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Young (and occasionally less young) researchers, mostly from LMICs, present their views on global health issues.
Till recently, I worked as a staff advisor to the Office of the Minister of Health in my country Costa Rica. “What does an advisor to the Minister actually do?” was a question I often got from friends and peers external to the Ministry. I always found it difficult to explain in a brief way what my duties were. Then one day someone asked me i...
International Women’s Day (IWD) was celebrated last Sunday, March 8. It’s been again an outburst of female voices mainly, which is a bit politically correct perhaps, but understandable. No man wants to be slammed down on this day, while making some sort of controversial statement. Still, it would be good to also hear more male voices on IW...
How does an educated and well accomplished woman – say, a female scientist – in a typical African setting avoid stepping on the often overly sensitive toes of her husband or male partner? How can she balance her career, family, and social roles without neglecting one or offending those who are ready to be offended? What about the bride price t...
Below you find an overview of the EV nominees (nominations and/or self-nominations) for the EV Governance Committee, by WHO region. The African region is split up in West/Central African region and East/South African region, as indicated in the poll last week. In 4 regions, an election will be held: Western Pacific, Region of the Americas; ...
Last November the Economic Forum released The Global Gender Gap Report 2014. The report is an attempt to measure the gap between men and women in four fundamental categories: (1) health and survival; (2) educational attainment; (3) economic participation and opportunity; and (4) political empowerment. In the Latin American/Caribbean region, 14 o...
There has been a lot of attention in the press for the so called “Uber model “ lately. “Workers on tap”, as the Economist put it, succinctly. A brave new era in which many employees will be replaced by self-employed individuals (or “independent contractors”), and where the most successful businesses will be the ones that design the...
You’ve probably heard the story of the blind men and the elephant—how each man perceived it differently depending on which part of the elephant he touched. Health systems are like the elephant, with each person having a different view depending on his or her experiences and interactions. These different conceptualizations of health systems...
Throughout the Third Global Health Symposium 2014 (Health Systems Research, Cape Town, South Africa), attention was continuously drawn to the fact that the voices of the “victims” of weak health systems were missing from the symposium. There was a unanimous call to ensure that these people would be included in future HSR conferences. Recentl...
It’s an odd thing to crave cafeteria food. Yet, here it is. An unexpected craving for an interesting salmon ‘burger’ with, you guessed it, fries. A new study in The Lancet on ‘Dietary quality among men and women in 187 countries in 1990 and 2010: a systematic assessment’ doesn’t rank the Belgian diet, very highly. In fact, they fit t...