A featured article published in this space on December 19, 2022 was called ‘Confronting the uncomfortable: Emerging voices’ reflections after a talk on decolonization‘. In it, eight EV’s who in Medellín had attended the Face-to-Face part of the EV 2022 venture reflected on a talk on decolonisation I delivered there at Antioquia Univers...

In less than four weeks from now, three dozen Emerging Voices from all over the world will gather in Medellín, Colombia, for their final leap towards exposure. Following ten days of face-to-face coaching, they will be the next cohort (EV2022) of an established Thematic Working Group of Health Systems Global and will have their rite of passage ...

What a week this was. In case I wouldn’t have noticed, on Friday 14th the mayor of the privileged town I live in (Antwerp) warned against “the identification of young Muslims, 14-15-16 years old, with a certain frustration – youngsters who now receive those images, unfiltered through social media and with one-sided interpretation”. I didn...

It seemed to be some kind of a turning point when I landed at Brussels Airport, at least for me. Indeed, having left behind nearly 17 years of life on the edge in one tiny village in Nicaragua, I was no longer  a ‘Far West doctor’, as a friend had once described me. There I stood, a daughter to the left, a daughter to the right, and 250$ in...

In case you’ve never heard of the Commercial Determinants of Health (CDoH), here’s a short refresher. In times gone by, some of us hoped that the Social Determinants of Health (SDH) framework would bring “Health for All” a bit closer. That didn’t happen. We lost ourselves even more than before in lifestyle and risk factor bubbles. The...

No irony is in place when reflecting on a World Health Day in pandemic times. Hope is what I felt when I received an invitation for Word Health Day’s WHO webinar: ‘An urgent call to work together to tackle health inequities’. Delight is what I felt early morning April 7th, when WHO sent out in advance the accompanying brief ‘It’s time...

Last week, David Graeber passed away, way too early, unfortunately. In this short article, some ITM staff dwell on what David Graeber meant to them, and what the global health community could and perhaps should learn from him. Feel free to weigh in as well under the blog. “Yes, we must mourn David Graeber. Thinking about his work is proba...

When João Costa sent his blog to IHP’s editorial team, his accompanying mail finely mentioned that “his text might steer polemics, but they will be indeed healthy ones”. As a privileged pre-publication reader/reviewer, I couldn’t agree more – and hope that the few comments I offer below may positively contribute to the healthy exchange ...

Not every day we attend conferences that in their announcement declare global health to be “only the newest iteration of what was formerly international health, tropical medicine and colonial medicine”. Which is precisely what attracted this grey-haired whitey – working in what is still called an Institute of Tropical Medicine – to the “D...

On 23 October, 150 international experts gathered at the Institute of Tropical Medicine (ITM) in Antwerp for a symposium to take stock on progress on the way to ‘health for all’. Some elephants were spotted in the room. Might one of them be a doctor?   Prof Bart Criel, the initiator of the symposium, rightly pointed out that the Alma-Ata Dec...

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. ...

Caveat lector! The author of these 907 words is a socialist, and dislikes doublespeak. I hope this warning makes you read on as it explains my ambivalent feelings whenever the World Bank speaks out on poverty, inequity, exclusion, or people at large. It all started with the World Development Report 1980, part II: Poverty and Human Development, i...

Once every twenty years the United Nations brings together thousands of participants from member states to garner and secure political commitment, review past commitments, address and identify challenges towards sustainable urban development. This week, Quito (Ecuador) played host to the UN’s third conference on Housing and Sustainable Urban D...

In India, a 1.2 billion people, 29 states and 7 union territories South Asian giant, infant mortality finally came down to 40 deaths per 1000 live births. Behind this national average hide both a comforting 12/1000 in the southern state of Kerala and an unacceptable 54/1000 in the north-eastern state of Assam. Out of 100 kids India-wide, 5 die b...

Zika virus is making headlines all around the world. In Latin America, Zika caused little less than a turmoil. In less than a year, perception veered from one more dengue-like discomfort to that of a devilish threat, particularly so since its possible association with microcephaly. Not unsurprisingly in times when health is increasingly seen as ...

Our Newsletter’s editor-in-chief (allow me to call you like that, Kristof) is a very curious guy. An early draft of Sara and Pierre’s Featured Article for this week’s IHP issue, ‘Health in Argentina’ had only just landed on his desk (the draft included a reference to “achievements in the field of social determinants of health”, und...

Dear colleagues, Ever wondered how journalistic writing is totally different from academic writing? Chances are you do when yet another of your policy briefs satisfies the agency that funded your research but doesn’t make any difference in the outer world. Reason to worry, if you pretend to belong to those “switching the poles in internation...