Lecture to examine how human rights affect global health equity

November 9, 2010 – Students interested in learning about how human rights can affect the achievement of global health equity are invited to attend a public lecture on Nov. 17 in the McMaster Health Forum DialogueSpace.

Lisa Forman, director of the Comparative Program on Health and Society of the Munk School of Global Affairs at the University of Toronto, will deliver the lecture beginning at 6 p.m. Forman, who is the Lupina assistant professor in global health and human rights at both the Dalla Lana School of Public Health and the Munk School of Global Affairs, has specialized in international human rights law relating to HIV/AIDS, health and medicines for more than a decade.

The lecture will focus on the outcomes of the experience with AIDS medicines to examine the role of human rights in achieving global health equity.

The DialogueSpace is located on the fourth floor of Mills Memorial Library. The lecture will run until 7:30 p.m. It has been organized in partnership with the Bachelor of Health Sciences program and with support from the McMaster Health Forum Student Sub-committee.

The lecture will link with the curriculum of the Forum’s Law & Disorder in Global Health course, but is open to the wider University community. Human rights are a key part of the regulatory framework of global health governance, the subject of this course taught by Steven Hoffman, an adjunct faculty of the McMaster Health Forum.

Anyone interested in attending who is not enrolled in the this course is asked to email This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it with Re: Lisa Forman in the subject line.

Forman earned her BA and LLB from the University of The Witwatersrand in South Africa, a master’s degree in human rights studies from Columbia University, and a Doctorate in Juridical Science from the University of Toronto. Her doctoral dissertation explored the role of human rights in increasing access to AIDS medicines, focusing on South Africa as a case study. She has acted as a consultant on human rights and health related topics for non-governmental and intergovernmental organizations, including the Office of the High Commissioner of Human Rights, Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network and South African National Commission for Gender Equality.

For more details on the lecture, click here.