resources and control to communities despite the policy intention to do so. Drawing on almost 20 years of listening to communities around Aotearoa – and thinking about complex social systems – I will discuss opportunities for reorienting health systems. Covid-19 has highlighted local vulnerabilities in the ways communities participate and are organised, but it has also shed light on some great ideas to leverage system change.

Also Online via zoom