Edited by Tamar Ezer and Judy Overall
Public Health Reviews
Legal, ethical, and human rights norms are an increasingly important component of the delivery of quality medical care. For society’s most marginalized, health care settings are too often places of punishment, coercion, or violations of basic rights to consent and confidentiality, rather than places of treatment and care. At the same time, health practitioners may be unaware of how to incorporate ethics and human rights norms into their work and may suffer from a lack of independence, decent working conditions, and due process protections.
The concept of human rights in patient care brings together the rights of both patients and health care providers and refers to the application of general human rights principles to the context of patient care. It focuses on systemic issues and the role of the state.
This article collection for Public Health Reviews explores various aspects of human rights in patient care. This includes state responsibility in private health facilities, intersections with palliative care and reproductive health, and dimensions relevant to particular populations, including Roma, people who use drugs, and transgender individuals.
Publication charges for this collection were funded by ASPHER. Articles have undergone the journal's standard peer-review process overseen by the Guest Editors, who declare no competing interests.