About the session

‘A neurologist working in the rural and Adivasi communities’- isn’t that too uncommon to our ears? While we discuss that non-communicable diseases in India are rising at an alarming rate, we rarely find a ​‘specialist’ doctor working as a public health practitioner with a grassroots level health organisation in Chhattisgarh. In this webinar, we will interact with Dr Yogesh Kalkonde, a rare public health practitioner who believes that health is more than medicine, and that public health sector is not for medical professionals alone.

What does public health practice look like in a day-to-day context? What perspectives guide his work? Why was broadening the perspectives from a biomedical lens to a public health lens deemed necessary as he made a conscious decision to work with rural and Adivasi communities? How do values of equity and justice shape his work? Why does public health sector need practitioners from both health (medical/​paramedical) and social science backgrounds to be able to achieve ​‘Health for All’?

This webinar will engage with these important questions to reiterate why ​‘seeing’ through a public health lens underlining its values can make a difference to health of the communities.

About the speaker and moderator

Speaker

Dr Yogesh Kalkonde, a neurologist by training, who consciously chose to work as a public health practitioner with rural and Adivasi communities in India. His journey from being a doctor to being a public health practitioner has been guided by certain values and perspectives, with a deep sense of commitment towards improving health and wellbeing among those who are socially marginalised. For the last 15 years his programmatic and research work has focused on finding grassroots level solutions for chronic non-communicable diseases (NCDs) and other health problems in these regions. He currently works with a community-based health organisation called Sangwari in Chhattisgarh, India.

Moderator

Mukta Gundi is Faculty at Azim Premji University, Bengaluru. Her work focuses on the social determinants of health, particularly community-based mental health and sexual and reproductive health among adolescents.