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Young (and occasionally less young) researchers, mostly from LMICs, present their views on global health issues.
A beaming Trump, surrounded by hundreds of fans: “Oh boy. We love UHC. We love UHC. Thank you. Thank you. Oh this is a great place to be. Thank you very much. Great evening. We will be celebrating for a long time tonight. Have a good time. Have a good time, folks. You know we weren’t expecting—a couple of years ago, we weren’t expecting ...
Confronted with the myriad of (interconnected) crises in Europe, people all over the continent are increasingly starting to wonder whether the EU is still ‘fit for purpose’. The reluctant remaining fans acknowledge that “if the EU didn’t exist, it would probably have to be invented again” (to help deal with 21st century global challeng...
The number one cause of ill health is poverty, and power is the underlying dynamic determining why the poor are poor, and – let us not forget – why the rich are rich. That’s how I see things, and that’s why I’m interested in understanding power as a distal but pervasive determinant of health, notably at the level of health policy. Howe...
“We don’t want anything. We don’t need a single rupee or tea but only do something on water and give us drinking water”. – Hiren(a pseudonym), male, village health, sanitation and nutrition committee members, rural northern India While conducting an implementation research study in a marginalized area of northern India, on the imple...
Last January 29-31, 2016, I was blessed to attend the Prince Mahidol Award Conference (PMAC) – Thailand’s annual global health event – for the third time, and I felt very elated that this year’s award for public health went to Sir Michael Marmot – a global health icon who of course needs no introduction. This news did not come as a s...
As the Reachout consortium reminded us in a series of well tweeted-about presentations at Prince Mahidol Award Conference (PMAC) 10 days ago, community health workers (CHW) need to be a centerpiece of human resource for health (HRH) policies targeting health equity, effectiveness and efficiency via universal health coverage (UHC). Their work i...
The issue of open defecation persists in India leaving millions vulnerable to disease. Is India’s Swacch Bharat Abhiyan (SBA) or Clean India Mission the solution to this deeply entrenched social and structural issue? Train travel on Indian railways – one of the largest train networks in the world – offers a delightful view of the co...
Sixty million people are now forcibly displaced globally and about 6% of people in low- and middle-income countries are further pushed into extreme poverty due to medical impoverishment. You don’t have to look far to realise how severe the “gap” is. Just look around: how many of the people you see have poor access to healthcare services? E...
After spending over three years tracking the evolution of the health related Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the Go4Health Consortium Team (a.k.a. Gophers) held its final dissemination seminar at the Prince Mahidol Award Conference ( PMAC ) in Bangkok. This year’s theme, “priority setting for UHC”, provided a focus for our end of p...