Tag: Jimmy Carter

Jimmy Carter, New York Times’ Nicholas Kristof, and Carter Center’s Donald Hopkins To Cover Global Health Challenges in New Conversation on Google+ Series

by ihsection, posted in Information and Social Media

The following is an announcement about an upcoming social media event hosted by the Carter Center.

On Sept. 10 at 3 p.m. ET, former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, New York Times Op-Ed Columnist Nicholas D. Kristof, and Carter Center disease eradication expert Dr. Donald R. Hopkins will hold a special video chat, “Global Health: How We Can Make a Difference,” to kick off a new Conversations on Google+ series that is launching later this fall.

Leading up to the event, from Sept. 4-10, President Carter and Mr. Kristof will participate in online discussions on the social media platform Google+ about the challenges of eradicating neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) when the world is focused on security issues and offer their ideas for progress.

HOW TO PARTICIPATE SEPT. 4-10:

Anyone can join the conversation, Sept. 4 – 10, 2013, when President Carter and Mr. Kristof will post discussion questions on global health to members of the American Public Health Association’s Google+ Public Health Community (direct link below).

Anyone on Google+ can join this Community and share their health-related comments with Carter and Kristof. Participants with the most insightful and thoughtful comments will be selected to join a special Conversations on Google+ online broadcast with President Carter, Mr. Kristof, and Dr. Hopkins live on Sept. 10.

Sign up for Google+, a social media platform, by visiting https://plus.google.com/.

Google+ users can join the Public Health Community by clicking on the “join community” button at the following link: https://plus.google.com/u/0/communities/109215334990434447518.

CONVERSATIONS ON GOOGLE+ LIVE BROADCAST SEPT. 10:

Tune-in on Tuesday, Sept. 10, at 3 p.m. ET for a live broadcast of a Conversation on Google+ hosted by The Carter Center and featuring President Carter, Mr. Kristof, Dr. Hopkins, and selected participants from Google+’s Public Health Community.

Conversations on Google+ allows everyday users the opportunity to engage global experts in discussions on the issues that matter to them. The Conversations on Google+ series will continue with other high profile speakers later in the year.

Anyone can watch the event live or in archive from several locations online:

TWEET WITH US: The Carter Center will be live-tweeting the Sept. 10 event from @CarterCenter using the hashtag #CarterConvo.

WHAT ARE NEGLECTED TROPICAL DISEASES?

NTDs are a group of 17 illnesses that affect more 500 million children and more than 1 billion people worldwide. Often found in the world’s most disadvantaged communities, NTDs can cause severe disability, robbing people of the opportunity to improve their own lives. Children suffering from NTDs often cannot attend school and adult sufferers may be less able to work, harvest food, or care for their families. The Carter Center is a leader in the eradication, elimination, and control of neglected tropical diseases, fighting six preventable diseases — Guinea worm, river blindness, trachoma, schistosomiasis, lymphatic filariasis, and malaria — by using health education and simple, low-cost methods.

ABOUT THE EXPERTS:

  • President Carter and his wife, Rosalynn, founded The Carter Center in 1986 in partnership with Emory University to alleviate suffering worldwide. A long champion of campaigns to wipe out neglected diseases, in 2002, President Carter was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, “for his decades of untiring effort to find peaceful solutions to international conflicts, to advance democracy and human rights, and to promote economic and social development” through his work with the Center.
  • Nicholas D. Kristof is a two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning Op-Ed columnist of The New York Times, best known for writing about poverty, disease, and marginalization around the world.
  • Dr. Donald R. Hopkins is the Carter Center’s vice president for health programs and a former interim director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. A medical doctor, he is internationally recognized for his work on NTDs and disease eradication, including smallpox and Guinea worm disease.

About Google+ :

Google+ is a sharing and communications platform that brings your real-world friendships and relationships online for a fun, interactive experience—as well as lets you make new friends and connections with people who share your passions and interests. Much more than a social network, Google+ makes it even easier to use other Google products, share content, and use integrated text and video chat—all for free. https://plus.google.com/

About The Carter Center:

A not-for-profit, nongovernmental organization, The Carter Center has helped to improve life for people in more than 70 countries by resolving conflicts; advancing democracy, human rights, and economic opportunity; preventing diseases; improving mental health care; and teaching farmers in developing nations to increase crop production. The Carter Center was founded in 1982 by former U.S. President Jimmy Carter and his wife, Rosalynn, in partnership with Emory University, to advance peace and health worldwide.

Follow Nicholas Kristof on Social Media:

Global Health News Last Week

by ihsection, posted in News

SECTION NEWS
The Advocacy/Policy Committee would like to invite you to participate in our first Advocacy Day, led in partnership with the Global Health Council. The day, scheduled for Thursday, November 3rd, 2011, immediately following the annual meeting in Washington, D.C., will be an opportunity for us to voice support for a continued focus on international health to our elected officials. With the intense Congressional pressure to cut the budget, our voices can make a real difference. As a participant during this exciting day, you will be provided with training materials on effective advocacy techniques to ensure your message is clearly heard. Even if you do not have advocacy experience, you need not hesitate to sign up because you will be teamed with others. Please consider joining your fellow International Health Section members on Thursday, November 3rd, 2011 on Capitol Hill to advocate for a healthy globe. Interested parties should register here. Please note that registration will close on October 14th. Any questions should be directed to Peter Freeman, Advocacy/Policy Committee Chair, at pffreeman@gmail.com or 773.318.4842.

POLITICS AND POLICY

PROGRAMS

  • Sanitation and hygiene are sensitive and unpopular subjects, but funding them is essential to fighting disease, ensuring basic rights and meeting millennium development goals.
  • The Gates Foundation’s European director Joe Cerrell comes to the defense of the beleaguered Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria, arguing to improve on its “impressive record and ensure that millions more lives are saved and the progress against global disease is secured for generations to come.”
  • Almost four months into the Horn of Africa crisis, aid agencies are involved in much soul-searching as to whether they could have responded more quickly to the drought and famine.

RESEARCH AND INNOVATION

  • A Japanese company, the Sumitomo Chemical Company, unveiled a new kind of insecticide treated bed net at a product launch in Kenya.
  • Pregnant women who load up on fruits, veggies and whole grains have a reduced risk of having babies with neural tube defects, such as spina bifida or cleft lip, according to one of the first studies to look at the connection between diet and birth defects.
  • A study by Stanford researchers has determined that infant health can be improved when a mother has a low-fat high fiber diet up to a year prior to getting pregnant.
  • A study published in the British Medical Journal says that if current smoking trends continue until 2050, TB related deaths will jump by 40 million.
  • Though young, there is a lot of potential in what mHealth can offer in developing countries. Amanda Glassman shares some ways that it can be improved.
  • Researchers at the University of Washington have reported some highly problematic findings regarding a common method of birth control in eastern and southern Africa. They are problematic in that they indicate a popular injectable hormone, Depo-Provera, used by perhaps 140 million women worldwide (and often in poor settings) signficantly raises a woman’s risk of HIV infection.
  • Test subjects in a Spanish HIV vaccine trial have shown a 90 percent immune response.

DISEASES AND DISASTERS

  • A cohort of American and British researchers say that by investing in AIDS treatments, money can be saved in the long term.
  • What should be the top priorities in global health? Infectious diseases? Neglected tropical diseases (NTDs)? Non-communicable diseases (NCDs)? A research scientist wonders at the confusion amid this sea of bad acronyms.
  • Former US President Carter is leading the fight against guinea worm making a request that WHO members provide $93 million in funding to wipe out the disease.  DfID has committed to support the push against guinea worm by announcing it will allocating £20 million to the effort.
  • The business news channel CNBC has published an extensive report on the lucrative and growing Dangerous World of Counterfeit Prescription Drugs.

Global Health News Last Week (plus interest in a new working group!)

by ihsection, posted in News

Attention IH Section Members: Dr. Kaja Abbas, MPH student at the University of Rochester, is gauging interest in forming a working group focused on using system science to improve global health, similar to the intitiaves being promoted by NIH. Her interests are in conducting system science research on global health policy by modeling population and disease dynamics and economic evaluation of public health interventions and systems, with a focus on HIV and TB. Dr. Malcolm Bryant, our section chair, has encouraged the expansion of our section’s activities in areas of technical expertise, and Dr. Abbas is enthusiastic about a working group within the section that promotes system science methodologies for global health solutions. She welcomes your thoughts and suggestions at kaja [dot] abbas [at] gmail [dot] com.

Global Health Delivery online’s HIV prevention community is hosting a “virtual expert panel” March 7-11 to continue the dialogue around PrEP as a novel approach to prevention. Panelists from Uganda, South Africa and the United States will lead the online discussion, highlighting various barriers and opportunities to implementing PrEP in clinical settings; how to encourage long-term adherence; and what additional research questions need to be answered. Panelists include (1) Douglas Krakower, MD, a fellow in Infectious Diseases at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center/Harvard Medical School, (2)Andrew Mujugira, MBChB, MSc, the East Africa regional medical director for the Partners PrEP study, and (3) Vivek Naranbhai, PhD, who was involved in CAPRISA microbicide gel study. All GHDonline members can participate in this online discussion. You can sign up here if you are not currently a member.

POLICY

  • Paramount Chief Mpezeni of the Ngoni people in the Eastern Province of Zambia has urged his subjects to get circumcised in order to reduce the chances of spreading HIV/AIDS and other communicable diseases in his land.
  • Britain is threatening to pull out of the Food and Agriculture Organization due to “patchy” performance.
  • Due to uncertainty in past estimates, the Indian government has formed a 16-member expert group to determine the annual death rate caused by malaria in the country each year.
  • The breakdown of the air conditioning in the plenary hall of the Philippines’ House of Representatives stalled the heated debate of a controversial reproductive health bill. The bill is vehemently opposed by the Catholic Church and pro-life groups and has caused a stir in the largely Catholic country.
  • A massive demonstration rally was held in New Delhi to protest a free trade agreement between India and Europe, which many fear may threaten the production of low-cost generic drugs, particularly HIV medicines.

RESEARCH

PROGRAMS

DISEASES