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Department News Archive

November 2009

• Presentation by Connie Celum, MD, MPH, Director of the International Clinical Research Center: Dr. Celum's talk, "HSV-2 and HIV: The Epidemiology, The Clinical Trials, and the Lessons Learned" for the Centers for AIDS Research Seminar Series, Nov. 5 was recorded.
• Winter Quarter Course CONJ 553: Clinical Management of HIV. CONJ 553, offered Tuesdays, 8-10 a.m. in the new Harborview Campus building on 9th and Jefferson (Room 1360) is taught synchronously by web stream to student clinicians in over 10 resource-constrained settings such as Kenya, Haiti, and Peru and offers UW students a unique opportunity to interact with and learn from international clinician peers. Instructors: Nina Kim, MD, and Robert Harrington, MD, as well as guest lectures from other leading experts. The course fulfills a core course requirement for the Graduate Certificate Program in HIV. To register for CONJ 553, please contact Anneleen Severynen (odasev@u.washington.edu) for an add code.
• Call for Posters: The Health Sciences Library will be hosting a traveling exhibit created by the National Library of Medicine entitled Against the Odds: Making a Different in Global Health. On display from November 23, 2009 through January 3, 2010, the exhibit will highlight six different aspects of global health: Community Health, Food for Life, Action on AIDS, The Legacy of War (landmines), Preventing Disease and Global Collaboration.For more information about this exhibit and its content see the National Library of Medicine's exhibit website.
  In addition to this exhibit, the Health Sciences Library is also interested in showcasing the UW's programs and other activities supporting and promoting global health. Interested departments and programs are invited to submit informational posters (36in x 56in, which will be displayed in the library simultaneously with the traveling exhibit. (Deadline: Nov. 20, 2009).  Brochures and other informational pieces are also welcome. Please let us know of your interest by Nov. 10, 2009.
  The Library is also interested in sponsoring other activities while the exhibit is on display including a brown bag film series and a book group discussion of Strength in What Remains by Tracy Kidder. They would be interested in listing any other events or activities on the library's exhibit website which may be happening while the exhibit is on display. Email Lisa Oberg at lisanne@uw.edu with any events you'd like included.

 

October 2009:

• Winning Essay: A team from UW's Department of Global Health had one of the five winning essays for a contest in Academic Medicine answering the question: "How should academic medicine contribute to peace-building efforts around the world?" The question was posed by Dr. Steven Kanter, editor of Academic Medicine (the journal of the Association of American Medical Colleges or AAMC). The entry from UW, "Gathering in Groups: Peace Advocacy in Health Professional Associations," by Amy Hagopian, Jirair Ratevosian, and Emily deRiel, is in the latest issue of Academic Medicine ( 84(11):1485, November 2009.) Scroll to the bottom of the table of contents.
  Emily deRiel will be attending the AAMC annual meeting in Boston in November to serve on a panel with the other four winning authors (including Barry Levy and Vic Sidel, authors of the text, War and Public Health). This is a great pre-cursor to the War & Global Health conference on campus in April.
  
• Missed the Gates' "Impatient Optimists" speech from Oct. 27? It's now online.
  
• Global Health Agenda: Health Alliance International (HAI) was one of the co-sponsors of a media teleconference Thursday, Oct. 29 offering journalists a report identifying priorities and a price tag for Obama's Global Health Initiative, which was announced in May. The briefing included Prof. Jeffrey Sachs, UN Special Advisor on the Millennium Development Goals, Director of Columbia’s Earth Institute; Dr. Peter Mugyenyi, director of Uganda’s Joint  Clinical Research Center; and The Hon. Rep. Jim McDermott (D-WA). The media call preceded a Congressional hearings that morning on "Strategies for Global Health: Urgent Challenges, Comprehensive Solutions." HAI is one of several organizations helping to set global health priorities and ensure progress in global health. Great coverage of the event by various media outlets.
  
• Fogarty News: The latest issue of Global Health Matters, a publication by the Fogarty Center, features an article, "Global Health on Campus Gains Enthusiasm," and a great photo of Fogarty grantee and UW graduate Dr. Patricia Garcia of Peru’s Cayetano Heredia University, with NIH Director Dr. Francis Collins and Fogarty Director Dr. Roger I. Glass.
  

• The Department held an all-day curriculum retreat Oct. 16 with lots of exciting ideas to present to the curriculumn committee. Keynote speakers were Dr. Paulo Buss, Director of the FIOCRUZ Center for Global Health in Brazil, one of the world's main public health institutions and Dr. Jaime Sepulveda with the Gates Foundation, who served for more than 20 years in a variety of senior health posts in the Mexican government, including director of the National Institutes of Health of Mexico from 2003 to 2006.
  Dr. Buss, also President of the World Federation of Public Health Associations (2008-2010), speaking through a video, gave a great overview of the challenges of global health in a widening world of haves and have notes and the threat of climate change.
  For a copy of the speech, click here. An excerpt: "The World Commission on the Social Dimension of Globalization, established by the International Labor Organization, insists that the current process of globalization is generating unbalanced outcomes, both between and within countries. Wealth is being created, but too many countries and people are not sharing in its benefits. Many of them live in the limbo of informal economy, without formal rights and in a swathe of poor countries that subsist precariously on the margins of the global economy."
  Dr. Sepulveda, now the Director of the Integrated Health Solutions Development program at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, said he was intrigued by the discussions in the morning around social determinants of global health. He said that global health programs need to focus on the poor in general not specific countries. He told the group that deciding a critical path from A-B is very important as well as incorporating metrics to measure success. He also spoke on defining global health, noting that interdependent is a key word and he cited recent press releases from President Obama on the H1N1 virus as using a "practical" definition of global health.

September 2009:

• Representatives from 58 universities attend first annual meeting of the Consortium of Universities for Global Health at NIH campus in Bethesda, MD (Sept. 14-16, 2009). Speakers include Francis Collins, Director of NIH; Ezekiel Emanuel (Rahm Emanuel's brother), Special Advisor on health policy for Office of Management and Budget; The Hon. Eric Goosby, Ambassador at Large and Global AIDS Coordinator; Stephen Morrison from the Center for Strategic and International Studies; and Former U.S. Rep. John Porter, now a high-profile lobbyist.UW President Mark Emmert participates on panel with five university presidents. Webcasts archived with NIH: Day One, Day Two. (Press coverage of meeting includes story in Inside Higher Ed: Presidents Push for Global Health. Global Health Council blog item: Universities Form Bond Over Global Health).
• Press release from Health Alliance International opposing legislation to recruit health workers from developing countries."Pending legislation to expand U.S. health workforce could worsen brain drain from Africa and elsewhere." Sept. 14, 2009.(Faculty Amy Hagopian).
• The Washington State Legislative Committee on Economic Development and International Relations holds hearing on the global health industry at PATH’s Seattle headquarters. The committee is presided over by Lt. Gov. Brad Owen and is the state’s only bicameral commission, with representation from both members of the Senate and the House. Legislators hear from Dr. Judy Wasserheit, Dr. Chris Murray, among others, Sept. 2, 2009. See TVW coverage. Report in Washington Global Health Alliance newsletter.
• The MPH program is adding two new tracks -- Health Metrics and Evaluation (HME) and Leadership Policy Management (LPM). For more information, see website.
• Clinical Instructor Anita Verna Crofts wins a FIUTS community award. The Gordon H. Sweany Award is presented annually to a UW faculty or staff member who has done the most to support Internationals and international education in the previous year. "As Executive Director of FIUTS from 1998-2002, Anita played an important role in ensuring the success of this organization. She continues to inspire students and others through her work with the Department of Global Health in the Global Health Leadership Program."
• Harriet Dumba, co-founder of the Southern Sudanese Women's Association and a UW graduate, was honored by the Seattle Storm at a special half-time ceremony Aug. 22 "Women of Inspiration" night. Harriet is a graduate from UW's International Health program (before the Department of Global Health was formed)

June 1, 2009:

• UW Insight takes an in-depth video look on the H1N1 outbreak with interviews of Michael Katze (Washington National Primate Research Center), Roger Simpson (Dart Center for Journalism & Trauma, UW Department of Communication),  Ira Longini (Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, UW Center for Statistics and Quantitative Infectious Diseases) Susan Allen (Northwest Center for Public Health Practice), and Ann Marie Kimball (School of Public Health).
• Op-ed published in Seattle Times by members of May 4 swine flu panel at UW regarding the hidden threat of seasonal flu.

May 25, 2009:

• The Association of Schools of Public Health held its first webinar on global health education and participants from schools across the United States and Mexico logged on to hear the views of three guest speakers, including UW’s  Dr. Steve Gloyd, Associate Chair for Global Health Education and Curriculum. Gloyd spoke on “Global Health Jobs and Competencies.”  To view the webinar, click here.
• We are a fan of the Global Health Council’s link to global health movies and books
• The global health Twitter community is growing very quickly. Follow us at uwghrc! (We now have 450 followers). Our favorite global health posts so far come from cgorman (former Time reporter), DickKnox (NPR science reporter), BirdFlu.gov, WGHA (Washington Global Health Alliance), gatesfoundation, MSF_UK, AIDSgov, GlobalHealth_TV, zizoo (HIV/AIDS doctor working for I-TECH, nytimeshealth, isaacholeman (global health guy), globalhealth (Kaiser Family Fdn), whonews (WHO), MalariaNoMore, and others.
• Please let us know of your favorites! Join Twitter at www.twitter.com and then download www.tweetdeck.com to create an icon on your desktop so you can easily log on to see the activity.

May 18, 2009:

• Announcing the award recipients for this year’s Thomas Francis Jr., interdisciplinary global health fellowship. Thank you to the faculty committee for their time and efforts in helping select these applicants from a large pool of outstanding candidates from across the University. The students will spend eight weeks working on different solutions to global health.
  1) Ibrahim Ali, Social Work, MSW, Ghana
  2) Anne Buffardi, Evans School, Public Policy, PhD, Peru
  3) Jeff Chamberlain, Bioengineering, PhD, Mexico
  4) Noah Derman, Jackson/Pub Health, Global Health, MAIS/MPH, Ethiopia
  5) Sarah Hohl, Public Health/Global Health, MPH, Timor-Leste
  6) Jeffrey Lane, Law/Pub Health, JD/MPH, Uganda/Mozambique
  7) Gail Potter, Arts& Sciences/Statistics, PhD, Senegal
  8) Jonathan Sugimoto, Public Health/Epidemiology, PhD, Senegal
  Related Link: Slideshow of 2008 Thomas Francis Jr. winners.

• UW recommends students, faculty, and staff purchase trip insurance in case they need to cancel a flight or trip through http://insuremytrip.com.

May 11, 2009:

• The International Clinical Research Center led by Connie Celum, MD, MPH, on May 8 released its latest study results: Partners in Prevention HSV/HIV Transmission Study conducted among 3,408 African HIV discordant couples, in which one partner had HIV and the other did not. The study found herpes medication does not reduce risk of HIV transmission from individuals with HIV and genital herpes. But the study demonstrated modest reduction in HIV disease progression and provides new insights about HIV transmission. The trial took place at 14 sites in seven countries in eastern and southern Africa (Botswana, Kenya, Rwanda, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zambia). In sub-Saharan Africa, the majority of new HIV infections occur among heterosexual HIV discordant couples, many of whom are in stable partnerships and unaware that one partner has HIV and the other does not.  Genital herpes is thought to be a factor in a substantial proportion of new HIV infections in Africa.
• On May 4, the Washington Global Health Alliance convened a hugely informative panel at UW on the evolving H1N1 swine flu outbreak covering many aspects of the disease – public health response, vaccine development, and characteristics of the disease. Panelists included
  Dr. David Fleming, Director and Health Officer of Public Health-Seattle & King County and former Deputy Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC); Dr. Kathy Neuzil, Chair of the Influenza Working Group of the CDC Committee on Immunizations Practices and Director of the Influenza Vaccine Project at PATH; Dr. Ann Marie Kimball, Director of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) and Professor of Epidemiology at UW; and Alan Diercks, Senior Research Scientist with the Institute for Systems Biology. TVW, a statewide public TV network, covered the entire event viewable here. Many media outlets were there as well (see Newslinks).

• Meanwhile, other UW faculty being widely quoted on the outbreak include Dr. Michael Katze, Professor in Microbiology on how flu viruses mutate and overcome human immunity; Ira Longini, PhD, in Biostatistics and Epidemiology, on modeling disease outbreaks; and Dr. Corey Casper in Epidemiology, an infectious disease expert with the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center.

• In related news, Dr. Michael Katze is the Co-Director of the recently launched Pacific Northwest Regional Center for Excellence (PNWRCE) for Biodefense and Emerging Infectious Diseases being housed at the Oregon Health & Science University. Researchers will study a broad range of diseases, such as Ebola, SARS, avian and 1918 influenza, dengue fever, yellow fever, and West Nile virus.  The center was established through a five-year, $40.7 million cooperative agreement from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID).

                Story: NIH funds Northwest Regional Center for Biodefense and Infectious Diseases. University Week, April 23, 2009.

May 5, 2009:

• The Department of Global Health posted a progress report, UW Department of Global Health Milestone Achievements: February, 2009,to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation online.
• Dr. Mari Kitahata with the Center for AIDS Research received more coverage on observational study on the efficacy of startin g antiretroviral treatment sooner. In Treating H.I.V. Infection, Sooner Is Better, Study Finds. New York Times, April 30, 2009.

April 27, 2009:

• New URL for Department of Global Health: http://www.globalhealth.washington.edu/
  (The old one will work as well).
  
  
• Global Health Conference at UW Creates a Global Buzz. UWeek, April 16, 2009. For more coverage from the Transcending Global Health Barriers Conference, April 3-5, visit our Conference Central page.
  
  
• Garbage and Gardens: Side by Side in Guatemala.  UWeek, April 16, 2009. Landscape architect students are working with the non-profit Safe Passages to build a contemplative garden, outdoor classroom and gathering space for meetings and performances for people working in the city dump in Guatemala City.
  
  
• Association of Health Care Journalists held its national meeting in Seattle April 16-19.
  Keynote speakers included U.S. Ron Wyden (D-Ore) on his bipartisan plan for health care reform (see story in Scientific American) and Uwe E. Reinhardt, PhD, the James Madison Professor of Political Economy and Professor of Economics and Public Affairs at Princeton University. Reinhardt, one of the nation’s leading authorities on health care economics, spoke about the health economy and the prospect for health reform. He argued that health care, which comprises 38% of the nation’s gross domestic product, is the best investment to revive the United States from recession.  
  
  There were also panels on:
• The Intersection of Government, Nonprofits, and Business in the Global Health Arena with speakers Joe Cerrell, director of policy and advocacy, Global Health Program, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation; John E. Lange, senior program officer, Global Health Policy & Advocacy, Gates Foundation; Bobby Shriver, co-founder and chairman Product Red.
• The Effects of Global Climate Change on Health with speakers Elizabeth Jackson, doctoral candidate, UW; Catherine Karr, MD, PhD, assistant professor, pediatrics; adjunct assistant professor, environmental and occupational health sciences, UW;  Lewis Ziska, PhD, plant physiologist, Agricultural Research Service, U.S. Dept. of Agriculture.
• Vaccines Filtering the Noise with speakers Tamara Cullen, ND, Bastyr University; Laura Koutsky, PhD, researcher, UW; Edgar Marcuse, MD, MPH, Seattle Children’s; Kathy Neuzil, MD, MPH, PATH.
• Tracking Animal-Borne Diseases with speakers William Davenhall, marketing manager, Health and Human Service Solutions, ESRI; Anthony A. Marfin, MD, MPH, Washington Dept. of Health; Terry F. McElwain, DVM, PhD, School for Global Animal Health, WSU; Steven J. Sweeney, MS, DVM, U.S. Dept. of Agriculture’s Animal and Planet Health Inspection Service.