HEALTH INITIATIVES

We support health initiatives that are based on evidence and reflect the values of inclusion, human rights, and justice.


Throughout the world, people who face stigma and discrimination are often left with substandard or no health care.

• In Eastern Europe, ambulances routinely refuse to answer calls for help from Roma communities.
• In countries of the former Soviet bloc, people with mental disabilities are forced to live in remote and dilapidated institutions, without access to education or health care.
• In Asia, people who are addicted to drugs are locked away in "rehabilitation" centers where they are flogged, chained to their beds, and forced to perform unpaid labor—with no genuine treatment in sight.
• In Sub-Saharan Africa, women who are living with HIV are sterilized without their consent. 
• In many countries worldwide, people with AIDS or cancer are left to suffer in excruciating pain, without access to affordable, essential medicines such as oral morphine.

The Open Society Public Health Program supports marginalized populations to fight discrimination and protect their fundamental rights. The program aims to build societies committed to inclusion, human rights, and justice, in which health-related policies and practices reflect these values and are based on evidence.
The Public Health Program consists of 10 core projects and initiatives and is primarily active in Central and Eastern Europe, Central Asia, Southern and Eastern Africa, Southeast Asia, and China. It has limited engagement in Latin America and other regions as part of its global advocacy efforts.
The Public Health Program includes the following projects and initiatives:

Access to Essential Medicines Initiative

The Access to Essential Medicines Initiative engages in grantmaking, capacity building, and advocacy on three areas: promoting national and international laws, policies, and practices that safeguard access to medicines; fostering new thinking and action on needs-driven pharmaceutical innovation; and using existing legal and policy frameworks to improve access to medicines at the country level.