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The pandemic has reached all corners of the globe, magnifying and exacerbating existing inequities and disproportionately affecting communities with fragile health and economic systems. This prolonged crisis has only underscored the need for coordinated action — from the community health worker level to the global policy level — to advance better health outcomes for all. I...
Can we end the HIV epidemic in the next five years? President Trump pledged in February to do just that, but it will take vigorous research, aggressive outreach, new global commitments, better access to evidence-based treatment, attitude changes — and resources. Although the viral infection has drawn less attention in recent years, some 37 million people still live with HI...
The climate crisis is a health crisis. But even as climate change contributes to the global burden of disease, killing roughly 4 million people globally since the turn of the century, the health care sector is responsible for 8.5% of US greenhouse gas emissions. With healing as their mission, health professionals and organizations can use their ethical, economic, and poli...
Global health today is characterized by a mix of promising developments and troubling trends. Life expectancy is on the rise, and maternal and child mortality rates are falling. But millions lack basic nutrition, primary health care, and access to vaccinations; we are ill-prepared for the next global pandemic; tobacco use kills six million people annually; and noncommunica...
Community health workers, social media networks, and local residents serve as the first line of defense against global health risks, especially infectious diseases and bioterrorism. While top-down initiatives provide essential resources to detect looming threats, including sophisticated surveillance and diagnostic tools, outbreaks are most likely to be detected first at th...
In every leader's journey, there is a moment, or a series of moments, that stand out — a miserable failure, a grand success, a total surprise. The magic in that experience is rarely just the moment itself, but most often the way in which each leader responded to it. It is that response that shapes a person’s approach to challenge and change forever after. Come hear ten of...
The upcoming US presidential election is likely to have significant implications for health and health care. On the domestic front, the choice could influence efforts to overhaul the Affordable Care Act, reform Medicare, prepare for natural and manmade emergencies, and support cutting-edge research at the National Institutes of Health. Globally, funding for pandemic respon...
An entire generation of children in some of the world’s poorest countries are now protected against deadly infectious diseases, thanks largely to Gavi: The Vaccine Alliance. Impact: more than 16 million lives saved, vast healthcare cost savings, and greater global health security. A leading force behind the push for equitable access to COVID-19 vaccines, Gavi has played a...
More than 140,000 people from more than 140 countries have told researchers just what they think and feel about science and key health challenges, such as vaccinations. Wellcome is releasing the findings for the first time at Aspen Ideas: Health. The largest such survey to date cuts across language, culture, and literacy levels to reveal how much people trust science, whet...
The health effects of climate change sound a clarion warning that we must attend to a rapidly deteriorating environment. Polluted cities, severe droughts and flooding, and devastating storms are portents of a world in which risks to the health of the planet and the health of families are closely linked. We urgently need visionary and strategic leaders who can identify and...
A healthy community is characterized not only by the absence of illness but by attributes that promote well-being and enable a high quality of life. While social policy and public and private investments are important contributors, the broad-based engagement of local people is also key. Across the US and globally, people are taking community-building into their own hands,...
Eighteen months after a COVID-19 vaccine became available, high-income countries had administered more than 200 doses per 100 people; in low-income countries, the figure was almost 90 percent less. Access to diagnostics and therapies has been likewise constricted, underscoring the imperative of new approaches to global health equity. Investing in local manufacturing and sc...
With an annual budget of $1.65 trillion, the vast US Department of Health and Human Services oversees Medicare, Medicaid, the National Institutes of Health, the Food and Drug Administration, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and much else. Three Secretaries, past and present from both sides of the aisle, share their experiences about leading the agency and ex...
The climate crisis disproportionately affects women and girls globally, exacerbating existing gender inequalities and threatening their livelihoods, health, and safety. In this session, we’ll discuss the burden on women and girls—particularly in securing resources like food and water—and how their innovation and ingenuity can be major contributors to climate solutions.
From the skewed impact of climate change on the nations that have contributed least to the problem to financing mechanisms that allow primary care services to languish in the poorest countries, inequitable patterns in global health and development are all too evident. To radically reimagine healthcare systems, we need to acknowledge lingering colonialism and commit to exti...
About 40 percent of GDP in the United States is spent on either the health or financial industries, yet workers themselves are in increasingly dire health and financial straits. The plight of a large segment of the American public should be a siren call to sector leaders to align their business goals with actions that enhance household well-being and healthy communities. F...
Seth Berkley, the CEO of GAVI, talks about the importance of vaccines in addressing global health challenges, the role of public-private partnerships in tackling inequities, and new advances in vaccine development.
Infectious diseases represent one of the greatest threats to global health and security. The failures of the Ebola crisis demonstrated that we remain woefully unprepared, but they also served as a wake-up call at the highest levels of policymaking across nations. The twelve-country Commission on a Global Health Risk Framework for the Future has urgently recommended an inte...
Inequitable and untimely responses to COVID-19 and other pandemics. Disproportionate health impacts of climate change in Africa. Unequal financing mechanisms. Lack of reliable data and information. A dearth of leadership guided by human-centered values. These are a few of the many challenges that stand in the way of global health and development systems that work for all....
Sometimes, a single data point can arouse new insights, inspire a novel problem-solving approach, encourage a career shift, or even change a life. In an hour of fast-paced, sensory-rich storytelling, ten trailblazing development leaders from the global South share frontline stories about a piece of data that altered their journeys toward global health — and explain why the...