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2019-01-17
Rockefeller Archive Center;
Colombia and the United States strengthened their trade, scientific and cultural exchanges during the 1920s. In regards to health and medicine issues, the Rockefeller Foundation played a pivotal role between 1919 and 1945, when it conducted scientific research and financed the battle against infectious diseases, above all yellow fever and hookworm. It also encouraged the development of a public health system in Colombia by creating American-inspired institutions and training health professionals.
2019-04-30
Urban Indian Health Institute;
This brief examines the health outcomes, structural barriers, and the action steps to break these barriers and achieve health equity for AI/AN.
2019-01-14
Rockefeller Archive Center;
With generous financial support provided by the Rockefeller Archive Center, I was able to pay a research visit to Rockefeller Archive Center from July 20 to September 7, 2018. This was my second visit to the Center, following one in 2008, when the Center granted and financially supported my one-month-long access to its archival resources. This second visit proved to be an important one. This time I took advantage of the fact that the Center now allows archive users to take photographs. As a result, I was able to proceed with my work efficiently and made extensive use of archival material which I missed in my previous visit. This report presents a description of the important historical materials I have viewed and collected during this visit. It includes seven subjects in general, described as follows, that together constitute my research project, Modern China and Rockefeller Foundation (1913-1966).
2019-02-06
Rockefeller Archive Center;
My research at the Rockefeller Archive Center (RAC) investigated the pivotal period from the 1920s to the 1940s when health practitioners and scientists in the Rockefeller Foundation were confident that they could alleviate, and probably eradicate, serious but little understood diseases such as yaws. During these decades, the IHD, and its predecessor before 1927, the International Health Bureau (IHB), embarked upon transferring the Foundation's early successes in public health from the southern United States, notably with hookworm and sanitation campaigns, to overseas. In 1916, the IHB had succeeded the International Health Commission (IHC), founded in 1913. The original mission of the IHC drove the IHB/IHD: the "promotion of public sanitation and the spread of knowledge of scientific medicine." Yaws became an add-on to that mission, although syphilis and its links to yaws in tropical countries never quite assumed the attention Turner demanded. But the diseases are entwined, often confused, and worthy of in-depth investigation. My research at RAC formed part of my wider project on the history of yaws and syphilis, but unlike Turner and Sawyer's principal focus on the Caribbean, I sought to concentrate on the vast Asia-Pacific region. My aim is to tackle this history longitudinally and across cultures to look at changing discourse, theories and practices regarding treatments for these diseases and socio-cultural perceptions, especially in relation to causation, symptoms and consequences. These significant diseases have had a huge global impact but have not been investigated together by historians. The Asia-Pacific region is rarely mentioned in publications on syphilis or yaws.
2019-03-06
Center for Economic and Policy Research;
Patent monopolies on prescription drugs raise their price by one or two orders of magnitude above the free market price. In this way, they are equivalent to tariffs of several thousand percent or even tens of thousands of percent. Just as tariffs lead to economic distortions, and provide incentives for corruption, so do patent monopolies on prescription drugs. We continually see evidence of this as drug companies are routinely found to make payoffs to keep generics out of the market, promote their drugs for uses for which they are inappropriate, and conceal evidence they are less effective than claimed, or even harmful. The enormous distortions from patent monopolies mean that there are large potential gains from working around them. This working paper discusses four mechanisms for getting drug prices closer to free market levels with actions at the state or local level or by private actors.
2019-04-01
FSG;
People of color in the United States experience poorer health and more premature, preventable mortality than their White counterparts. Although health care companies prioritize achieving health equity, their efforts often focus on disparities caused by poverty, education, and disability without explicitly addressing how structural racism significantly raises the risk of poor health for people of color. Corporate diversity and inclusion efforts, while helpful, are not sufficient to counter biases in clinical practice or access to health care. By better serving communities of color, health care companies can deliver better outcomes and strengthen their own economic performance.A follow-up to The Competitive Advantage of Racial Equity, developed in partnership with PolicyLink, this report focuses on actions taken by companies in the health care sector to create business value by addressing the unique challenges faced by communities of color. The companies featured in this report—ProMedica, Kaiser Permanente, Cigna, and UnitedHealth Group—have adopted several business strategies that improve health outcomes for people of color and create a competitive advantage through reduced costs, avoided readmissions, and greater member satisfaction.
2019-04-01
Center for Economic and Policy Research;
This paper looks at some of the most important impacts of the economic sanctions imposed on Venezuela by the US government since August of 2017. It finds that most of the impact of these sanctions has not been on the government but on the civilian population.The sanctions reduced the public's caloric intake, increased disease and mortality (for both adults and infants), and displaced millions of Venezuelans who fled the country as a result of the worsening economic depression and hyperinflation. They exacerbated Venezuela's economic crisis and made it nearly impossible to stabilize the economy, contributing further to excess deaths. All of these impacts disproportionately harmed the poorest and most vulnerable Venezuelans.Even more severe and destructive than the broad economic sanctions of August 2017 were the sanctions imposed by executive order on January 28, 2019 and subsequent executive orders this year; and the recognition of a parallel government, which as shown below, created a whole new set of financial and trade sanctions that are even more constricting than the executive orders themselves.We find that the sanctions have inflicted, and increasingly inflict, very serious harm to human life and health, including an estimated more than 40,000 deaths from 2017–2018; and that these sanctions would fit the definition of collective punishment of the civilian population as described in both the Geneva and Hague international conventions, to which the US is a signatory. They are also illegal under international law and treaties which the US has signed, and would appear to violate US law as well.
2019-01-02
Loyola University Chicago Center for Urban Research and Learning;
CURL formed a partnership with Women and Girls' Collective Action Network and Chicago Girls' Coalition to conduct a secondary data analysis to determine how young women and girls are faring in Illinois. This project aims to provide statistical evidence that will inform on the issues, needs, and solutions required to ensure the healthy development of all young women and girls in Illinois.
2019-01-08
John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation;
MacArthur Foundation's Population and Reproductive Health Program in Mexico entered a final phase from 2015 – 2019. Since entering the field in 1986, the program aimed to contribute to Mexico's progress in reducing the national maternal mortality ratio. In the 1990s, it helped create and strengthen a national movement that followed two of the field's most important international conferences for reproductive health: the International Conference on Population and Development (1994) and the Fourth World Conference on Women (1995).The Foundation contracted with Consultores Colibrí an external evaluator, to conduct the evaluation of its midwifery initiative. A baseline evaluation was completed in February 2016. It explores the landscape and baseline information related to the four thematic areas of the final phase of our work: legal and normative framework, recognition and demand, education, deployment and quality of care. And a progress report was completed in 2018. The progress report focuses on the same four areas of work: documenting knowledge and acceptance of the concept of midwifery, professional midwives who attended labor and delivery in the public health care system, evidence-based practices used in midwifery training, and the quality of care provided by midwives and physicians. Both reports represent the use of quantitative and qualitative methodologies and analysis techniques.
2019-01-08
John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation;
MacArthur Foundation's Population and Reproductive Health Program in Mexico entered a final phase from 2015 – 2019. Since entering the field in 1986, the program aimed to contribute to Mexico's progress in reducing the national maternal mortality ratio. In the 1990s, it helped create and strengthen a national movement that followed two of the field's most important international conferences for reproductive health: the International Conference on Population and Development (1994) and the Fourth World Conference on Women (1995).The Foundation contracted with Consultores Colibrí an external evaluator, to conduct the evaluation of its midwifery initiative. A baseline evaluation was completed in February 2016. It explores the landscape and baseline information related to the four thematic areas of the final phase of our work: legal and normative framework, recognition and demand, education, deployment and quality of care. And a progress report was completed in 2018. The progress report focuses on the same four areas of work: documenting knowledge and acceptance of the concept of midwifery, professional midwives who attended labor and delivery in the public health care system, evidence-based practices used in midwifery training, and the quality of care provided by midwives and physicians. Both reports represent the use of quantitative and qualitative methodologies and analysis techniques.
2019-05-27
The European Chronic Disease Alliance (ECDA);
A joint paper by the European Chronic Disease Alliance (ECDA), the European Public Health Alliance (EPHA) and the NCD Alliance calls for the creation of an EU Strategic Framework for the Prevention of NCDs towards 2030.Indeed, with epidemic levels of NCDs undermining people's well-being, healthcare systems, and Europe's economic and social prosperity, they consider that preventing chronic diseases should be a main priority for the European Commission.Therefore, the paper proposes principles, priorities and actions for such an EU strategic framework, setting out a roadmap for policy-makers to make change happen.More information and the summary: https://epha.org/joint-paper-i-towards-an-eu-strategic-framework-for-the-prevention-of-ncds/
2019-04-08
Social Science Research Council (SSRC);
This brief provides key policy messages based on a large-scale longitudinal study from 2008 to 2016 in twelve communes in three Vietnamese provinces by the Vietnam Academy of Social Sciences (VASS) and the Social Science Research Council (SSRC).The project's objective was to understand household health practices and health-seeking behavior in Viet Nam, especially among economically and socially disadvantaged groups.Key findings highlight the main areas where donors and the government will need to focus in the coming years in order to improve and reduce disparities in health outcomes.These recommendations include:Increasing the use and effectiveness of commune health centers (CHCs)Improving antenatal care and utilizationHelping CHCs implement preventive health care and essential disease control programs
