Session: Health Equity By 2030: Sustainable Development Goals and Social Work Researchers' Insights (Society for Social Work and Research 28th Annual Conference - Recentering & Democratizing Knowledge: The Next 30 Years of Social Work Science)

Background and Purpose: To address global social, economic, and health inequities, the United Nations launched 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to be attained by 2030. SDG3 aims to ensure healthy lives and promote wellbeing for all by achieving universal access to quality physical and mental health services. The SDGs offer a unique opportunity for social work researchers to partner with practitioners to help realize health equity. Globally, 5 million children die within the first five years of birth annually due to undernutrition and preventable diseases. Malaria, which could be prevented with good health practices, kills about half a million children yearly. Also, mental illness affects nearly a billion people globally and is one of the leading causes of the global disease burden. In this symposium, three social work scholar teams will present their studies aimed at promoting the health and wellbeing of children and women diagnosed with breast and cervical cancer. Study 1 examines how good governance (that includes effective, accountable, and inclusive institutions) improves child health and wellbeing. Study 2 examines how one's knowledge and beliefs about a disease such as malaria are associated with adopting preventive health behaviors that save children from illness in Nigeria. Study 3 explores the options the women diagnosed with cancer in low and middle-income countries have in accessing mental health services, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa. The conceptual frameworks that guide these studies include resource curse theory, adoption of innovation theory, and health belief model.

Methods: The authors used various analysis methods depending on the nature of the study. Study 1 uses country-level secondary panel data collected between 2002 and 2019 and applies the mixed-effects linear regressions to document the predictors of child wellbeing. Study 2 analyzes secondary, nationally representative data from Nigeria using logistic regressions to test their hypotheses. Study 3 conducts a global systematic review of the proposed topic and reviews 37 studies that met the selection requirements.

Results: Findings highlight these researchers' collective contribution toward attaining SDG3. Study 1 found that civic engagement and effective governance improved child wellbeing. Study 2 found that knowledge and beliefs about a disease inform the use of health care, preventive and treatment care. The authors in study 3 note that their global search yielded no studies from Africa, indicating the absence of research on mental health treatment for women cancer survivors and reflecting inequities in global mental health services. They underscore applying implementation science as a cost-effective strategy to scale evidence-based mental health treatment services in low-income countries of Sub-Saharan Africa.

Conclusion and Implications: These studies highlight current gaps in research and social work researchers' insights toward attaining SDG3 and promoting wellbeing for all. They suggest promoting good governance and increasing disease awareness to achieve health equity and create a just and inclusive world. Also, they support using implementation science to scale evidence-based mental health treatment services to close the gaps in the use of mental healthcare services worldwide.