Using the Convention on the Rights of the Child in Law and Policy: Two Ways to Improve Compliance

This chapter presents an equity-based approach to child health that responds to the millennial determinants of children’s well-being. The emerging discipline of Child Health Equity is structured to respond to the complex and dynamic interaction of the global political, social, economic, cultural and physical environments that impact every aspect of children’s lives. In the scenario of Child Health Equity, observations related to the root causes of health, accumulated over the past several decades, have become the substrate of the evolving discipline of social epidemiology. In order to accomplish this, child health professionals must move beyond the traditional perimeters of their disciplines to reframe their identity as child advocates functioning at three levels of practice clinical/programme services, community and systems development and policy formulation. The complexity of the health issues impacting children requires an analytical approach to determine their root causes in order to implement appropriate interventions.