Please join CityMatCH and your MCH colleagues from around the country September 17 - 20, 2011 in San Francisco, CA. This year's conference will focus on the theme of JUSTICE in all communities.

Why Justice? As a nation, we have made significant progress toward achieving justice for all. However, injustices are still seen in many areas and for many populations. Where injustice lingers, inequities in health and well-being persist, and deepen. This year’s conference will shed light on a variety of areas of justice that most directly impact MCH, and will challenge participants to think critically about their role in actively advancing justice and health equity.

What Kinds of Justice? To start, we will consider data, programs and policies in the areas of:

• SOCIAL JUSTICE. The World Health Organization defines health as “A state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity." Health starts beyond the doors of the clinic and inequities in health start there, as well. Equity means addressing the structural and systemic inequalities that create disparities in health, not only insuring access to care for all, but fighting for social justice.
• REPRODUCTIVE JUSTICE. Reproductive justice links the concept of disparity to the concept of inequity and exists when all people have the social, political, and economic power and resources to make healthy decisions about their gender, bodies, sexuality, and families for ourselves and our communities.
• ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE. The University of Michigan states, "[ Environmental justice is ] the right to a safe, healthy, productive, and sustainable environment for all, where "environment" is considered in its totality to include the ecological (biological), physical (natural and built), social, political, aesthetic, and economic environments. Environmental justice refers to the conditions in which such a right can be freely exercised, whereby individual and group identities, needs, and dignities are preserved, fulfilled, and respected in a way that provides for self-actualization and personal and community empowerment." They go on to state that, "Providing environmental justice includes a guarantee of equal access to relief and meaningful community participation with government and industry decision-makers.”
• ECONOMIC JUSTICE. In Unnatural Causes, we learn, "The wealthiest people have the most access to power, resources and opportunity–and thus the best health.  Those on the bottom are faced with more stressors–unpaid bills, jobs that don’t pay enough, unsafe living conditions, exposure to environmental hazards, lack of control over work and schedule, worries over children–and the fewest resources available to help them cope." An economically-just society is one in which all people have equal opportunity and equal access to wealth...and health.

Should I attend? This year's conference doesn't promise to be safe, or typical, or recycled. It might be edgy at times. It may feel uncomfortable at times; but without justice, there is no equity, and that's why we truly hope you will join us in the Bay Area this fall.