Mann was a pioneer in advocating combining public health, ethics and human rights. He theorized and actively promoted the idea that human health and human rights are integrally and inextricably connected, arguing that these fields overlap in their respective philosophies and objectives to improve health, well-being, and to prevent premature death. Mann proposed a three-pronged approach to the fundamental issue of the relationship between
health and
human rights. First, health is a human rights issue. Secondly (and conversely), human rights are a health issue. Human rights violations result in adverse health effects. Thirdly, linkages exist between health and human rights (a hypothesis to be rigorously tested). Literature substantiates the effects of the first two points, but Mann and colleagues proceeded to call for the validation of the third point and challenged the world to practice it. His work led to the development of the
Four-Step Impact Assessment, a multi-disciplinary approach of evaluating interdependent and overlapping elements of both disciplines of human rights and
Public Health. With this framework, Mann attempted to bridge a perceived gap of philosophies, correspondence and vocabulary, education and training, recruitment, and work methods between the disciplines of
bioethics,
jurisprudence,
public health law and
epidemiology. Furthermore, Mann knew that the history of “conflictual relationships” between officials of public health and
civil liberties workers presented challenges to the pursuit of what he called a “powerful” confluence of health and human rights – a positive approach. ==Death==