Ashton Kutcher Proves Global Health is Sexy

Published April 20, 2009 @ 05:01PM PT

If anyone still doubted that global health was a now sexy topic, Ashton Kutcher has proven them wrong. He engaged in a high-profile contest with CNN to see who can gather one million Twitter followers first. If he won, he promised to donate ten thousand bed nets to Malaria No More. Kutcher did win, narrowly.

You'd expect me to be excited about this, and I am trying, I promise. There is a solid argument to be made that any attention to a major health problem is good attention. And he's not focusing on HIV, which is a nice change as celebrity advocacy goes.

Bednets, however, are not an unequivocal good. For one thing, they are mostly imported, which touches on the imported solution problems I mentioned in my last two posts. This piece at Project Diaspora discusses bednets and local empowerment in detail. Bednets are not necessarily used by the recipients for the intended purpose; they've been made into wedding dresses and used as fishing nets, for example. Finally, Scientific American points out that current bednet design is based on houses with flat roofs where every family member has their own bed. This isn't all that useful for a family sleeping on the floor in a one or two room hut.

There are other ways to reduce the incidence of malaria. Indoor residual spraying is recommend by the World Health Organization, as is reducing mosquito vectors such as pools of standing water. I can't really blame Ashton Kutcher for not knowing that. He isn't an expert on malaria prevention and treatment. Which is, of course, a major problem with celebrity advocacy.

So, in the end, I guess I feel the same way I do every time a global health issue hits the mainstream media. More coverage is good, and may lead to public support for increasing government and NGO funding on issues that matter to everyone. I always wish, though, that the coverage would have a little more detail on the health topic in question and a little less on the celebrity or scare tactic that brought us the attention.

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Comments (7)

I agree with your post, it is a double edged sword when we have celebrities take on causes in the spotlight, which is why i look forward to seeing the work that my organization, Interfaith Youth Core, does with the Tony Blair Faith Foundation in the next year as they launch the Faiths Act Fellowship. http://pitch.pe/9173

Posted by Kara Carrell on 04/21/2009 @ 06:57AM PT
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"Bednets are not necessarily used by the recipients for the intended purpose".

Neither is IRS necessarily done correctly, and if you do a search I am sure you will come up with some literature. Similarly, draining water catchments ignores that Anopheles mosquitoes can and will fly long distances (we are talking between 2.5 and 14 km here).

The question is: which intervention or combination of interventions is most effective. I don't think there is any intervention that is guaranteed 100% used correctly. This sort of argument can be used to disparage any action. That an intervention is not always successful does not mean it is always so.

Posted by Michael Keizer on 04/21/2009 @ 11:34PM PT
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More about strategies versus interventions to combat malaria: http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/rwb.nsf/db900sid/KHII-7RC575?OpenDocument&RSS20&RSS20=FS

Posted by Michael Keizer on 04/23/2009 @ 08:46PM PT
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Just came across a very pertinent piece of research, recently published in the malaria research: Costs and consequences of large-scale vector control for malaria. Their conclusion:
Both ITNs and IRS are highly cost-effective vector control strategies. ... ITNs are more cost-effective than IRS for highly endemic settings, especially if high ITN coverage can be achieved with some demographic targeting.</blockquote>

Posted by Michael Keizer on 05/02/2009 @ 04:19AM PT
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I couldn't agree with you more on this. I don't like that we're talking about saving lives by following celebritites on Twitter. The fact that the bet is bigger news than the problem disturbs me.

Educating ourselves and caring for the world around us are secondary goals when we're only doing it to win a popularity contest. It sends the wrong message, but at the same time, if it's the only way the majority of people will do something, I tolerate it.

Still, I couldn't bring myself to sign the change.org action asking Kutcher to pledge more nets and I didn't follow him.

I think you should be a celebrity and bring this important information to the public. Can you contact Larry King by any chance? :)

Posted by Michele Rodriguez on 04/22/2009 @ 12:10AM PT
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Maybe the happy middle-ground would be for celebrities to stick with simply drawing attention to problems, but leave the tasks of identifying and implementing workable solutions to the professionals.

Posted by Tales From the Hood on 04/28/2009 @ 12:55PM PT
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At least Ashton is drawing attention to this important cause!

http://www.youtube.com/v/GejR-htwI8s&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xcfcfcf&hl=en&feature=player_embedded&fs=1

Posted by G Y on 06/26/2009 @ 09:15AM PT
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Alanna Shaikh has spent the last ten years immersed in global health; she has worked for NGOs, companies, universities, and the US government on projects that ranged from preventing antibacterial resistance to improving maternal and child health.