Category: Section Announcements

APHA 2017 Section Elections Start May 25th!

by ihsection, posted in APHA IH Section, Section Announcements

The polls for the American Public Health Association’s Section Elections will be open May 25 – June 15.

As an APHA member, selecting Section leadership is an integral part of your Association’s governance. We encourage you to take part in this year’s election.

On May 25, look for an email (subject line: “APHA Voting Information Enclosed”) that will include voting instructions and a direct link to your online ballot.

All you have to do is click on the link, review the candidate statements and VOTE!

Rest assured the site is secure and will prevent anyone from voting more than once.

Engaging our members: Results of the 2017 Member Engagement Survey

by Disease Detective, posted in APHA IH Section, Section Announcements

At the beginning of March, the International Health Section sent out a membership engagement survey put together by the Membership, Communications, and Global Health Connections Committees. The survey was sent out over the APHA Connect e-mail listserv and individually to all members who provided an e-mail address with their APHA member profiles. We collected responses for approximately three weeks and closed data collection after about three weeks, on March 25.

Thank you to all who responded! We have been working to analyze the data and discuss the feedback we received. We want our members to know that we are taking this feedback seriously and actively working on changes to our communications and approach to member engagement in response. We hear you loud and clear!

A summary report of the survey responses and the committees’ action plan are included below. You can access this report, as well as an Excel spreadsheet and a Tableau workbook summarizing the survey response data, in the Section’s library on APHA Connect. (You will need to log into Connect using your member ID, so be sure to have it handy.

2017 Member Engagement Survey Results: A Summary
April 21, 2017

Methods
On March 6, a 19-question member engagement survey was sent out over APHA Connect and individually to all members included on the March 1 roster provided by APHA. Of the 2,368 members, 43 did not list an e-mail address, and 61 e-mail addresses were invalid, meaning that the survey link was sent to 2,264 recipients. We received 230 responses between March 6 and March 25, a 10% response rate.

Overview
Of all survey respondents, nearly two-thirds (62%) listed the IH Section as their primary affiliation, compared to 38% with IH as their secondary Section. By membership category, 43% were regular members (full, discounted, or affiliate), 33% were students, 18% were Early Career Professionals (ECPs), and 6% were retired. Primary members (62% of respondents vs. 45% of all members) and ECPs (18% of respondents vs. 11% of all members) were over-represented among survey respondents. Most (86.5%) indicated that they intended to renew their APHA membership.

Consistent with overall membership data, nearly half (45.5%) of respondents had been members for less than a year, and an additional 28% had been a member for 1-3 years. The most common reason listed as the primary motivation for joining APHA was networking (48.7%), followed by professional collaboration (“to connect with other researchers/professionals to collaborate on studies/projects,” 21.3%). Nearly a quarter of respondents indicated that they joined to either attend (13.5%) or present (11.3%) at an Annual Meeting.

Committees and working groups
Members were given the opportunity to indicate if they were interested in learning more about the Section’s committees and working groups, and to provide their e-mail address for the chairs of their selected committees and working groups to reach out to them with information on how to get more involved. Committees that generated the most interest among respondents were Advocacy/Policy (36.5%), Mentorship (23%), and Program (21.3%). Working groups with the largest number of interested respondents included Global Health Connections (46.5%), Maternal and Child Health (27.4%), and Community-Based Primary Health Care (25.7%). Committee and working group selections were not mutually exclusive, as respondents could indicate multiple committees and working groups in their form response.

Communications
Survey respondents seemed to be largely unaware of the Section’s communications platforms. Among the four platforms in the survey, awareness of APHA Connect (https://connect.apha.org) was highest (38.6%), followed by the quarterly Section Connection newsletter (33.1%), the Section’s social media channels (30.2%), and the blog/website (https://aphaih.org, 28.8%). Respondents were most likely to actively read the newsletter (20%) and follow the Section’s social media channels (8.9%).

Discussion and follow-up
The general tone of most of the responses was that members want to get more involved but aren’t sure how, and that our communications channels are not advertised well enough. The Membership, Communications, and Global Health Connections Committees have developed a list of action items, found on the next page, to address the needs indicated by the survey responses.

Action Items

Completed items

  • Distribute e-mail addresses of respondents who were interested in committees/working groups to the respective committee/WG chairs (March 27)
  • Share initial survey results with the Section leadership (March 31 conference call)
  • Make survey data and results analysis available to members in the following formats (April 21):
    1. Written report
    2. Spreadsheet
    3. Dashboard
  • Publish the results of the engagement survey on the IH Blog and the APHA Connect listserv (May)

Ongoing items

  • Include links to APHA Connect, the blog, and all social media channels on all newsletters
  • Promptly send out welcome e-mails to new members when the Membership Committee receives new rosters

Items in development

  • Publish the results of the engagement survey for all members in the Section Connection newsletter (July)
  • Create a checklist for members and present it as a 6- to 12-month program to acquaint them with the IH Section and APHA (June)
  • Host a short webinar to “tour” our social media channels, APHA Connect, old issues of the newsletter, and leadership contact information (August)

Member spotlight: Len Rubenstein featured on NPR’s Morning Edition

by ihsection, posted in APHA IH Section, Conflict and Health, Section Announcements

Longtime IH Section member Len Rubenstein was on NPR’s Morning Edition this week! On Monday morning, he was featured in a story on attacks on health workers in conflict:

Leonard Rubenstein, a lawyer who directs a program on human rights, health and conflict at the Bloomberg School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins. says there were a staggering number of assaults on health care facilities in 2016.

“The international community says it wants to stop this and then does nothing to implement its own recommendations,” he says. “These attacks go on.”
Rubenstein is the editor of a new report called “Impunity Must End” about aggression against health facilities and health workers globally last year.
…
Rubenstein found that health care facilities were under assault last year in many other parts of the world. The report was not able to compile data on the total number of attacks in each country.

“It’s quite remarkable how varied the forms of attack are,” Rubenstein says. “For example we found in 10 countries hospitals were bombed or shelled, in 11 countries health workers were killed, in about 20 countries there were various forms of intimidation — abductions, kidnapping of health workers.”

You to listen to the story here. A transcript is also available.

Policy on #HIV related travel restrictions adopted by @WFPHA_FMASP at #WCPH2017 now posted

by Disease Detective, posted in HIV/AIDS, Human Rights, Policy and Advocacy, Section Announcements

After APHA adopted its permanent policy statement on HIV-related immigration restrictions that we submitted at last year’s Annual Meeting, the IH Section worked with APHA’s WFPHA liaison, Dr. Deborah Klein-Walker, to submit a corresponding policy proposal on behalf of APHA to the World Federation of Public Health Associations, which held its 15th World Congress on Public Health this month in Melbourne, Australia. The proposal was accepted and passed by the WFPHA Policy Committee at the meeting, and has now been posted the website (PDF). The text of the policy (excluding references) is below.

Scientific evidence and treatment needed to combat the spread of HIV – not ineffective travel bans

Submitted by the American Public Health Association
(Contact person D. Walker)

Introduction
HIV-related restrictions against entry, stay, and residence remain common around the world. Various countries have policies that mandate HIV testing of all or certain groups of foreign nationals as a condition of obtaining a visa for employment. These policies have no basis in science and violate migrant workers’ human rights to confidentiality and informed consent to testing, exposing them to exploitation by their employers. According to UNAIDS, 35 countries currently have official HIV-related travel restrictions. Furthermore, HIV-related travel restrictions against foreign nationals have been shown by international treaty bodies, international legal scholars, and human rights organizations to constitute discrimination based on race, ethnicity, and/or country of origin.

Scope and Purpose
Restrictions on travel, immigration, or residence related to HIV status are a violation of the principles of nondiscrimination and equal treatment in all international human rights laws, treaties, and agreements. The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights guarantees the right to equal protection under the law, free from discrimination based on race, color, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth, or other status, and the UN Commission on Human Rights has determined that this includes discrimination based on health status, including HIV infection. According to the Siracusa Principles on the Limitation and Derogation Provisions in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, while international human rights law allows governments to restrict rights in cases of emergency or serious public concern, the restrictions must be the minimum necessary to effectively address the concern – and HIV-related travel restrictions have been overwhelmingly ruled as both overly intrusive and ineffective public health policy. Within such restrictions, compulsory HIV testing is a serious violation of numerous human rights principles, including the right to bodily integrity and dignity. The accompanying deportation and/or loss of employment and residency status of HIV-infected migrants that frequently accompanies such testing violates the rights of PLWHA to privacy, work, and appropriate medical care. The International Labour Organization (ILO) has specifically stated that neither HIV tests nor private HIV-related personal information should be required of employees or job applicants.

Despite this robust evidence base, according to UNAIDS, 35 countries currently have official HIV-related travel restrictions openly acknowledged and enforced by the government. These restrictions vary from outright entry bans, which bar PLWHA from entering the country, to restrictions on stays longer than a specified period of time or to obtain employment visas or residency status. Others have inconsistent policies and/or intentionally misrepresent their policies with HIV-related restrictions. Such policies and practices, and the number of migrants impacted by them, are difficult to track because of differing or ambiguous definitions and a lack of data. Some of the most restrictive policies subject immigrants to mandatory HIV testing, either when applying for residency or for an employment visa, which is frequently required by states for legal residency.

The two primary justifications provided by governments for mandatory HIV tests for migrant workers and other HIV-related travel restrictions are to protect public health and reduce the cost burden on the country’s healthcare system imposed by providing HIV care services to foreign nationals. While countries have the right to employ measures to protect their populations from communicable diseases of public health concern, HIV is not transmitted by casual contact, meaning there is no scientific basis for attempting to control its spread via immigration policies. Furthermore, countries that do not have HIV-related travel restrictions have not reported any negative public health consequences compared to those that do, and recent analysis suggests that even migration from countries with generalized HIV epidemics does not pose a public health risk to destination countries.

In fact, immigration policies banning or restricting entry or employment based on HIV status often have the opposite effect of their protective intention, causing direct harm to the health of both of immigrants and citizens. They marginalize PLWHA, regularly discourage people from accessing HIV testing and treatment, and reinforce stereotypes and discriminatory attitudes against PLWHA in the general population. Regulations requiring HIV tests of immigrants can promote the idea that foreigners are dangerous to the national population and a public health risk, as well as creating a false sense of security by reinforcing the notion that only migrants are at risk for infection. Additionally, such attitudes can adversely impact the host country’s own HIV epidemic, as citizens who are unaware of their HIV-positive status, underestimating their own HIV risk and avoiding testing due to stigmatization, are more likely to transmit the virus to others, driving up infection rates.

State-enforced HIV screening of migrants costs far more than it saves in treatment costs. Screening travelers and migrants for HIV is impractical and expensive.[5][13][19] Labor migrants (both regular and undocumented) bring significant economic benefits to their host countries, in addition to themselves, and this cost-benefit balance remains even when migrants are HIV-positive and rely on the host country’s health care system for treatment and support.

Fields of Application:

  • National public health associations and their members
  • Human rights and HIV advocacy groups
  • UNAIDS
  • The World Federation of Public Health Associations

Action Steps:

The WFPHA joins with UNAIDS, the World Health Assembly, and other HIV and human rights organizations (e.g., Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, ILO) to call on all countries that still maintain and/or enforce HIV-related restrictions on entry, stay, or residence to eliminate such restrictions, ensuring that all HIV testing is confidential and voluntary and that counseling and medical care be available to all PLWHA within its borders, including migrants and foreign nationals.

The WFPHA affirms the following principles:

  • All people have the right to confidential and voluntary HIV testing and counseling.
  • Persons living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHA) have the right to privacy, to work, and to appropriate medical care.
  • All HIV-related travel and immigration restrictions currently in place should be removed.
  • Agencies and businesses who employ foreign nationals should not use HIV tests as a means to discriminate against potential employees.
  • Governments should provide HIV prevention and treatment services that are equally accessible to citizens and foreign nationals.
  • Migrant workers should have access to culturally appropriate HIV prevention and care programs in languages that they can understand.

The WFPHA recommends that:

  1. Public health associations in every country should:
    1. Develop policies opposing HIV-related travel restrictions;
    2. Document and/or support human rights and HIV advocacy groups in documenting immigration policies that explicitly discriminate, or allow employers to discriminate, against migrants based on HIV status;
    3. Document and/or support human rights and HIV advocacy groups in documenting any HIV testing practices that are not voluntary or confidential;
    4. Inform their members and the public that HIV-related travel restrictions and compulsory HIV testing of foreign nationals is a violation of human rights and does not protect public health or reduce health care costs; and
    5. Advocate for the removal of any and all HIV-related travel restrictions enforced or condoned by their country governments.
  2. UNAIDS should take steps to ensure that its protocols to research and investigate countries’ HIV-related travel restrictions are sufficiently thorough by monitoring and documenting any reported instances of HIV-related discrimination targeting immigrants, particularly when presented with evidence demonstrating that recognition of a country’s removal of HIV-related travel restrictions is unwarranted, in order to ensure that governments are not able to misrepresent their policies in order to gain undeserved recognition for supporting human rights with regard to HIV/AIDS.

WFPHA supports the removal of all HIV-related travel restrictions and travel related mandatory testing.

Highlights from National Public Health Week (NPHW)

by ihsection, posted in APHA IH Section, Section Announcements

NPHW Twitter Chat

Thank all of you that participated in a plethora of events during NPHW (April 3rd-April 7th)! One of the events we participated in was the NPHW Twitter Chat (#NPHWchat) sponsored by APHA. During the chat, attendees were presented questions such as those below to foster a discussion on the significant role public health plays in safeguarding and advocating for health!

Global Health Day Photovoice Activity at NDSU

Mark Strand, Section Councilor in the International Health Section of the APHA, teaches Global Health to MPH students.  This semester the 16 students in his class are from Jordan and Syria; Kenya, Somalia and Ghana; Brazil; Nepal and China; and the United States.  As part of National Public Health week the students contributed photos from their home country, and organized a Photovoice activity for visitors to the event.  Attendees were invited to use Post-It notes to write their reactions or thoughts after seeing the photos.  The room buzzed with conversation about how to bring stable government to Somalia, and how to support Syrian refugees around the world.  Many other countries were also represented, and stories of success and hope were shared.  The attendees were enlightened and inspired by what they learned, and students were proud to be able to introduce their own country’s successes and struggles.