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Young (and occasionally less young) researchers, mostly from LMICs, present their views on global health issues.
2016 marks a change in history, for better or for worse. In today’s politics, we all witnessed how political correctness, decency and diplomacy were suddenly belittled by being frank, blatant or downright rude, even in dealing with international affairs. Many observers call ours a post-truth post-fact era and even that sounds too nice (I’m f...
The end is near… literally and metaphorically. I think we are at the end of the year, but we are also at the end of something and we are not yet sure what it is. This has been a year of big events and shifts. As a Latin American, I saw with disbelief and frustration the impeachment of the first female president of Brazil, Dilma Rouseff; the ne...
I know Christmas is approaching and so we’re supposed to become a bit more introspective and all that, but hey, it’s still one week! So allow me to share one last frustration (#rant) with you before we all enjoy some time off. As you might have guessed, the “T-word” has something to do with it. I’m not exactly frequenting the corridors...
The population of sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) is ageing rapidly due to improved childhood survival and declining overall fertility. True, the total population share of older adults ( 60 years or more) will remain lower in the SSA region than in other parts of the globe, it is projected – rising from 5% to just under 8% by 2050. However, the absol...
As much as I sympathize with WHO’s Agnes Soucat when she urges Donald Trump to expand Obamacare and ensure all Americans have access to healthcare, and with Rob Yates when he shouts (not for the first time), on Twitter, that UHC can only be reached through PUBLIC financing, I guess at least in the North (Europe & US), we first of all will have...
After attending the Fourth Symposium on Global Health Systems Research (Vancouver, Canada) themed “Resilient and responsive health systems for a changing world” we could not help but search for our lost glass slipper. Influenced by the catastrophic Ebola and Zika outbreaks, this flagship initiative of Health Systems Global (HSG) was immensel...
Rohingyas are said to be the ‘most persecuted minorities in the world’. I don’t have a journal article citation or scientific reference for this, but if you Google using these phrases, you will find their name. Who are the Rohingyas? They are a Muslim minority group residing in the Rakhine state of Myanmar. According to some scholars, Rohi...
Triggered by Asmat Malik’s post Does supporting Brexit and US election results make you a far-right populist? In his article Asmat Malik makes the argument that “It is the time to look beyond the worst aspects of Trump-style-rhetoric and instead capitalize upon the opportunities offered by the ‘Big Bang’”. I believe that we can find ...
Last week, at the global conference on health promotion in Shanghai, Margaret Chan used, as far as I know at least, for the first time the (increasingly familiar) term “post-fact, post-truth” world to describe the world in which ‘health for all/UHC/…’ as well as scientific knowledge now have to be defended. We all have our work cut o...