Paradigm shift needed for health? Asiya Odugleh-Kolev of the WHO in conversation with Jem Bendell.
Channel: Jem Bendell
Date: 28/07/2021

Asiya Odugleh-Kolev talks about the need for a paradigm shift towards greater cooperation to support community-based means of enabling both physical and mental health as medical systems are overstretched or, in some cases, disrupted. 

Asiya is the Technical Officer for Community and Social Interventions, at the WHO, and is on the Holding Group of the Deep Adaptation Forum.
Hosted by Prof Jem Bendell with questions from various attendees who anticipate or experience societal disruption or collapse due to environmental change. 

Visit http://www.who.int 

Study some of the basics of the social determinants of health 
https://edhub.ama-assn.org/steps-forward/module/2702762

More Q&As in 2021:
https://jembendell.com/2021/02/10/discuss-deepadaptation-with-experts-in-2021/

More about Deep Adaptation
https://politybooks.com/bookdetail/?isbn=9781509546831

Deep Adaptation Forum http://www.deepadaptation.info 

Read more about Jem's ideas on potential elements of a more holistic response to pandemics, including COVID-19
https://www.facebook.com/jem.bendell/posts/10157782775871470
From that post, things to consider doing include..

"Enabling:
- Programmes for general public health and nutrition, covering issues like Vitamin D deficiency and obesity,
- Protection of people’s incomes and employment rights so that they do not have to show up at work when unwell (likely commuting on public transport on the way),
- Programmes to reduce poverty so that less people are vulnerable to any infection, or then progressing to serious ill health if infected, 
- Latent capacity in our health systems,
- Not-for-profit holistic approaches to supporting health and wellness, including community initiatives,
- Alternative means for financing medical research and commercialisation, so patents and finances are not a barrier to access, 
- Mechanisms for rapid legal challenge of any kind of corruption at any level of government, to prevent profiteering from crises,
- Independently funded non-governmental and non-corporate information services that provide nuanced presentation of scientific information and disagreements (and regulating against tech monopolies using opaquely-funded fact checking services that align with either government or big corporate interests),
- Alternatives to lifestyles and livelihoods being so dependent on a fragile global economic and financial system (including dependence on big tech),
- Principles for the fair distribution of government financial support for companies and individuals in emergency situations such as pandemics (e.g. furlough schemes and bailouts), to restrict the extent and duration of public financing of private wealth and extreme inequality. 

Because of what modern societies have done to nature, there is no normal to get back to after the lockdowns. Instead, an unthinking effort towards ‘normality’ will mean future pandemics hit us harder. If the left and centre left had not evaporated recently in most countries I know about, then these kinds of approaches could have been considered as much as vaccines, lockdowns, masks, social distancing rules and such like."