McAuley Oration 2023

The Health capability profile by Jennifer Prah

Date: Wednesday 15 November 2023
Time: 1:00-2:15pm
Location: Centre for Pacific Health
Cost: Free public lecture

Professor Jennifer Prah

Jennifer Prah is the Amartya Sen Professor of Health Equity, Economics and Policy; the former inaugural Associate Dean for Global Studies in the School of Social Policy and Practice; Professor of Medical Ethics and Health Policy and Scholar at the Center for Global Health at the Perelman School of Medicine; Senior Fellow at the Leonard Davis Institute for Health Economics and at the Center for Public Health Initiatives; all at the University of Pennsylvania.

Professor Prah is the founder and director of the Health Equity and Policy Lab (HEPL) that conducts quantitative and qualitative research on the equity implications of health and social policies.  Her talk will explore the idea of health capability, the health capability model and the application of the health capability profile, and how we measure, analyze and develop health capability for individuals and policymakers.

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic demonstrated how fragile our global and domestic health systems are to the threats of infectious agents and their social, political and economic correlates.  New and emerging communicable and non-communicable diseases will pose new stresses on health systems worldwide.  Yet a constant focus on risks and threats anchors our thinking on disease and illness when the human potential for wellbeing and wellness, and developing our health capabilities, is central to human flourishing.

The Health Equity and Policy Lab (HEPL) is a global research lab with the mission to advance health equity and efficiency, and ultimately human flourishing, through a theoretically and empirically grounded approach to social and behavioral science research.  The health capability profile aims to provide a portrait of a person's real lived experience and their journey to reaching their health and flourishing potential.  It comprises fifteen distinct yet interrelated health capabilities - eight internal and seven external - that encompass functionings and agencies. The objective - global and domestic - is for each individual to reach their health potential: their optimal health capability. The health capability profile snapshots and tracks health capabilities development to inform behavioral, programmatic and policy change.

Biography

Professor Prah is a leading scholar of global and domestic health policy and public health. She conducts theoretical and empirical studies to reduce global and national health inequities with a focus on the most impoverished populations worldwide, especially women and children. Her scholarship has critically scrutinized the existing global health architecture in order to identify more effective global health policy responses linking public policy and law to global health theory at the global and national levels.

Professor Prah studies critical health policy and public health problems such as the equity and efficiency of health system access, financing, resource allocation, policy reform and the social determinants of health. Her scholarship includes areas such as global health justice, global health governance, health and social justice, and shared health governance. Her research is conducted internationally and nationally, including work in Ghana, India, Indonesia, Malawi, Malaysia, Morocco, South Korea, the United States and Vietnam. She has authored over 100 publications and is internationally recognized for her leadership and work, which has been cited by the United Nations, the World Bank, the World Health Organization, and the United States Government.