The growing impact of climate change on respiratory health, including through longer pollen seasons, wildfires and more exterme heat, was the focus of an high-level event on the margins of the 79th World Health Assembly (WHA) in Geneva, organized by the Geneva Health Forum and Health Diplomacy Alliance. The event followed on the heels of a […] Continue reading ->
Three emerging threats to health: the commercial, digital, and climate determinants of health played centre stage at an event 40 years after a WHO charter shifted the focus of health from individual lifestyle choices to broader social and environmental determinants. Commercial formula company practices are just one case study of how structural factors like marketing […] Continue reading ->
While the health harms of biomass cookstoves, and the smoke they produce inside the homes of developing countries has received significant attention in the past two decades, a wide range of chemical and pathogenic air pollutants create hazards in modern homes and buildings – also threatening health. Investments in ventilation, air filtration, monitoring, and clean […] Continue reading ->
As Europe grapples with shifting demographics and an influx of migration, researchers are mapping how undocumented migrants navigate the administrative cracks of the continent’s healthcare systems – helping to fill a critical data gap identified by the World Health Organization. Inside the neoclassical venue of La Pastorale in Geneva, around 30 participants from six European […] Continue reading ->
As the World Health Assembly opens on Monday in Geneva, it will have to grapple with shrinking global health budgets, new outbreak threats, including a new WHO declaration of a public health emergency in Africa over an Ebola virus strain that lacks any vaccine, and an increasingly fractured geopolitical space with deep disputes over Iran, […] Continue reading ->
The World Health Organization (WHO) has called on governments to strictly regulate nicotine pouches to prevent an imminent epidemic among vulnerable adolescents. These highly addictive products threaten to dismantle decades of global progress in tobacco control if left completely unchecked, health officials warn. Faced with declining cigarette sales, tobacco companies continuously release new product lines, […] Continue reading ->
Philanthropy can help make every dollar deliver more impact. I often think about a boy I met in Kajiado County, Kenya. He was the same age as my son, but half his weight. A World Health Organization (WHO) colleague measured the circumference of his arm to confirm what was already painfully clear: he was severely […] Continue reading ->
All passengers were evacuated from the cruise ship, Hondius, by Monday night – and a Spaniard taken to a military hospital in Madrid to quarantine has become the 11th person from the ship to test positive for hantavirus. The evacuation was completed 10 days after the World Health Organization (WHO) was notified about the outbreak […] Continue reading ->
Recently, I met with African nursing leaders who told me stories of nurses in countries such as Ghana and Nigeria earning the equivalent of only a few hundred US dollars a month – sometimes less than $300 – while being offered opportunities abroad with salaries many times higher. They described a growing crisis, where nurses […] Continue reading ->
A dramatically shrinking World Health Organization (WHO) has seen a slight decline in gender parity amidst restructuring. Strict recruitment policies and targeted job cuts have actively boosted female representation within the organisation’s professional ranks. But deep regional disparities in gender representation remain unresolved, with men holding the overwhelming majority of staff posts in the African, […] Continue reading ->