HOW TO CHANGE THE WORLD:

POLITICS, POLICY AND PUBLIC HEALTH

Joel S. Meister

Mel and Enid Zuckerman Arizona

College of Public Health

Border Information for Action Conference, 2004

How to Change the World????

How to Change the United States?How to Change Mexico?How to Change the Border?How to change the Community?How to Change the Neighborhood?How to change You and Me?

“Think Globally, Act Locally”Environmental Movement – 20th C.

“Patria es humanidad” – “Humanity is our country”

Cuban poster – 20th C.

What is our role in change?What kinds of actors are we?

“Knowledge is power” -Francis Bacon, 16th C.

“Medicine [public health] is a social science, and politics is nothing but medicine [public health] on a large scale.”

Rudolf Virchow, 19th C.

“Philosophers have attempted to understand the world; the point is to change it.”

Karl Marx – 19th C.

“There are more billionaires today than ever before. . . . We are talking about wealth that we’ve never seen before. And the only time that I hear talk of shrinking resources among people like us, among academics, is when we talk about things that have to do with poor people.”

James Kim, M.D. (co-founder, Partners in Health), 20-21st C.

What have we accomplished in the last decade-or-so?

Dramatic increase in the number and quality of community-based health promotion/disease prevention programs and organizations

Emergence of effective community leaders in public health

Creation of a cadre of highly motivated, highly skilled promotores de salud

Success in bringing new resources to the border through grants

Greater awareness and concern about border health issues among policy makers and the two states’ health leadership

Increasing involvement of the University of Arizona in border health programs

Increasing involvement of the Arizona Department of Health Services – creation of the state’s border health office

Continuing strong collaboration with the Health Services Committee of the Arizona-Mexico/Sonora-Arizona Commission

How to Keep Border Health Conditions from Deteriorating

Protect/expand AHCCCS eligibilityProtect the use of tobacco tax and other

funds for their intended purposes – health care and tobacco prevention and control programs

Save the Health Start programPromote public support for CHW/ Promotor

de Salud programs

How to Make the Border a Healthier Place

Open the borderDecriminalize drugsSchools: mandatory Spanish instructionJobs/economy: higher minimum wage;

health benefits; micro-enterprise promotion –micro-loans, etc.

Health: create public health districts

Health insurance: binational coverage, generic drugs for all

Food security: food banks for allShelter: local “Habitats for

Humanity” projects

Strategy and Tactics

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed citizens can change the world: indeed, they are the only ones who ever have.”

Margaret Mead – 20th C. “Data + Organization = Change” –

The Access Project, 21st C.

Strategy:

Make a direct impact on policy and politics by mobilizing and organizing as many people as possible to directly engage policy makers on our issues and to vote for issues and candidates who will support and champion policies that promote health for all.

Tactics:Join PAFCO (Protect Arizona’s

Families Coalition) Use ALIS a lot Support AZCHOW –

organizationally and individuallyFocus on workplaces as

communities of interest for organizing and mobilizing, especially the nonprofit, social service workplace – schools, churches, unions, service agencies

•Create local advocacy organizations for health wherever there are gaps in citizen supportDevelop community-based leaders among the poor/underserved –promotoresMobilize border communities around health issues, and mobilize Latino communities nationally (largest ethnic/cultural minority, etc.)Exploit the media – publish data wherever, but go after the mass media for change.

And, to Conclude . . . “Every man is guilty of all the good

he didn’t do.”

Voltaire, 18th C.

“They always say time changes things, but you always have to change them yourself.”

Andy Warhol –20th C.