According to the International Organization for Migration (IOM), more than 2,200 migrants died while trying to cross the Mediterranean during the first seven months of 2017. In the United States, more people are dying while trying to cross the U.S.-Mexico border, even though fewer people are making the attempt. According to the IOM, the reported […]
The First Drop of Water in a Probable Waterfall: Global expansion of cancer surveillance is an urgent concern that should be prominent on the global health and development agendas, and should be added to the Millennium Development Goals (MDG’s). I’m sanguine that the unprecedented momentum given to chronic diseases since the United Nations 2011 High […]
In 1900 we lived to be only 32 years on average. Today the global average life expectancy is 69 years and in 2050 we will live to be 76 years. For every month you live, you add one week to your life expectancy. In a new TED talk, Dr. Bjorn Lomborg of the Copenhagen Consensus Center […]
Documentary exposes Pakistan gender biases A documentary film screened at the Sundance Film Festival chronicles the fallout in Pakistan after a 13-year-old girl, gang-raped by four men, took her attackers to court and was nearly put to death by village elders. The case of Kainat Soomro reveals gender biases in the country that make laws […]
This week, the World Health Organization (WHO) and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) published a new tool to address the growing health risks associated with climate change. The “Atlas of Human Health and Climate” explores the exacerbation of “diseases of poverty” (including those related to food and water insecurity), emergency medical situations related to extreme […]
Children of the Earth summit — 1992 and 2012 As young people weigh in with their impressions of the ongoing Rio+20 conference, this documentary series, Zero Ten Twenty, looks back on the lives of children born in 1992–the year of the groundbreaking Earth Summit. Working to include women in development recipe The United Nations is hosting […]
Last Friday, Stanford’s Policy Review published a feature written by global health luminaries Mark Dybul, Peter Piot, and Julio Frenk entitled Reshaping Global Health. The article reads as a call to action, urging the global health community to “give up a lot of turf” and assemble a Bretton Woods-style conversation to reshape the Global Health […]
Last week’s print edition of the Economist reports “the best story in development,” which describes huge declines in child mortality across Africa. Too often, good stories about Africa are buried in the back pages of newspapers and magazines. In this case, the headline is sensationalist but true. The trends of child mortality in a majority of African […]
GAVI’s Berkley resolved to vaccinate all kids against preventable diseases Seth Berkley recalls the work that preceded his appointment as head of the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization, and his goal of vaccinating every child in need against every preventable disease. “It’s only a matter of political will, a little bit of money and […]
A report released last month discussed the rising profile of BRICS countries–Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa–in health and development assistance and called upon the group to further their cooperation for better global health in the developing world. “Shifting Paradigm: How the BRICS are Shaping Global Health and Development” (PDF), written by the NGO […]
Earlier this year, the global health community watched with bated breath as The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria stood at a precipice. The chain of events was like a series of dominoes falling. Earlier, in October 2011, cash-strapped donor countries with austerity budgets said “no” when the Fund asked for $20 billion in replenishment […]
United States President Barack Obama announced today that he was nominating Dr. Jim Yong Kim for president of the World Bank. This was a surprise to almost everyone, as Dr. Kim is not a traditional pick by any means: a medical anthropologist and physician, current president of Dartmouth College, co-founder of the non-profit Partners in Health […]