While significant progress has been made in improving the lives of women and girls over the past two decades, far too often addressing “women’s health” in low- and middle-income countries is still equated to improving their reproductive health. In reality, women’s health needs are diverse and span the entire spectrum of universal health care.
by Janelle Weaver
The combination of air pollution and HIV infection may have a greater detrimental impact on the cognitive abilities of school-aged children than exposure to either factor alone, according to an NIEHS-funded study. The findings, published in January 2018 in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, also reveal an alarmingly high prevalence of air pollution exposure, regardless of HIV status, in children living in urban settings in Sub-Saharan Africa.
Scant resources force low- and middle-income countries to use cost-conscious innovations to improve access to and standards of mental health care, with mobile technology and task-shifting often the tools of choice to achieve this.
In this video interview Dr. Abraham Flaxman, Associate Professor of Global Health at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington, explains the importance of verbal autopsy and how updated software is improving this method.
Stefan Wiktor, acting professor of global health at the University of Washington Schools of Public Health and Medicine, has received funding through the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) to promote HIV prevention and treatment and to help Zimbabwe’s efforts to reach HIV epidemic control. The five-year cooperative agreement, with an annual budget of about $15 million, is administered by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The Lancet Countdown's 2018 report on health and climate change was released November 28. The Lancet Countdown: tracking progress on health and climate change was established to provide an independent, global monitoring system dedicated to tracking the health dimensions of the impacts of, and the response to, climate change.
In the 1980s, at the height of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, more than 59,000 Americans lost their lives to the brutal disease. The $146.6 billion that federal funding has contributed to the battle against AIDS since 2012 is paying off, but AIDS still claims far too many lives and HIV is still far too costly, increasing the average patient’s healthcare costs by roughly 20%. An infographic by WalletHub summarizes HIV/AIDS statistics, along with Q&As with a panel of experts about the disease’s costs.
The U.S. Global Change Research Program released The Fourth National Climate Assessment Volume II on Friday. The National Climate Assessment (NCA) assesses a range of potential climate change-related impacts, with an aim to help decision makers better identify risks that could be avoided or reduced.
Samantha Dolan, a PhD student in Implementation Science, has received the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Grand Challenges Explorations award to use technology to strengthen health systems aimed at improving data use by healthcare workers in order to increase vaccination uptake amongst children in Kenya.
According to the WHO, the number of people worldwide with diabetes has risen from 108 million in 1980 to 422 million in 2014. And this number is expected to keep rising, with diabetes prevalence rising more rapidly in low- and middle-income countries. Diabetes can lead to serious health problems, including blindness, kidney failure, heart attacks, stroke and lower limb amputation.