publicly provided, are affordable for all, including socially disadvantaged groups. Equity demands that Article 12.2 (a). The right to maternal, child and reproductive health purdened with health expenses as compared to richer 14. “The provision for the reduction of the stillbirth rate and of infant mortality and for the healthy development of the child" (art. 12.2 (a))!" may be understood as requiring measures to improve child poorer households not be disproportionately should households. information the right and ideas® accessibility seek, includes accessibility accessibility: to receive and impart information concerning health issues. However, of information should not impair the and maternal! health, sexual and reproductive health services, including access to family planning, pre- and post-natal care'', emergency obstetric services with and access to information, as well as to resources necessary to act on that information.” (c) Acceptability. All health facilities, goods and services must be respectful of medical ethics and culturally appropriate, i.e. respectful of the culture of individuals, minorities, peoples and communities, sensitive to gender and life-cycle requirements, as Article 12.2 (b). The right to healthy natural and workplace environments ngnt to have confidentiality. personal health data treated weil as being designed to respect confidentiality and improve the health status of those concerned. (d) Quality. As well as being culturally acceptable, health facilities, goods and services must also be scientifically and medically appropriate and of good quality, This requires, inter alia, skilled medical personnel, scientifically approved and unexpired drugs and hospital equipment, safe and potable water, and adequate sanitation. 15. “The improvement of all aspects of environmental and industrial hygiene" (art. 12.2 (b)) comprises, inter alia, preventive measures in respect of occupational accidents and diseases; the requirement to ensure an adequate supply of safe and potable water and basic sanitation; the prevention and reduction of the population’s exposure to harmful substances such as radiation and harmful chemicals or other detrimental environmental conditions that directly or indirectly impact upon human health.? Furthermore, industrial hygiene refers to the minimization, so far as is reasonably practicable, of the causes of health hazards inherent in the working environment.** Article 12.2 (b) also embraces adequate housing and safe and hygienic in working conditions, an adequate supply of food and proper article 12.2 provides guidance in defining the action to be taken by States. It gives specific generic examples of measures arising from the broad definition of the nght to health contained in article 12.1, thereby nutrition, and discourages the abuse of alcohol, and the 13. The non-exhaustive catalogue of examples use of tobacco, drugs and other harmful substances. 10 iiustrating the content of that right, as exemplified in the following paragraphs.? 8 8 11 fee emphasis to access to information because of e special importance of this issue in relation to health. In the literature and practice concerning the right to to: primary health care typically deals with common and relatively minor illnesses and is provided by health professionals and/or generally trained doctors working within the community at relatively low cost; secondary health care is provided in centres, usually hospitals, specialty-trained health professionals and doctors, special equipment and sometimes in-patient 12 Specialty-trained health special equipment, professionals rate is no longer Prenatal denotes existing or occurring before birth: perinatal refers to the period shortly before and after employed. Reproductive health means that women and men have the freedom to decide if and when to reproduce and appropriate health-care services that will, for example, 13 enable women childbirth. to go safely through pregnancy and The Committee takes note, in this regard, of Principle 1 of the Stockholm Declaration of 1972 which states: “Man has the fundamental a to freedom, equality and adequate conditions of life, in an environment of a quality that permits a life of dignity and well-being”, and doctors an and is often relatively expensive. normative understanding of article 12, stillbirth the right to be informed and to have access to safe, illnesses requirin Since forms of primary, secondary and tertiary health care frequently overlap and often interact, the use of this typology does not always provide sufficient distinguishing criteria to be helpful for assessing which levels of health care States parties must provide, and is therefore of limited assistance in relation to the the effective, affordable and acceptable methods of family planning of their choice as well as the right of access to care at comparatively higher cost; tertiary health care is provided in relatively few centres, typically deals with small numbers of minor or serious WHO, more generic terms pre- and post-natal are exclusively and typically deals with relatively common minor or serious illnesses that cannot be managed at community level, using to birth (in medical statistics the period begins with the completion of 28 weeks of gestation and is various! defined as ending one to four weeks after birth); neonatal, by contrast, covers the period pertaining to the first four weeks after birth; while post-natal denotes occurrence after birth, In this General Comment, the See article 19.2 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. This General Comment gives health, three levels of health care are frequently referred orang commonly used, infant and under-five mortality rates being measured instead. ; . as well as of recent coy ounces including General Assembly in international law. resolution 45/94 on the need to ensure a healthy environment for the well-being of individuals; Principle 1 of the Rio Declaration; and 14 regional human ae instruments such as article 10 of the San Salvador Protocol to the American Convention on Human Rights. ILO Convention No. 155, art. 4.2. GENERAL COMMENTS AND STATEMENTS 93