International Public Health Commons^™

The International Right To Health: What Does It Mean In Legal Practice And How Can It Affect Priority Setting For Universal Health Coverage?, Rebecca Dittrich, Leonardo Cubillos, Lawrence O. Gostin, Ryan Li, Kalipso Chalkidou

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The international right to health is enshrined in national and international law. In a growing number of cases, individuals denied access to high-cost medicines and technologies under universal coverage systems have turned to the courts to challenge the denial of access as against their right to health. In some instances, patients seek access to medicines, services, or technologies that they would have access to under universal coverage if not for government, health system, or service delivery shortfalls. In others, patients seek access to medicines, services, or technologies that have not been included or that have been explicitly denied for coverage …

Global Health Security Agenda Legal Landscape Assessment, Natasha M. Nussbaum

Master's Projects and Capstones

The Global Health Security Agenda (GHSA) was created on February 13, 2014, to improve country's ability to detect, prevent and respond to emerging health threats. Eleven action packages were created. The detection action package included antimicrobial resistance, zoonotic diseases, national biosafety/biosecurity and immunization. The prevention action package included establishing a national laboratory system, strengthening real-time biosurveillance, advancing timely and accurate disease reporting and establishing a trained global health security workforce.The response action package focused on establishing emergency operation centers, linking public health and law enforcement and enhancing medical countermeasures/personnel deployment.

The following paper summarizes the components performed for the GHSA …

The Sustainable Development Goals: One-Health In The World’S Development Agenda, Lawrence O. Gostin, Eric A. Friedman

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), adopted by the UN General Assembly in September 2015, embody a One-Health strategy—healthy people living on a habitable planet. Extending beyond the social development emphasis of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which accelerated progress globally, though unequally, the SDGs also encompass a range of environmental and economic goals, with a health goal that is far more comprehensive than the infectious diseases and maternal/child health focus of the MDGs.

To be achieved, the SDGs require resources and political commitment that is yet to be demonstrated. With a cost that could reach $5 trillion for the SDGs …

Postcolonialism And The Marshallese Diaspora: Structural Violence And Health In The Marshallese Community In Springdale, Arkansas, Alexander J. Hirata

Master's Theses

Despite moving to the United States for better healthcare, among other benefits, Marshallese Compact of Free Association (COFA) migrants residing in Springdale, Arkansas continue to face similar acute health problems as Marshallese living in the Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI), and often without access to health services. These problems include high rates of noncommunicable diseases, such as type 2 diabetes and thyroid cancer, as well as rare conditions such as Hansen’s Disease.

To research this, I studied the limited texts surrounding the Marshallese diaspora, as well as relevant bodies of literature: postcolonialism, Pacific migration theory, and global health and …

Forced Migration, The Human Face Of A Health Crisis, Lawrence O. Gostin, Anna E. Roberts

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Nearly 60 million refugees, asylum-seekers and internally displaced persons (IDPs) fled their homes in 2014, predominately from war-torn Syria, Afghanistan and Somalia. The global response to assisting this vulnerable group has been wholly incommensurate with the need given the profound health hazards faced by forced migrants at each stage of their journey. The majority of forced migrants are housed in lower-income countries that do not have the infrastructure to assist the significant numbers of individuals who are crossing their borders and the humanitarian organizations who seek to assist in the response are grossly underfunded and under-resourced.

Countries have varying responsibilities …

The International Health Regulations 10 Years On: The Governing Framework For Global Health Security, Lawrence O. Gostin, Mary C. Debartolo, Eric A. Friedman

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The World Health Organization (WHO) and its global health security treaty, the International Health Regulations (2005) (IHR) have lost the world's confidence after the West African Ebola epidemic. The epidemic led to several high-level reviews of the IHR and global health security more broadly. Here, we propose a series of recommendations for operational and legal reforms to enhance the functioning of the FCGH. It is critical that WHO act on them quickly, before the window of opportunity for fundamental reform closes.

WHO should ensure that all states fulfill their obligations to develop national core surveillance and response capacities, including through …

Open Access Challenge, Amy Dailey, Janelle Wertzberger

Open Access Week at Gettysburg College

This class activity is designed to help health sciences students understand challenges to accessing public health information in a variety of settings. The exercise was created for students in Prof. Dailey’s Global Health class (HS 322) at Gettysburg College in Fall 2015.

The activity, as well as notes for instructors considering using this exercise, are both shared here.

Developing Maternal And Child Health Curriculum In Rural Uganda, Rebecca Newbrander, Md Candidate

CwiC Posters

Maternal and Child Health in Iganga District Uganda

Maternal and child health outcomes in the East Central Region of Uganda are especially poor compared to the rest of Uganda [1]:

• Only 32% of women (50.7% nationally) informed about signs of pregnancy or delivery complications
• Only 12% of women (62% nationally) received malaria prophylaxis during pregnancy

The “Three Delays Model” of barriers to care[3]:

• Knowing when to seek care and making the decision to do so
• Access to care once decision is reached to seek it
• Receiving quality care at a health center or hospital

Maternal and Child Heath Care in …

Jeffhealth Medical Student Exchange In Rwanda, Amanda Nemecz, Alexander Rowan, Talia Stark

CwiC Posters

Teaching Community Health Workers

In rural Rwandan villages, the communities are linked to healthcare through Community Health Workers (CHW). CHW are appointed based on village election and the requirement that they can read and write. The Rwandan Ministry of Health provides general health training to the CHW so that they can educate and advise the village on health related matters. CHW administer educational sessions at village meetings about prevalent health issues, and advise members of the village when they should go to the Health Center. JeffHEALTH’s teaching aims to supplement the Ministry of Health training. Topics are chosen and approved …

Clinical Experience At Pasteur Clinic Đà Lạt, Vietnam, Emma Howard-Young, Jordan Howard-Young, Ma

CwiC Posters

History of the Pasteur Clinic Đà Lạt

The Pasteur Clinic is associated with the Institut Pasteur, part of the international network of research institutes dedicated to the prevention and treatment of infectious diseases. The Đà Lạt branch of Vietnam’s Institut Pasteur was built between 1930 and 1936 under the direction of Dr. Alexandre Yersin, a physician remembered for identifying Yersinia pestis as the causative agent of Plague and a student of the eponymous French chemist and microbiologist Louis Pasteur. While many overt references to the French colonial tradition have been supplanted in Vietnam by nationalist sentiments, the Institut Pasteur …

Nested Partially-Latent, Class Models For Dependent Binary Data, Estimating Disease Etiology, Zhenke Wu, Maria Deloria-Knoll, Scott L. Zeger

Johns Hopkins University, Dept. of Biostatistics Working Papers

The Pneumonia Etiology Research for Child Health (PERCH) study seeks to use modern measurement technology to infer the causes of pneumonia for which gold-standard evidence is unavailable. The paper describes a latent variable model designed to infer from case-control data the etiology distribution for the population of cases, and for an individual case given his or her measurements. We assume each observation is drawn from a mixture model for which each component represents one cause or disease class. The model addresses a major limitation of the traditional latent class approach by taking account of residual dependence among multivariate binary outcome …

Unicef Communications For Development (C4d) Strategy For The Prevention Of Violence Against Children In South Africa., Marc C. Edberg, Rajiv N. Rimal, Hina Shaikh

Center for Social Well-Being and Development

No abstract provided.

Prevailing Against Polio: India's Holistic Development Strategy, Anonymous Submission

Ex-Patt Magazine

No abstract provided.

Socioeconomic Differences In Antenatal Care Between The United States And Scandinavia, Joshua B. Kiehl

Student Publications

Despite their analogous status as economically developed nations, the United States and Scandinavian countries have marked differences in their healthcare systems. In particular both areas discernibly differ in the antenatal treatment provided for expecting women and their babies. Sweden and Denmark’s healthcare systems are universal, run primarily on taxpayer dollars, and provide equal antenatal care regardless of socioeconomic status. The United States’ healthcare system is run on a combination of private and government run insurance, in which socioeconomic status often determines insurance coverage. This variability in insurance coverage often results in differing levels of antenatal care. An overarching question remains …

Background Literature On Violence Against Children In South Africa: Foundation For A Phased Communications For Development (C4d) Strategy, Mark Edberg, Hina Shaikh, Shaneka Thurman, Rajiv N. Rimal

Center for Social Well-Being and Development

No abstract provided.

Ebola Virus Infection: Overview And Update On Prevention And Treatment, Miguel J. Martínez, Abdulbaset M. Salim, Juan C. Hurtado, Paul E. Kilgore

Department of Pharmacy Practice

In 2014 and 2015, the largest Ebola virus disease (EVD) outbreak in history affected large populations across West Africa. The goal of this report is to provide an update on the epidemic and review current progress in the development, evaluation and deployment of prevention and treatment strategies for EVD. Relevant information was identified through a comprehensive literature search using Medline, PubMed and CINAHL Complete and using the search terms Ebola, Ebola virus disease, Ebola hemorrhagic fever, West Africa outbreak, Ebola transmission, Ebola symptoms and signs, Ebola diagnosis, Ebola treatment, vaccines for Ebola and clinical trials on Ebola. Through 22 July …

Characterizing Ebola Transmission Patterns Based On Internet News Reports., J. C. Cleaton, Cecile Viboud, Lone Simonsen, A. M. Hurtado, G. Chowell

Global Health Faculty Publications

BACKGROUND:  Detailed information on patient exposure, contact patterns, and discharge status, is rarely available in real time from traditional surveillance systems in the context of an emerging infectious disease outbreak. Here we validate the systematic collection of Internet news reports to characterize epidemiological patterns of Ebola virus disease (EVD) infections during the West African 2014-2015 outbreak.

METHODS:  Based on 58 news reports, we analyzed a total of 79 EVD clusters (286 cases) of size ranging from 1 to 33 cases between January 2014 and February 2015 in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia.

RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS:  The great majority of reported …

Household Bush Burning Practice And Related Respiratory Symptoms In Grenada, The Caribbean, Muge Akpinar-Elci, Kareem Coomansingh, James Blando, Larissa Mark

Center for Global Health Publications

The practice of household bush burning in Grenada occurs frequently, though it is not well documented. The effects of the emissions from bush burning on respiratory health of the population have never been researched in Grenada. The goal of the study was to measure the frequency of bush burning and to investigate the relationship between bush burning practice and respiratory health in Grenada. In this cross-sectional study, a questionnaire was used to gather information from households in the parishes of St. George and St. Andrew, Grenada. In total, 225 participants were recruited and their responses on household bush burning and …

The Search For High-Impact Diagnostic And Management Tools For Low-And Middle-Income Countries: A Self-Powered Low-Cost Blood Pressure Measurement Device Powered By A Solid-State Vibration Energy Harvester, Onur Bilgen, John G. Kenerson, Muge Akpinar-Elci, Rebecca Hattery, Lisbet M. Hanson

Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering Faculty Publications

The World Health Organization has established recommendations for blood pressure measurement devices for use in low-resource venues, setting the triple A expectations of Accuracy, Affordability, and Availability. Because of issues related to training and assessment of proficiency, the pendulum has swung away from manual blood pressure devices and auscultatory techniques towards automatic oscillometric devices. As a result of power challenges in the developing world, there has also been a push towards semiautomatic devices that are not dependent on external power sources or batteries. Beyond solar solutions, disruptive technology related to solid-state vibrational energy harvesting may be the next iterative solution …

Center For Global Health Newsletter, Center For Global Health, Old Dominion University

Center for Global Health Newsletter

July-December issue of Old Dominion University's Center for Global Health Newsletter.