Global Health Links
Weekly Highlights, August 2 – August 8 2009
Published August 09, 2009 @ 07:27PM PT
(Mosquito larvae. Photo credit: Alvaro Rodriguez)
Basics
This week, global health guide Alanna Shaikh gives us Malaria Prevention in a Nutshell, and explains the four main ways to reduce transmission: bednets, indoor residual spraying, habitat reduction, and preventative treatment.
Last week, guest blogger Michael Keizer defined an inequality as inequitable if it is "avoidable, unnecessary, and unfair." This week, he responds to commenter Catee Lalonde's critiques on this definition in his post, Is being a couch potato inequitable? Or hard questions about inequities.
News & Analysis
There has been some Good News and Bad News this week. The good news is that tuberculosis incidence could be reduced by half by 2050, but the bad news is that a new strain of HIV has been discovered. (Also check out this post for interesting tidbits on chimpanzees and orangutans.)
USAID Needs a Leader! The current acting administrator, Alonzo Fulgham, is doing three jobs, and we need a permanent USAID leader. Sign Alanna's letter to President Obama asking him to appoint an administrator ASAP.
A guest post from Andre Blackman asks the question, Are We Developing the Right Vaccines? As scientists develop the H1N1 vaccine, they are also stockpiling vaccines against smallpox, a great potential biological weapon. However, Andre points out that certain efforts are leaving out roughly 80 million Americans who are immunosuppressed.
In this week's Friday Futures, Alanna predicts that the world won't run out of food anytime soon, but loss of variety in our diet will put us at a greater risk of losing food sources to diseases.
Guest blogger Carol Dunn outlines six reasons why Horrible Outcomes Don't Change Behavior, and why pandemic risk communicators need to stop using ‘the horrible outcome' as an emotional lever for funding and action.
Career Advice
Last week, Alanna wrote about the Pros and Cons of the Peace Corps. Former Peace Corps volunteer Molly Mattessich thinks Peace Corps is What You Make of It. Her own experience in Mali had a ripple effect on her family and friends, "making the world seem a little bit smaller."
One reader asks, How Do You Stay a Generalist? Alanna did so by being proactive in seeking out opportunities in her work and becoming known as a writer and a manager, rather than a public health specialist. Another reader asks, How Do You Sell Your Writing skills? Alanna suggests putting it in resume summary section as well as selling it in the cover letter.
Kudos
This week's Comment of the Week was by Theo Smart. Theo offers a new perspective on global funding for maternal health. Remember to share your thoughts with us in the comments, so you can be the next winner, and earn a charity gift on Change.org.
Weekly Highlights, July 26 – August 1 2009
Published August 02, 2009 @ 04:05AM PT
Basics
Living in Central Asia, Alanna has first-hand experience with the pesky little sandflies that transmit the tropical disease leishmaniasis. Read her post Five Things to Know About Leishmaniasis to learn all about it. Also, learn about the five medical conditions that account for 80% of maternal deaths: severe bleeding, infections, hypertensive disorders, obstructed labor, and unsafe abortions.
As a first post in the series, "Things That Work," Alanna talks about Health Visitors: nurses, doctors or trained volunteers that conduct home visits and give people basic health education and care. Health visitors are one way to increase health care access, but What Does Access to Medical Care Really Mean? Alanna explains three main forms of access: geographic, financial, and cultural. And guest blogger Michael Keizer teases apart the differences between inequities and inequalities in his post The Health Equation.
News & Analysis
News broke out on Tuesday that the Cambodian government has been relocating people living with AIDS into a de facto "AIDS colony," one without clean water or sanitary facilities.
This week's Friday Futures explores Obesity. Alanna warns that, with increased meat consumption and urbanization, the developing world that is at risk for a rise in obesity. But urbanization is not just a risk factor for obesity. Given the higher population density and lack of healthcare in slums, Alanna thinks that Swine Flu is Going to Hit Megacities Hard.
Alanna has written about the Guttmacher Institute study that found withdrawal may be an effective method of birth control. In response to a New York Times article about this study, guest blogger Mara Gordon explores the tricky question, "What is a publication's responsibility when it comes to controversial health news?"
Career Advice
Alanna gives the pros and cons to Joining the Peace Corps as part of your global health career. One key point to remember is that the Peace Corps is not an international development organization, but a US public diplomacy agency. Also, you may be interested in a Very Interesting Vacancy at Center for Global Development (CGD). Alanna thinks the CGD is "the clearest, sanest voices out there on global development and health."
Bridge Blogs
Published July 14, 2009 @ 12:35AM PT
One thing I talk about a lot is the importance of cultural understanding in global health. Without knowing context, your work is remarkably useless. But we can't all spend years in a place learning society and culture before we start a program, though I wish we could. Instead, we research as best we can. I like to do a lot of reading on the history and sociology of where I work. I also read local media (in English if that is all I can do) and novels set in that location.
Lastly, I like bridge blogs - blogs which serve to help outsiders understand a culture. Some are written by insiders for an international audience, others by outsiders sharing their own leaning process. Either way, they are an easy, bite-size way to learn a new place.
Some of my favorite bridge blogs:
Window on Eurasia - Russia, Central Asia, and the Caucasus - This blog features commentary and translations of regional news media, bringing ideas and perspectives I haven't found anywhere else.
Marc Lynch at Foreign Policy - The Middle East - Informed insight into the politics of the Middle East. I am especially impressed by his analysis of Muslim Brotherhood internal dynamics.
Aimee Barnes on China - China (obviously) - Written by an American specialist on business and China, the blog has a specific goal of explaining China to outsiders.
Gori Wife Life - Pakistan - This is a change of pace from the others. It's a blog written by an American woman who married a Pakistani, and it focuses on Pakistani culture and domestic life. She's not aiming to look at anything larger, but she's very observant and her insight casts light on a bigger picture.
Scarlett Lion - Liberia - American journalist Glenna Gordon is based in Liberia and writes about politics and daily life.
I notice, listing them out, that all these blogs are written by outsiders. I wonder if being in the middle of a culture you take so much for granted that you have trouble being accessible to outsiders? Or maybe I am lazy?
For more blogs that bridge cultures, I strongly recommend Global Voices. In their own words: "Global Voices is a community of more than 200 bloggers around the world who work together to bring you translations and reports from blogs and citizen media everywhere, with emphasis on voices that are not ordinarily heard in international mainstream media."
Do you have favorite bridge blogs? Suggest them in the comments.
Weekly Highlights, 6/28/09 - 7/04/09
Published July 05, 2009 @ 02:29PM PT
(Photo Credit: Hugh Sturrock. Wellcome Images)
June 27 was US National HIV Testing Day. Do you know your status? Alanna tells her own Experience Getting Tested for HIV, and offers the advice, "Getting tested for HIV is hard the first time, but it gets easier. And if you do have HIV, getting tested will save your life."
This wee, guest blogger Michael Keizer shows how Global Health and Human Rights are Made for Each Other; better health improves human rights, and ensuring human rights improves health.
In light of the bad economy, many people are flocking to graduate school, but Alanna spells out for us When Not to Go to Grad School. Also, if you have trouble getting things done, check out Alanna's useful tips for Being Productive.
In last week's "Friday Futures," Alanna predicted The End of the Physician. She expanded her thoughts a bit further in her post, Supporting Physicians to Improve Health Care, arguing that healthcare needs to be a team effort between physicians, non-physician clinicians and technology. And in this week's "Friday Futures", Alanna warns of The Growing Threat of Malaria.
In her post, Fear, Sex, and Pandemic - Part One, guest blogger Carol Dunn comments on the initial over-reaction, and the current under-reaction to swine flu, stating that pandemic risk communicators need to understand the irrationality of human reaction to threats.
Alanna gave an overview on a recently released report on Innovative Financing for Health Systems, concluding that that there's No Magic Bullet for getting more money for health.
For more global health reading, check out this week's Recommended Readings to learn about Disability-Adjusted Life Years (DALYS), a new female condom effort in Uganda, swine flue resistance, and more.
Weekly Highlights, 6/21/09 - 6/28/09
Published June 28, 2009 @ 12:11PM PT
(A midwife in CAR. Photo credit: hdptcar)
Have you ever had trouble talking to others about global health? If so, check out Alanna's tips on How to Talk about Global Health Without Boring People.
This week, Alanna has lots of useful and informative background posts (with self-explanatory titles): Five Things to Know About Leprosy, Advance Market Commitments for Vaccines, and Five Things to Know about Midwives. For more reading material, there's always Alanna's Recommended Readings.
Guest blogger Michael Keizer continues his exploration of Global Health vs Human Rights, and discusses instances where public health considerations are used to justify limits on human rights.
Social media has garnered a lot of attention lately, but Alanna explains why she doesn't think it's a magic bullet for health in her post, Social Media and Global Health. In the comments, reader Greg Goldgof's example of how social media can help bring telemedicine to rural Kenya earned him the prestigious Comment of the Week.
Thinking about a career in global health? Check out Alanna's low-down on The Realities of a Global Health Career, as well as her tips on How to Stay Employed in Global Health.
Last week, Alanna predicted The End of the Condom in the new feature, "Friday Futures". This week brings another shocking prediction: Advanced diagnostic algorithms and mid-level healthcare providers may bring The End of the Physician.
Lastly, a guest post by Incia Zaffar gives us a call to action on Holding Leaders Accountable to their promises in scaling up global health programs.
Recommended Readings, June 20, 2009
Published June 20, 2009 @ 08:52AM PT
Some great evaluations have come out in the past few days, taking on some of the sacred cows of global health.
We saw a new evaluation of the Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria. Impressively, it was commissioned by the global fund itself. The evaluation is not kind; the Center for Global Development Blog has an excellent summary of the report. One thing that comes up in the evaluation is the failure of the Country Coordinating Mechanism to oversee implementation of grants. Based on my own experience with the CCM, that's dead on. You can't expect what is basically a group of disparate volunteers to add unpaid oversight of complex grants to their workload.
Next, the Lancet published a major story on health resource flows. It looked at who funds global health and what that funding supports. The article takes a new approach to estimating global health aid, looking at disbursements rather than commitments, and also at aid from US based NGOs. The Center for Global Development, however, has noticed some weaknesses in the methodology. (Yes, that is two CGD links in two paragraphs. That's because their global health policy blog is amazing. They are especially good on things like this - summarizing and analyzing new reports on global health.) Myself, I wonder if the report doesn't double count some aid. If USAID gives money to World Vision for a health program, does that funding get counted as USAID funding and World Vision funding?
The Lancet is clearly on a roll; they also have a fascinating article on who influences global health. Conclusion: the UN's influence is shrinking and that's not a good thing.
Recommended Readings: June 16, 2009
Published June 16, 2009 @ 10:43AM PT
(photo credit: Science Speaks)
Ruth Levine talks about Advance Market Commitments for vaccines on the Center for Global Development blog. CGD has every right to be proud of this; they were a major player in making this happen. Now that it's finally - finally - going to happen, read all about it.
Physicians for Human Rights has a new report out about the targeting of physicians in Kosovo. It's ugly stuff. "in the period 1998 and early 1999, Serbian police and paramilitary forces targeted Kosovar Albanian physicians for allegedly providing care to members of the Kosovo Liberation Army. This persecution breached the requirements of human rights law and the Geneva Conventions by failing to respect physicians' ethical obligation to provide medical care to patients..."
The Science Speaks blog has several great posts from the recent 2009 HIV/AIDS implementers meeting in Namibia. I especially liked this post from Dr. John Idoko, Director General of Nigeria's National Agency for the Control of AIDS, on cost effectiveness, and this detailed look at HIV prevention. For highlights of the meeting overall, this post is useful.
This week the WHO declared swine flu to be a pandemic. (see my other post today). Maryn McKenna reminds us that we could have caught the spread of H1N1 a lot faster if anyone had been doing surveillance in pigs. That's a problem not just for swine flu, but for all diseases that pass from animals to humans.
