How Communication Impacts the Right to Health: COVID-19 Seen Through a Lens of Vulnerability

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has affected the global community in a sudden and unpredictable manner. As such, it becomes essential that States engage in immediate effective communication of public health messaging to ensure that persons are aware of the ways in which they can protect themselves from contracting the virus. In this vein, guidance has been offered to States on how to effectively engage in public health communication strategies by the international human rights regime which sets out the standards for right to health. These standards recognize that the right to health includes a dimension for health communication. However, the vulnerabilities, which exist in some groups in society, make generic health communication ineffective in achieving the goal of protection from COVID-19. Furthermore, the pandemic highlighted the lack of compliance by States with their right to health obligations. It is this disconnect between the de jure human rights obligations and the de facto compliance by States with those obligations that will be explored in this paper. The paper will set out the different formulations of the right to health in specific international human rights treaties and compare the text of the treaties with the actual health messaging initiatives by States during the pandemic. There will also be an identification of ways in which States may more appropriately tailor their communications strategies to align with the international standards for the right to health. This exercise will highlight the connection between effective public health communication and improved health outcomes for the public and the important role the international human rights framework plays in this paradigm. The paper will demonstrate the need for a tailored approach to health communication when dealing with socially vulnerable groups using the guidance which can be offered by the international human rights treaties in realizing the right to health for the public.