Upcoming Special Sections
All issues of HHR include general papers and a section on Children’s Right to Health in addition to Special Sections
Children’s right to health
Editors: Michael Garcia Bochenek and Margaret Wurth
Commencing in June 2026, each issue of HHR will feature a section on children’s right to health. We invite contributions of full papers, perspective essays, or viewpoints which examine child health and development issues through the lens of human rights and the child’s right to health.
Children’s right to health entitlements are detailed in General Comment 15, published by the Committee on the Convention on the Rights of the Child in 2013. Specifically, the general comment stresses that the best interests of the child must be observed in all health-related decisions, and that the child has a right to be heard. Furthermore, the evolving capacities of a child must have a bearing on their contribution to decision making about their health and treatment and related health issues.
Contributions could include (but are not limited to):
- primary research findings concerning children and their family’s access to, and the availability of, appropriate, quality health care
- impact of social, political, or other underlying determinants of health and development on children
- children’s participation in health care and decision making
- children in conflict and humanitarian crises
- case studies of rights-based approaches to children’s health and development.
Please direct any questions about contributions to this section to Carmel Williams, Executive Editor, email: williams@hsph.harvard.edu
Viewpoints: Fight for Rights
Democracy, equity, human rights, and social justice are being challenged in countries around the world, including in the United States, and authoritarian regimes are increasing in number. Economic inequality is at its highest level since the neoliberal project began over 50 years ago, but authoritarian rulers threaten to remove the very structures that support the least well off, and to disregard evidence, science, and public health. Social media platforms provide malicious leaders – and their allies – with unchecked power to mislead and misinform the public, not only threatening health and other economic and social rights but creating division and mistrust across all of society.
HHR invites Viewpoints that highlight how attacks on a broad range of human rights threaten progress in achieving the right to the highest attainable standard of health.
In no more than 1500 words (including references) Viewpoints should identify specific threats to health rights (globally, nationally, or locally), focus on the various concerns of communities, and/or suggest ways of monitoring, measuring, and challenging these threats.
The selected Viewpoints will be published on the website.
Please email your submission as a Word document to: HHRSubmissions@hsph.harvard.edu
For further information, contact Carmel Williams, Executive Editor: williams@hsph.harvard.edu