26.F. Workshop: Using intersectionality to address non-communicable diseases (NCDs)
Authors:   Organised by: MSPGH University of Melbourne (Australia),   Chair persons: Olena Hankivsky - Australia
Published: October 2020

NCDs, including CVD, cancers, chronic respiratory diseases and diabetes, are the major cause of health problems and death globally. NCDs are included in the 2030 SDG Agenda along with commitment to reduce premature mortality from NCDs by one third by the year 2030. With growing awareness of the diversity of NCDs experiences and outcomes within and between countries globally, the complex nature of NCDs and their relation to global health inequities needs to be better understood. Citing inequality as one of the most important trends and drivers of NCDs, Wepner and Giesecke (2018) have recently concluded that “the traditional tools of policy making can no longer be used to govern the increasingly diverse aspects attached to NCDs”(Wepner and Giesecke 2018, 9).

As one response, attention to the gendered effects of NCDs has increased. Evidence is growing that different groups of women and men with varying social economic and educational status face different and inequitable NCD related experiences and burdens. While highlighting gender as a determinant of health, and also too, defining gender as a relational concept, strategies would further benefit from situating gender at its intersection with other social determinants of health and wider societal structures and processes that drive health inequities. However, the relationship between multiple intersecting dimensions of social positioning and NCDs is not adequately examined or addressed in either the European or broader international contexts (Hankivsky et al. forthcoming; Eikemo et al. 2018). Intersectionality - an approach that explicitly illuminates various interacting dimensions of inequality and which has been increasingly recognized as transforming knowledge production related to health, illness, and well-being, is still largely uninvestigated in the context of NCDs.

The objective of the workshop is to fill that gap by presenting three ground-breaking research projects that draw on intersectionality to explore different organizational, policy and research contexts related to NCDs. Each study focuses on the obstacles and challenges of operationalizing intersectionality, including the relationship between gender and intersectionality, as well as opportunities for intersectionality-informed approaches. The workshop will illustrate how and why intersectionality provides a powerful conceptual handle for understanding the complicated phenomenon of NCDs including innovative ways to understand the contexts in which differently situated people experience and make choices about their health. The workshop aims to advance robust discussion and debate among the presenters and the audience about the value of an intersectionality approach to NCDs, its potential to generate new knowledge for more effective interventions at national and international levels, and what strategies are required to more systematically prioritize intersectionality in the field of NCDs.

Key messages

Intersectionality is a largely uninvestigated approach for addressing the complex nature of NCD inequities. Properly applied intersectionality generates new knowledge to improve NCD interventions.