The Institute for Information Law and Policy and the Justice Action Center at New York
Law School (NYLS) are collaborating with Healthcare Information for All by 2015
(HIFA2015), a project administered by the Global Healthcare
Information Network, a UK-based non-profit organisation, to explore the use of a human
rights model to approach the problem of access to health information. In the fall of 2008
and spring of 2009, NYLS students surveyed international legal authority in order to
evaluate the status of health information under human rights law and prepared the
following briefing paper. The purpose of this briefing paper is to discuss whether and, if
so, to what extent states are obligated under international treaty law to provide health
education and ensure that healthcare providers (both lay and professional) have access to
health information.
The paper concludes that health information (as defined below) is an essential
component of many identified and established human rights. Health information plays an
important role in securing the rights to health and education, the rights of women and
children, and the right to exchange and impart information. These rights are protected
under the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), the
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), and other international and
regional human rights treaties. States party to these treaties must provide health
information and guarantee access to such information in order to achieve compliance
with these enumerated rights. Health information fosters meaningful social and political
participation and ensures that individuals achieve and enjoy the rights afforded to them
by international human rights law.
The right to health information carries with it specific state obligations. States must not
only refrain from actions that would interfere with access to health information, but also
affirmatively take steps to provide individuals with health information. States must
ensure that heath information is accessible and available to the most vulnerable segments
of society and on a non-discriminatory basis. The right to health also requires states to
affirmatively provide health information both to individuals and to medical professionals.
States are also obligated to provide women with accurate information so as to ensure that
children and adolescents have appropriate care. They are obligated to ensure that health
workers receive adequate training and adequate access to relevant and medically accurate
health information and to regulate interference by third parties.
From the report:
... In order to provide individuals with access to an informed healthcare provider, the state
must ensure that providers are easily able to gain access to original medical research as
well as appropriate health reference and learning materials that are derived from health
research.
Access to medical research increases the likelihood of providing reliable medical
treatment. One of the most significant barriers to such access is cost. Healthcare
providers in poor and rural areas often lack the resources necessary to pay for access to
medical research. ...
Most attention, including the open access movement, has focused on access to original
research articles, but original research articles are of limited value to health professionals.
... For many health
workers, health reference and learning materials that provide reliable, good-quality
information about the prevention and treatment of injury and disease encountered in
daily practice is much more valuable than access to original research. ...
The open access movement:
Putting peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature
on the internet. Making it available free of charge and
free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
Removing the barriers to serious research.
I recommend the OA tracking project (OATP) as the best way to stay on top of new OA developments. You can read the OATP feed on a blog-like web page or subscribe to it by RSS, email, or Twitter. You can also help build the feed by tagging new developments you encounter.
