CO-ORGANISERS

     

Joint 5th Global Mental Health Summit (GMHS) and 9th National Bioethics Conference (NBC)


Forum for Medical Ethics Society with Banyan Academy of Leadership In Mental Health (BALM),Chennai ;
Centre for Mental Health Law & Policy (CMHLP), Pune and Sangath

Pre-conference events: Between Nov 15 and Dec 31, 2022
Main Conference: Saturdays, December 3 & 10, 2022 (virtual) & December 17, 2022 (Madras School of Social Work No. 32,CASA Major road,Sulaiman Zackria Avenue,Egmore,Chennai-600008,Tamil Nadu.)

Theme & Sub-themes

For updated information, please visit the new website: https://www.worldcongressofbioethics.org/

 

THEMES

The theme of the 14th WCB is Health for All in an Unequal World: Obligations of Global Bioethics and it seeks to strengthen bioethics in the context of health for all, by providing a relevant and critical platform to advance bioethics discourses and inform praxis - policies, programs, guidance in the region and globally. The theme is expected to facilitate intersectional and multidisciplinary conversations and debates on ethics and health from diverse philosophical traditions, approaches and perspectives. Around 1000-1200 delegates from different parts of the globe will be participating in the congress.

SUB-THEMES

The five sub-themes around which intensive plenaries would be organised are as follows:

  1. Bringing rights and ethics to the centre in the 'Health for All' discourse;
  2. Rethinking bioethics boundaries in the context of 'Health for All';
  3. Challenges for bioethics in an unequal world;
  4. Implications of gender and sexuality in bioethics;
  5. Interrogating the construct of marginalisation and vulnerabilities as obligations of bioethics.
SUB-THEMES TOPICAL AREAS SPECIFIC ISSUES
Health for All? Bringing Rights and Ethics to the Centre Ethics and access to Healthcare
  1. Public Health infrastructure
  2. Primary Health Care
  3. Emergency response
  4. Intensive care including neonatal care
  5. Non-communicable diseases (cancer, diabetes, hypertension, respiratory disorders)
  6. Palliative Care
  7. Access and Discrimination
  8. SDGs and UHC
  Health Research and Bioethics
  1. Public Health research
  2. Clinical Trials
  3. Non drug trials
  4. Ethical issues in research:Informed consent, Compensation, PTA
  5. Conflict of interest – ethical disclosures
  6. Research on vulnerable populations
  7. Regulation for ethical research – role of ethics committees, protocols and guidelines
  8. Data transparency, Data Sharing
  9. Commercialisation of bio-medical research
  Political Economy of Health
  1. Universal Health Care
  2. Privatisation of healthcare: commodification of health, privatization of public health care
  3. Global governance: health policies, role of philanthropic foundations, GF, WHO
  4. Public Private Partnership (PPP) models in healthcare
  5. Political economy of medical education
  6. Health workforce – informalisation
  7. Health Pluralism: Knowledge production, alternatives to biomedicine, indigenous knowledge systems, traditional healing practices
Rethinking Bioethics Boundaries: In the Context of Health for All Bioethics Today: Rethinking boundaries
  1. Medicalisation of Bioethics
  2. Bioethics: beyond Theology
  3. End of life: palliative care, euthanasia, living will
  4. Self, Other and subjecthood: Ethics and Human Rights
  5. Mental Health: beyond bio-medical understanding, rights of people seeking mental health care
  6. Ethics in healthcare provisioning: Professional ethics
  7. Bioethics in Medical Education
  New medical and reproductive Technologies and Rethinking Bioethics
  1. Reproductive technologies (ARTs, Uterus Transplant, Contraception)- medicalisation of human bodies vis-à-vis rights of individuals
  2. Stem cells, Genomics, Genetic Engineering (Gene editing, eugenics)
  3. Telemedicine and IT
  4. Ethical Regulations
In an Unequal World:
Challenges for Bioethics
Issues and Challenges
  1. Universal Health Coverage or Care?
  2. Rights of Immigrants
  3. Rights of Refugees
  4. Global pandemics and ethics of healthcare (Zika, H1N1, Ebola), and global response: global and country level policies, rethinking response developed by global health community-viewing it as health security vis-à-vis global support and solidarity
  5. Global Bio Markets – trade in biological materials (stem cells), bio banking
  6. Role of Global civil society in promoting Bioethics
  7. Market and health sector – pharma, instrumentation (cardiac stents), diagnostics
  Access to Medicines
  1. Drug development, R&D, funding, priorities
  2. Data sharing
  3. Pricing: transparency in cost, pricing mechanisms, global transfer/sharing of information on pricing
  4. New Vaccines and Immunisation
  5. Neglected public health needs within market driven R&D- drugs for neglected diseases/health conditions
  6. Patents, Intellectual Property Rights, Transfer of technologies
  7. Free Trade agreements
  8. Biosimilars-regulatory challenges
  Regional focus on Global South
  1. South Asia
  2. Asia Pacific
  3. Middle East
  4. Africa – (sub-regional also depending on papers we receive)
  5. Latin America
Health for All: Implications of Gender and Sexuality for Bioethics Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights
  1. Sexuality and Healthcare: relook at HIV/AIDS healthcare, beyond HIV/AIDS
  2. Young people's SRHR
  3. Comprehensive sexual health: comprehensive sexuality education (CSE), access to information, access to healthcare at various levels
  4. Legal and policy barriers to SRH services: criminalization of consensual sexual behavior, criminalization of sexual identities-discrimination against them in access to healthcare
  Reproductive justice
  1. Access to treatment and diagnosis: moving beyond individualistic framework-different communities/identities of women (women with disabilities, marginalized groups of women based on race, caste, class , religion etc.)
  2. Abortion: Establishing right to abortion, moving beyond family planning and fertility control, abortion vis-à-vis bodily autonomy, Global Gag Rules
  3. Contraception: Access to information and knowledge, gendered burden of utilization of contraception-increasing male participation, freedom from coercive policies-right to make informed decision
  4. Infertility
  5. Sex Selection
  6. Populationism
  Issues
  1. Sexual Orientation and Gender Identities (SOGI)- gender in medical education, discrimination in health system against individuals based on their gender identities, transgender-body, identity and personhood, mainstreaming health system's response vis-à-vis specialized response and infrastructure
  2. Gender Based Violence (GBV): gender biased orientation of health systems, access to healthcare by GBV survivors, weak recognition of GBV as a health issue, mainstreaming health systems response to GBV vis-à-vis specialized response and infrastructure
  3. Gender and NCDs: gender as a social determinant of NCDs, women experiencing NCDs differently, implicit gendered labour in caregiving role towards chronic health conditions within families, gender biasness amongst health system and policies in screening of all NCDs-under-recognised/neglected morbidities and risk factors amongst women
Interrogating the Construction of Marginalisation and Vulnerabilities: Obligations of Bioethics Determinants of Health
  1. Poverty
  2. Water
  3. Sanitation
  4. Food security
  5. Education
  6. Displacement – development projects, mining
  7. Conditions of work
  Environment & Climate Change
  1. Ethics and Mitigating Disasters
  2. Sustainability and Land Rights
  3. Forest Commons
  4. Sustainable ecologies
  5. Environment conservation – forests, animals, land, water
  Identities
  1. Marginalised communities – caste, ethnic and religious minorities
  2. Race
  3. Sexuality
  4. Gender
  5. Children
  6. Elderly
  7. Disability
  8. Labour: informal and unorganized workers
  Conflict
  1. War
  2. Armed conflicts
  3. Terrorism
  4. Communal riots
  5. Sexual violence in conflict
  6. Conflict induced displacement