For today’s celebration of International Women’s Day, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon remarks: One hundred years ago, when the world first commemorated International Women’s Day, gender equality and women’s empowerment were largely radical ideas. On this centenary, we celebrate the significant progress that has been achieved through determined advocacy, practical action and enlightened policy making. Yet, […]
March 2, 2011
Liz Borkowski, MPH
A few of the recent pieces I’ve liked: Deborah Blum at Slate: Bring Back the Poison Squad (“If we look back to a similar crisis of food safety in the last century, we see that federal regulators were willing to risk their lives to protect the rest of us.”) Jenny Gold of Kaiser Health News […]
February 24, 2011
Liz Borkowski, MPH
2Comment
We’re hearing a lot of rhetoric about the need to slash government spending, so it’s a good time to remind everyone that there’s no such thing as a free lunch – and if you think you’re getting a free lunch, it might be loaded with pathogens. Maryn McKenna, writing at Superbug about a New England […]
Public Health Practice
Clean water and education could outperform vaccines at reducing Haiti cholera epidemic
February 17, 2011
Liz Borkowski, MPH
9Comment
Cross-posted from the American Geophysical Union’s GeoSpace blog. Even though the deadly cholera epidemic in Haiti is now spreading more slowly, health officials are still working to prevent as many new cases as possible. Detailed models of the disease’s spread help those in charge of making public health decisions understand the effectiveness of control measures, […]
February 15, 2011
Liz Borkowski, MPH
2Comment
The Kaiser Family Foundation has just released a report on the future of global health journalism, and it’s not surprising to hear that the traditional model of covering global health is crumbling. KFF commissioned journalists Nellie Bristol and John Donnelly to conduct this research, and their interviews with 51 stakeholders found that challenges abound. Budget […]
Public Health Practice
Worth Reading: Dieting’s Effects on the Brain, Energy Efficiency, and Giving Birth
February 10, 2011
Liz Borkowski, MPH
Ta-Nehisi Coates at The Atlantic blogs: On Labor (“My son is the joy of my life. But the work of ushering him into the world nearly killed his mother.”) Scicurious at Neurotic Physiology: Dieting, Stress, and the Changing Brain. Robert Reich’s Blog at the Christian Science Monitor: US Chamber of Commerce: Obama makes a bargain […]
February 4, 2011
Liz Borkowski, MPH
4Comment
Ben McGrath has an excellent article on “the NFL and the concussion crisis” in the January 31st issue of the New Yorker. It’s well worth a read (though it might change the way you see the Superbowl), but the thing I want to highlight is the roles of Alan Schwarz and the New York Times […]
January 27, 2011
Liz Borkowski, MPH
7Comment
Gym regulars might grumble when classes and locker rooms fill with resolute new members each January, but the crowds rarely last long. I’m sure many gyms’ revenue models depend on members who pay monthly fees but use the facilities infrequently, if at all. These people (and I’ve been one in the past) are essentially throwing […]
January 26, 2011
Liz Borkowski, MPH
Cholera has killed roughly 3,800 people in Haiti and sickened another 189,000, and it will continue to circulate in the population for the foreseeable future. The good news is that the number of new cases per week has dropped from 12,000, which it reached in November, to about 4,700, and the mortality rate has also […]
January 13, 2011
Liz Borkowski, MPH
A few of the recent pieces I’ve liked: Travis Saunders at the Scientific American Guest Blog: Can sitting too much kill you? Tanya Snyder in Streetsblog Capitol Hill: Actually, Highway Builders, Roads Don’t Pay for Themselves Tina Rosenberg for the New York Times’ Opinionator: To Beat Back Poverty, Pay the Poor Ilan Greenberg in Guernica: […]