Health Activism as a Resource of the Healthcare Systems

Public health activism is important, but often overlooked resource of the healthcare systems. The transition to participatory medicine, responsible self-treatment and self-help is considered by the World Health Organization as a vector for the development of public health systems worldwide. In this context, there is growing interest in how people organize health care practices; how they come together to jointly solve health problems; in what forms they express their disagreement with the organization of medical care or the distribution of health services; what actions are being taken to change the situation. Currently in the social science there is a lack of fundamental developments devoted to the study of health activism corresponding to the realities of modern society, especially in the context of new epidemic risks and the growing mediatization and digitalization of society. There is a need to develop a theory of health activism, taking into account the spread of new epidemic risks, changes in the forms and strategies of social activism, mediatization and digitalization. The aim of the research was to identify key theoretical approaches and gaps in existing research. We implemented a scoping review of literature available in the subject area of public health activism published in the last 10 years. Different forms of public health activism were identified in examined papers. A new vision of public health as a complex set of multi-level strategies and interventions requires the development of new theoretical approaches to the study of health activism. The research was supported by RSF (project No 22-18-00261).