This week the AIDS2018 Conference in Amsterdam kicked off with an explicit focus on diversity, key populations and young people. AIDS conferences are always a bit of a celebration, bringing together scientists and activists, politicians and social society, donors and implementers in an invigorating combination of evidence, practice and protest. ...

Health financing is one of the six building blocks of a health system, and health insurance is key to making progress with UHC, yet it continues to be a major challenge in the Nigerian health system. It is uncertain that Nigeria will achieve Universal Health Coverage (UHC) by 2030 as a target of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The Nati...

It is now three days after one of the most exciting FIFA world cups of recent times and already, to some of my male colleagues, it feels as if they have entered one of the black holes in the universe. In this year’s edition of the event, teams like Italy and the Netherlands which are usually fixtures in the competition were noticeable absences...

The authors are staff members at LSHTM and are all involved in the health sector component of the SOAS Anti-Corruption Evidence (ACE) programme   Once, such things were only talked of in private. But this time it was different. Those present, coming from government, universities, civil society, and international agencies, were speaking openly ab...

Last week, a few thousand researchers, policymakers and practitioners gathered in Seattle for the Annual Research Meeting of AcademyHealth, the leading organization for health services research in the U.S.  Health services research (or HSR as it is called in the U.S., which is confusing as it is also an acronym for health systems research) and ...

As you probably know by now, this year the 40th anniversary of the Alma Ata declaration is being celebrated. The declaration committed the world to achieving Health for All via Primary Health Care (PHC), and this by 2000. That didn’t quite work out. As a reminder, “The Primary Health Care principles affirm health as a human right based on eq...

While most people living in the Americas these days wake up to watch soccer matches of their all-time favorite country teams (Argentina, Brazil, Mexico…), we Nicaraguans wake up to count the dead and the missing from the night before. Living under siege has become the ‘new normal’ since a nation-wide social uprising started on April 18th. ...

Career planning is very important, and not just for football players. Sometimes it is good to have a coach who can help you refine your goals, outline the things you need to do in order to achieve those goals and assist with finding relevant contacts in your field. True, it is not always necessary to have a coach if you are very disciplined and ...

Well, that was interesting. The G7 countries (plus or minus 1—more on that later) and a handful of low and middle income countries (LMICs) met last week in Canada, and the world is still reeling from the drama. I hate to say it, but that’s what seems to happen these days, when you leave it up to politicians to solve the world’s problems....