The "Human Right to Health Collaborative" furthers the use of a human rights analysis in ongoing state and local efforts to achieve comprehensive health care reform. The collaborative draws on the diverse expertise of its participants -- including expertise in human rights, health policy, public health, and domestic health law --to develop interdisciplinary tools for advocacy and activism focused on universal health care access on the state and local level.

Universal access to health care is at the center of a growing national conversation and movement. We must ensure that the primary focus of this debate is the promotion of the overall public health, which includes not only comprehensive health coverage, but the broader issues of healthy environments in which to live and raise children and a real opportunity to live healthy lifestyles. Human rights concepts are a particularly powerful tool in this effort both because they enable comparative analysis in a global context and they provide universal value based standards and criteria by which to assess existing reform proposals.

The project targets efforts at the state and local level. Now more than ever the states are the laboratory for national policy and state policy is often motivated by local initiatives. Many states are experimenting with different approaches to expand access to health care insurance, and these approaches, their underlying assumptions and the support or resistance they engender will without doubt deeply influence likely changes at the national level on health care financing and coverage.

http://www.healthlaw.org
http://www.nesri.org
http://www.upliftinternational.org
http://www.ipas.org
http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/fxbcenter/