Critical Public Health Pedagogy for Teaching Health Equity to Health Profession Students

Health professionals constitute an essential component in the delivery of equitable healthcare services. Training health profession students on the universality of health as a human right and the role of healthcare professionals in the delivery of equitable healthcare services can contribute to the much-anticipated goal of universal equity. While there are multiple pedagogical models that emphasize how socio-economic and behavioral elements contribute to poor health outcomes and health inequalities, critical health pedagogies offer a comprehensive outlook on the problem of intersecting disadvantages that render individuals and groups vulnerable to poor health outcomes. Medical professionals, including doctors, nurses, and other healthcare professionals, are expected to address the question of health disparity by considering social determinants of health in their clinical practices and thereby advocating for health equity. Implementing critical health pedagogies in the medical education curriculum can help health profession students facilitate the pursuit of health equity through their profession. This article explains how health equity should be a subject matter of medical education and how critical health pedagogies can help in advancing the goal of health equity.