Los derechos humanos más allá del capitalismo

What do human rights mean when those who hold power and wealth throughout the world actually treat many of those beneath them as not fully human? The categorization of peoples as non-human, subhuman, or not fully human has appeared throughout human history. But this categorization has flourished especially since what has been called the “rosy dawn” of capitalism.[1]             Rooted in European capitalism, racism, imperialism, colonialism, neocolonialism, and patriarchy, the elites of capitalism have enslaved millions of people, mainly from Africa, and have exterminated millions more through genocide that wiped out indigenous populations, especially in the Americas and Asia. Slavery and genocide also have occurred within some imperialist countries of Europe, as fascist elites have used racist categorizations within their own realms. Racist ideas have justified these and other unacceptable conditions imposed on human beings considered less than human, while those not really human beings have generated immense wealth for elites intent to accumulate capital.   [1]  Eduardo Galeano, The Open Veins of Latin America (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1997), Part I; Karl Marx, Capital, volume 1, chapter 31, https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch31.htm.¿Qué significan los derechos humanos cuando quienes ostentan el poder y la riqueza en todo el mundo en realidad tratan a muchos de los que están por debajo de ellos como no plenamente humanos? La categorización de los pueblos como no humanos, infrahumanos o no plenamente humanos ha aparecido a lo largo de toda la historia de la humanidad. Pero esta categorización ha florecido especialmente desde lo que se ha llamado el "amanecer rosado" del capitalismo.[1]   Enraizadas en el capitalismo europeo, el racismo, el imperialismo, el colonialismo, el neocolonialismo y el patriarcado, las élites del capitalismo han esclavizado a millones de personas, principalmente de África, y han exterminado a millones más mediante genocidios que acabaron con las poblaciones indígenas, especialmente en América y Asia. La esclavitud y el genocidio también se han producido dentro de algunos países imperialistas de Europa, ya que las élites fascistas han utilizado categorizaciones racistas dentro de sus propios reinos. Las ideas racistas han justificado estas y otras condiciones inaceptables impuestas a seres humanos considerados menos que humanos, mientras que los que no son realmente seres humanos han generado una inmensa riqueza para las élites que pretenden acumular capital.   [1] Eduardo Galeano, Las Venas Abiertas de America Latina (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1997), 1a parte; Karl Marx, El Capital, volumen 1, capitulo 31, https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch31.ht

Prenatal Care Utilization for Mothers from Low-Income Areas of New Mexico, 1989–1999

Background: Prenatal care is considered to be an important component of primary health care. Our study compared prenatal care utilization and rates of adverse birth outcomes for mothers from low- and higher-income areas of New Mexico between 1989 and 1999. Methodology/Principal Findings: Prenatal care indicators included the number of prenatal care visits and the first month of prenatal care. Birth outcome indicators included low birth weight, premature birth, and births linked with death certificates. The results of our study indicated that mothers from low-income areas started their prenatal care significantly later in thei

Medicina social latinoamericana: aportes y desafíos

This piece presents and analyzes a number of issues related to social medicine: the context of the emergence of social medicine; the differences between social medicine and public health; the theories, methods, and debates in social medicine; the main subjects or problems considered in social medicine; and the difficulties of disseminating the concepts of social medicine among English-speaking persons and among medical and public health professionals in general. Latin American social medicine has challenged other views by contributing to an understanding of the determinants of the health-disease-health care process and by using theories, methods, and techniques that are little known in the field of public health. Introducing Latin American social medicine, especially among English speakers, will be difficult due to the conceptual complexity of this field for persons who are accustomed to the theoretical framework of public health and medicine and also due to skepticism concerning research coming from the Third World. A multidisciplinary team is facing this challenge through two primary initiatives: 1) the creation of an Internet portal and database where there are structured abstracts in English, Portuguese, and Spanish of books, book chapters, and articles on social medicine and 2) the electronic publication of two journals on Latin American social medicine

The Latin American Social Medicine database

BACKGROUND: Public health practitioners and researchers for many years have been attempting to understand more clearly the links between social conditions and the health of populations. Until recently, most public health professionals in English-speaking countries were unaware that their colleagues in Latin America had developed an entire field of inquiry and practice devoted to making these links more clearly understood. The Latin American Social Medicine (LASM) database finally bridges this previous gap. DESCRIPTION: This public health informatics case study describes the key features of a unique information resource intended to improve access to LASM literature and to augment understanding about the social determinants of health. This case study includes both quantitative and qualitative evaluation data. Currently the LASM database at The University of New Mexico brings important information, originally known mostly within professional networks located in Latin American countries to public health professionals worldwide via the Internet. The LASM database uses Spanish, Portuguese, and English language trilingual, structured abstracts to summarize classic and contemporary works. CONCLUSION: This database provides helpful information for public health professionals on the social determinants of health and expands access to LASM

The Impact of Changing Medicaid Enrollments on New Mexico's Immunization Program

Background: Immunizations are an important component to pediatric primary care. New Mexico is a relatively poor and rural state which has sometimes struggled to achieve and maintain its childhood immunization rates. We evaluated New Mexico’s immunization rates between 1996 and 2006. Specifically, we examined the increase in immunization rates between 2002 and 2004, and how this increase may have been associated with Medicaid enrollment levels, as opposed to changes in government policies concerning immunization practices. Methods and Findings: This study examines trends in childhood immunization coverage rates relative to Medicaid enrollment among those receiving Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) in New Mexico. Information on health policy changes and immunization coverage was obtained from state governmental sources and the National Immunization Survey. We found statistically significant correlations varying from 0.86 to 0.93 between immunization rates and Medicaid enrollment. Conclusions: New Mexico’s improvement and subsequent deterioration in immunization rates corresponded with changing Medicaid coverage, rather than the state’s efforts to change immunization practices. Maintaining high Medicaid enrollmen

Promotoras as Mental Health Practitioners in Primary Care: A Multi-Method Study of an Intervention to Address Contextual Sources of Depression

We assessed the role of promotoras—briefly trained community health workers—in depression care at community health centers. The intervention focused on four contextual sources of depression in underserved, low-income communities: underemployment, inadequate housing, food insecurity, and violence. A multi-method design included quantitative and ethnographic techniques to study predictors of depression and the intervention’s impact. After a structured training program, primary care practitioners (PCPs) and promotoras collaboratively followed a clinical algorithm in which PCPs prescribed medications and/or arranged consultations by mental health professionals and promotoras addressed the contextual sources of depression. Based on an intake interview with 464 randomly recruited patients, 120 patients with depression were randomized to enhanced care plus the promotora contextual intervention, or to enhanced care alone. All four contextual problems emerged as strong predictors of depression (chi square, p < .05); logistic regression revealed housing and food insecurity as the most important predictors (odds ratios both 2.40, p < .05). Unexpected challenges arose in the intervention’s implementation, involving infrastructure at the health centers, boundaries of the promotoras’ roles, and “turf” issues with medical assistants. In the quantitative assessment, the intervention did not lead to statistically significant improvements in depression (odds ratio 4.33, confidence interval overlapping 1). Ethnographic research demonstrated a predominantly positive response to the intervention among stakeholders, including patients, promotoras, PCPs, non-professional staff workers, administrators, and community advisory board members. Due to continuing unmet mental health needs, we favor further assessment of innovative roles for community health workers

Comparative Performance of Private and Public Healthcare Systems in Low- and Middle-Income Countries: A Systematic Review

A systematic review conducted by Sanjay Basu and colleagues reevaluates the evidence relating to comparative performance of public versus private sector healthcare delivery in low- and middle-income countries

Scoping review of evidence-based medicine measures to evaluate COVID-19 vaccines

1) To clarify the scope of publications that have discussed the above EBM measures applied to COVID-19 vaccines. 2) To provide a context in others’ work for our own attempt to analyze COVID-19 vaccines through these EBM measures

COVID-19 as Cause versus Trigger for the Collapse of Capitalism.

According to the official narrative of COVID-19, the pandemic has caused the global capitalist economy to collapse, or at least to enter a deep recession and possibly a great depression. Assigning blame to a virus takes attention away from the structural contradictions and instabilities of capitalism that would have led to a crash in any case. This narrative also helps justify non-evidence-based public health policies, including lockdowns, travel bans, closed schools and factories, and forced quarantines of large populations rather than individuals and clustered groups who harbor the infection. Advantages of such drastic measures happen primarily in countries that did not prepare adequately, that did not respond quickly enough with more focused measures to test and isolate people infected with the virus, and that have health care systems either organized by capitalist principles or suffering cutbacks and privatization as a result of capitalist economic ideologies, such as austerity. Authoritarian tactics purportedly intended to protect public health pave the way to antidemocratic rule, militarism, and fascism. These harsh policies also exert their most adverse effects on poor, minority, incarcerated, immigrant, and otherwise marginalized populations, who already suffer from the worsening economic inequality that global, financialized capitalism has fostered