Car­o­line Rav­el­lo

“When the stakes are mea­sured in lives, glob­al and na­tion­al health de­ci­sion-mak­ing can­not be left to chance.”

The World Health Or­ga­ni­za­tion (WHO) made this state­ment as it cel­e­brat­ed World Health Day yes­ter­day (April 7), the day that marks its found­ing.

As the or­gan­i­sa­tion kicked off its cam­paign, the call has been made for peo­ple every­where to sup­port sci­ence un­der the theme “To­geth­er for Health. Stand with Sci­ence.” There is ad­e­quate jus­ti­fi­ca­tion too, for this bold ask, as the sta­tis­tics on the WHO lead­er­ship in im­prov­ing pub­lic health glob­al­ly for over 75 years re­main out­stand­ing.

Since the WHO’s in­cep­tion at the First Health As­sem­bly in 1948 and tak­ing ef­fect in 1950, it has used its found­ing day as an aware­ness day to ad­vo­cate for and high­light a pri­or­i­ty area of con­cern. The 2026 ad­vo­ca­cy urges a glob­al com­mit­ment to not on­ly ev­i­dence-based health poli­cies but al­so One Health ap­proach­es and eq­ui­table ac­cess to care.

One Health speaks to the in­ter­con­nect­ed­ness of peo­ple, plants, an­i­mals and the en­vi­ron­ment in which they all ex­ist. It fo­cus­es on the col­lab­o­ra­tion need­ed in the sci­ences that rep­re­sent each group and the need for sus­tain­abil­i­ty and a whole-of-so­ci­ety ap­proach to man­ag­ing risks at “the an­i­mal-hu­man-en­vi­ron­ment in­ter­face be­fore they be­come pan­demics.”

To­geth­er for Health. Stand with Sci­ence is a year‑long cam­paign spot­light­ing “both sci­en­tif­ic achieve­ments and the mul­ti­lat­er­al co­op­er­a­tion need­ed to turn ev­i­dence in­to ac­tion.” The theme, WHO says, cel­e­brates “the pow­er of sci­en­tif­ic col­lab­o­ra­tion to pro­tect the health of peo­ple, an­i­mals, plants and the plan­et.”

Yes­ter­day’s One Health Sum­mit in France to­wards this goal in­clud­ed the col­lab­o­ra­tion of the “One Health Quadri­par­tite,” which com­pris­es the World Health Or­ga­ni­za­tion (WHO), the Food and Agri­cul­ture Or­ga­ni­za­tion (FAO) of the Unit­ed Na­tions, the Unit­ed Na­tions En­vi­ron­ment Pro­gramme (UN­EP) and the World Or­gan­i­sa­tion for An­i­mal Health (WOAH).

As a pub­lic health mas­ter, I sup­port sci­ence. Sci­ence sup­ports my best ar­gu­ment for man­ag­ing per­son­al and com­mu­ni­ty health is­sues and helps me make sense of nav­i­gat­ing this world.

Where sci­ence fails me and oth­ers like me is where the “eq­ui­table ac­cess” ar­gu­ment col­laps­es. My feath­ers were ruf­fled as I read “eq­ui­table ac­cess.” There are those I know who live with the dis­ap­point­ment and de­nial of eq­ui­ty and hu­man rights, hav­ing been pun­ished be­cause of health his­to­ry.

Then we get to see loud cam­paigns for ad­vo­ca­cy days for is­sues like can­cer, autism, men­tal health and the like by the very peo­ple who le­git­i­mate­ly dis­crim­i­nate and legal­ly prac­tise in­equity. In fact, it is one of those Autism Aware­ness Day (April 2) so­cial me­dia out­puts that prompt­ed this fo­cus on the eq­ui­ty ar­gu­ment of the no­ble WHO cam­paign.

The goal of sci­ence should be to pro­tect lives. If health is a hu­man right, why do I live in a space where my right to health, in­clud­ing the means to pro­tect and sup­port my health, is lim­it­ed? Why am I and those like me de­nied the much-bandied eq­ui­ty? Whith­er the hu­man rights frame­work?

I want to re­claim my time from all the hours I have spent lis­ten­ing to sci­en­tists and pro­fes­sion­als here hype me up about uni­ver­sal health cov­er­age, where my gov­ern­ment is sup­posed to en­sure high-qual­i­ty med­ical care is not a priv­i­lege de­pen­dent on risk pro­fil­ing.

As I read all the bril­liant pro­mo­tion­al pieces for World Health Day in my miffed mood, my mem­o­ry rec­ol­lect­ed how el­e­vat­ed I felt as an ad­vo­cate, es­pe­cial­ly un­der the Con­ven­tion on the Rights of Per­sons with Dis­abil­i­ties (CR­PD, 2006), at the pass­ing of the Af­ford­able Care Act (ACA, 2010), aka Oba­macare, in­to US fed­er­al law.

Health in­sur­ance com­pa­nies were/are pro­hib­it­ed from deny­ing cov­er­age, charg­ing high­er pre­mi­ums, or ex­clud­ing treat­ment for pre-ex­ist­ing con­di­tions. And this pro­vi­sion in­cludes treat­ment for pre-ex­ist­ing men­tal health, de­vel­op­men­tal dis­abil­i­ty (be­hav­iour­al health treat­ment, autism ser­vices, phys­i­cal ther­a­py, oc­cu­pa­tion­al ther­a­py, etc.) and sub­stance use dis­or­ders.

If the aim is to bridge in­equities, then I look for­ward to the day when sci­en­tif­ic da­ta meld­ed with per­son­al health his­to­ry are not weaponised against peo­ple, when ac­tu­ar­i­al sci­ences do not churn out “un­favourable” num­bers to le­git­i­mate­ly dis­crim­i­nate against us while we are be­ing asked to sup­port ad­vo­ca­cy for “rights-based health” and “health as a hu­man right” on pa­per.

The WHO de­fines eq­ui­ty as “the ab­sence of un­fair, avoid­able or re­me­di­a­ble dif­fer­ences among groups of peo­ple, whether those groups are de­fined so­cial­ly, eco­nom­i­cal­ly, de­mo­graph­i­cal­ly, or ge­o­graph­i­cal­ly or by oth­er di­men­sions of in­equal­i­ty (eg, sex, gen­der, eth­nic­i­ty, dis­abil­i­ty, or sex­u­al ori­en­ta­tion).”

“Health is a fun­da­men­tal hu­man right,” says the WHO.

“Health eq­ui­ty is achieved when every­one can at­tain their full po­ten­tial for health and well-be­ing (www.who.int/health-top­ics/health-eq­ui­ty).”

This in­stal­ment might be con­sid­ered cy­clo­pean be­cause I have nar­rowed the big is­sue of sup­port­ing sci­ence to how sci­ence de­ter­mines peo­ple as a risk and un­de­serv­ing of pro­tec­tion and sup­port. But what ben­e­fit is sci­ence to us if, in­stead of serv­ing the need for pro­tec­tion and health se­cu­ri­ty, it is turned in­to a di­men­sion of in­equal­i­ty?

I sup­port sci­ence. I want sci­ence to stand with me, not pro­file me for dis­crim­i­na­tion.