As COVID-19 pandemic has disproportionately and negatively impacted women, structural responses are needed to prevent and address work–life imbalance issues experienced by women every day. Gendered work and barriers in gaining employment have reduced women’s participation in paid work/employment. Most of those who are employed, experience unfair work–life imbalance as they end up working for paid job and as well as in their homes. The consequences of COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns have further worsened their work–life imbalance. Most of those who have lost paid jobs have been experiencing significant financial and psychological stress and are doing more work than usual in their homes. To address these issues appropriate structural responses are warranted.
The disease control program is critical to the agenda of social justice. A generalist approach to the disease control program involves understanding its complexity and prevention from various perspectives, including ecological theory. The integration of the disease control program into the existing healthcare delivery system has been advocated over many decades, with an emphasis on the medical model of disease control. Integration has been widely considered as a means to achieve an effective and efficient health system. This approach has been widely adopted in low-middle-income countries to integrate vertical programs such as leprosy, malaria, HIV/AIDs, and others. However, studies suggest that there is a lack of evidence about the effectiveness of health system integration. The available evidence shows that integration of the health system can have a mixed, negative, or no impact on the health system. This growing enthusiasm toward health system integration is primarily based on the perceived benefits of an integrated approach. This discussion paper draws on the experience of the integration of the National Leprosy Elimination Program in India. It highlights the factors that affected the integration of leprosy programs in Bihar and also affected the pursuit of social justice for people who have been marginalized in our modern world.
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