Step 1 – What is the issue? – The people’s perspective

In order to frame the healthcare problem from a human rights perspective it is necessary to determine who is directly affected, in what way these individuals are affected and where this is taking place.

Who are affected? Determine which people are affected by the problem.

Identify whether these people belong to a vulnerable group based on specific grounds such as their ethnicity, sex, socio-economic status or health status.

How are they affected? Describe how these people are affected by the problem.

Distinguish this from possible causes such as lack of services, ineffective policies, or structural discrimination. Instead, the focus should be on the experience of the people that are directly affected.

Where is this taking place? Establish whether the problem is taking place across the whole country, in a rural or urban area, or in a specific health institution.
What is the human rights issue? Complete this step by formulating the issue in one sentence including the answers to the above three questions.

This central issue is the symptom or signal of all the underlying concerns which will be looked at during Steps 2 and 3.

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