Inauguration of Prof. Dr. drg. Ella Nurlaella Hadi, M.Kes., FPH UI Again Increases the Number of Professors

“Social determinants of health are often used as indicators to determine health disparities among vulnerable populations. Several studies show that social determinants of health are more important than health care or lifestyle in influencing health,” said Prof. Dr. drg. Ella Nurlaella Hadi, M.Kes., in her inaugural speech as Permanent Professor at the Faculty of Public Health (FPH) at the Universitas Indonesia (UI) on Wednesday, 21 December 2022 at the UI Convention Center entitled “Developments and Challenges of Social Determinants of Health in Realizing Health Equality in Indonesia”. Besides, Prof. Ella, the session, which was chaired directly by the Chancellor of UI, Prof. Prof. Ari Kuncoro, S.E., M.A., Ph.D., also confirmed Prof. Dr. Tri Hayati, S.H., M.H., as Permanent Professor of the UI Faculty of Law (FH).

In his speech, Prof. Ella said that in 2011, the World Health Organization (WHO) introduced the Social Determinants of Health (SDH) or social determinants of health to determine the influence of non-medical factors on health. The social determinants of health affect the health, well-being, and quality of life of individuals. Social determinants of health can also be defined as conditions in the environment where people are born, live, learn, work, play, worship, and age that affect health, function, and quality of life.

Indonesia has been known as a low- and middle-income country that has continued to try to eliminate health disparities and improve the health system over the last decade. A review of existing data and policy documents shows progress in the social determinants of health in Indonesia. The progressive development of social determinants of health in Indonesia is shown by the increasing participation of the population in social protection, the increasing number of women’s representation in parliament, the increase in health financing, especially for primary health services, and increasing access to sanitation. However, it appears that there has been a decrease in health promotion financing, which has had an impact on health promotion efforts in Indonesia.

Indonesia has implemented various regulations and policies related to eliminating inequality, equity, and equality, such as eliminating gender, racial and ethnic discrimination, increasing women’s participation in national development, increasing the protection and rights of children and disabilities. In the health sector, there have been tobacco control regulations, the introduction of the National Health Insurance (JKN) scheme, eradicating stunting, raising the Healthy Community Movement (GERMAS), establishing the COVID-19 Control Committee, and recovering the national economy, as well as healthy cities and regencies.

The challenge of the social determinants of health in Indonesia is that government and non-government institutions in general do not understand the concept of social determinants of health, so that the links between social and health problems have not been studied comprehensively in formulating policies which results in policies that are still sectoral egos. For this reason, there needs to be a coordinator who can coordinate social issues in the health sector and the Coordinating Ministry for Human Development and Culture (PMK) and BAPPENAS are considered the right institutions to carry it out.

In addition, monitoring of social determinant indicators of health in Indonesia has not been carried out specifically, because there is no institution that manages data on social determinants of health in Indonesia. At present monitoring of equity and equity gaps in Indonesia is only to describe trends and impacts of policies, national and local development programs, and promotion of equity. In fact, several surveys that have been carried out regularly by several government agencies can describe indicators of social determinants of health in Indonesia, such as SUSENAS which contains socio-economic and non-socio-economic data, RISKESDAS and SDKI which contain health data so that they can be used to assess the relationship of social factors to health. health. However, of course there must be a special institution that manages this data, so that it can be used to formulate policies that can realize health equity in Indonesia.

Through his speech, Prof. Dr. drg. Ella Nurlaella Hadi, M.Kes., who graduated from the Faculty of Dentistry UI in 1984, graduated from the Master’s Program in the Public Health Study Program FPH UI in 1994 and the Doctoral Program in the Public Health Study Program FPH UI in 2007 and is a member of the UI Academic Senate from 2019 until now he has become the 34th Professor who was inaugurated in 2022. (wrk)