Stepping up from clinical to social paediatrics for protecting children and families

Enhanced advocacy for the health and wellbeing of all children is supported by the UnitedNations Declaration on the Rights of the Child (1) as well as the earlier 1948 World HealthOrganization definition of health as ‘a state of complete physical, mental and social wellbeingand not merely the absence of disease or infirmity’. This bio-psychosocial approach tohealth has strongly influenced the differentiation of the health of children from more generalsocial and environmental issues.