I’ve received a few requests recently for my data sources, so I thought I’d highlight Eric Green’s latest post at Change.org. Here, he has compiled an excellent list of data sources for global health. In particular, he highlights the open data initiative at the World Bank, which was launched last Tuesday, compiling more than 2,000 […]
An article by Robert Guth in the Wall Street Journal last week highlighted the theory that I posed in last Thursday’s post, that our global health system is designed to be reactionary and emergency-focused: That question goes to the heart of one of the most controversial debates in global health: Is humanity better served by […]
Earlier this month, on World Health Day, I wrote about how we are all in this together, with a focus on the social determinants of health, including the social and environmental factors which affect our health. What I overlooked, however, were the environmental determinants of health – a conversation which is pretty timely, considering that […]
I’m planning to devote Wednesdays to simple solutions that have a big impact in Global Health. In anticipation of World Malaria Day (April 25th), I thought I’d highlight some of the latest research on insecticide-treated nets and some of the simple solutions that are being utilized to get them where they are needed most. […]
In an effort to focus this blog – and provide myself a bit of structure and sanity! – I’m devoting Tuesdays to “systems issues”. For today, let’s start with the basics: what is a health system? I know, this sounds patronizing, but in fact, the goal of defining and strengthening health systems has only recently […]
Last week, on April 15, South Africa launched the largest HIV testing campaign in the world, aiming to have 15 million South Africans tested by June 2011. This initiative is evidence that the recent budgetary increase of over $1 billion in funds available for HIV prevention and treatment are having an impact on the ground, and it […]
Two significant topics are causing buzz in maternal and infant health circles: (1) on Monday, the Lancet published an article that shows significant decline in the number of maternal deaths, from 526,300 deaths in 1980 to 342,900 deaths in 2008, representing a 35% decline; and (2) today, the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon has announced a joint action plan […]
Just a few of my favorites from this last week… Learning from developing countries – Jaclyn Schiff at NPR has written an excellent article about lessons that so-called first-world countries can learn from third-world countries. She references Lord Nigel Crisp’s op-ed in The Times which precedes his forthcoming book, Turning the World Upside Down: The Search for Global Health in […]
Today, as health crises are played out in an ever-increasingly inter-connected world, I believe that leaders (or at least the enlightened ones) are seeking methods to stabilize systems as a long-term risk mitigation strategy. Since health is one of the foundations upon which stable societies are created, it is increasingly important to analyze and incorporate all of the determinants that factor into the functioning of a healthy community and society.
Just a quick post to highlight a documentary that I downloaded over the weekend. The Story of Stuff with Annie Leonard is an excellent and quick study on consumerism, which she describes as a system in crisis. Her description of a linear system being unsustainable is very interesting, quote: “you cannot run a linear system […]
Where should global health dollars go? The good news is that more funders are investing energy into devising ever-more-sophisticated ways to allocate health spending. When priorities are aligned, such as the international commitment to reducing maternal and child mortality rates through the Millennium Development Goals, these sophisticated allocation methods can assist in deploying scarce resources to greatest […]
My intention was to do a weekly round-up each week, but an electricity outage this weekend destroyed my best intentions. So I’m making up for lost time and am rounding-up last week on Tuesday. Apologies! Here’s just a few snippets of the best stuff I’ve read this week in Global Health. Advocating Health as a […]
I personally get “number fatigue” when I look at too many large numbers–it’s a professional hazard. But the numbers associated with Tuberculosis (TB) made me sit up in my chair. Shocking facts: one-third of the world’s population, or 2 billion people, are infected with the bacteria that causes Tuberculosis (TB). This translates into more than 9 […]
I feel a little bad for the big pharmaceutical companies. Their big announcement today amounted to little more than a mention in the “more news” section of the NYTimes, sidelined by breathless articles about Obama signing the health reform bill. But more news is truly big news: both Pfizer and GlaxoSmithKline have signed up to give […]
Today I want to focus on Water and Health (my fellow FPA blogger, Bill Hewitt, has something to say on the environmental front as well). The UN has dubbed March 22nd World Water Day, and in my reading I stumbled upon a pretty amazing statistic. According to the World Health Organization, each $1 that we invest in clean water access gets returned to us 3-34 times in time savings, productivity, improved education and reduced healthcare costs. Compared to the majority of social investments – which often achieve only a 1:1 return, and very frequently, less – this is phenomenal. In terms of “social return”, improved access to clean water is clearly a sound investment.