Which global health journal do you recommend…?

Posted on January 19, 2012 by Andrew Harmer

I’m often asked by students and colleagues to suggest a suitable global health journal for their work. A while back, I compiled this table of journals that publish research on global health. It’s not bang up to date and you will need to check the journal website for the latest on their impact factors, terms and conditions etc. Hopefully, you will find amongst these the perfect home for your next eminent contribution to global health.

Continue reading →

Posted in Miscellaneous | 7 Comments

Welcome to Portswood!

Posted on January 11, 2012 by Andrew Harmer

Southampton Medics’ Review have been making some great videos over the years to raise money for charity. The proceeds from their latest show are to be split between The Cardiomyopathy Association – a leading cause of death in young people, and a local charity – The Soceity of St James – homelessness service. This time around they are hoping to raise in excess of £5000. To do that, they’ve produced this fabulous video – a take on Jay Z’s classic ‘Empire State of Mind’. For those of you who don’t know, Portswood is a suburb of Southampton and, according to the Medics Review, “one of the world’s darkest, dingiest places”. So, not like New York then.

If you like the video as much as I did, I hope you will consider a donation to one or both of their chosen charities, innit.

Andrew


Posted in Miscellaneous | Leave a comment

Our leadership is dire, so why shouldn’t we despise government?

Posted on January 5, 2012 by Andrew Harmer

A couple of weeks ago Jeffrey Sachs wrote an opinion piece in the Guardian: ‘Western politicians are dire, but we mustn’t despise government’. There’s no denying Sachs is a persuasive writer, but in this case he writes himself into a corner. The examples he marshals together as evidence for why we should despise governments are so compelling that his final assertion that we should nevertheless still trust them falls flat on its face.

Continue reading →

Posted in Climate Change, Multinational corporations, Private sector | 4 Comments

Improving the lives of ‘half the sky’

Posted on October 14, 2011 by Andrew Harmer

What non-health factors contribute to good maternal and child health in developing countries? Good question. In a chapter to a new book edited by researchers at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine ‘ Good Health at Low Cost: 25 years on‘ I synthesise evidence from five country studies in an effort to find some answers. Continue reading →

Posted in Maternal and Child Health | Leave a comment

Personalized medicine is the issue on the table

Posted on October 7, 2011 by Devi Sridhar

In less than 36 hours I’ll be flying out of Heathrow for the 2011 Summit on the Global Agenda in Abu Dhabi. Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Chasing the MDG cheese

Posted on September 16, 2011 by Andrew Harmer

Running down a grassy hill after a ball of cheese could only be a British tradition, along with drinking litres of tea and stuffing ferrets down one’s trousers. Being a big fan of development metaphors, and itching to continue writing about mad pursuits, I think it’s safe to say that the post-2015 MDGs cheese is well and truly rolling down the hill and that the chase is on to catch it, and eat it. There are a few ways to do this. One is to get in quick with some hastily agreed goals. Another is more discursive and involves subtly framing the language around which the terms of the MDG debate will be discussed. The latter is likely to be more effective but won’t stop a deluge of variations of the former. Continue reading →

Posted in MDGs | 2 Comments

IHP+ Redux

Posted on July 14, 2011 by Andrew Harmer

I’ve posted a couple of times already on the, take a deep breath, International Health Partnership and related initiatives (IHP+)  (see here and here). Its current work plan comes to end in December and the partnership’s steering committee (the Bond-esquely named SURG) is looking around for some future strategic direction, so I thought I’d chip in. Continue reading →

Posted in IHP+ | 2 Comments

Impact factors of global health journals – how does your favourite measure up?

Posted on July 8, 2011 by Andrew Harmer

As Richard Horton reminded me this morning over breakfa…sorry, I’m still in #johannhari mode. In this week’s Lancet Editorial, Richard Horton name drops the just-published 2010 Journal Citation Report Impact Factors. Hotter than a hot cross bun, the Journal Citation Index (accessible via your university or public library) provides a measure of the frequency with which an average article is cited each year in the 2 years after publication.

Continue reading →

Posted in Miscellaneous | 1 Comment

Winners and losers in the global health aid money-go-round

Posted on July 1, 2011 by Andrew Harmer

Ok, so you’ll have been following all the news on the GAVI replenishment and will know that the UK has pledged (pledged, mind you, not given – and pledges aren’t always met) a very generous $1.3bn between now and 2015 to help this public-private partnership support vaccines for pneumococcol disease and rotavirus (amongst others). In total, GAVI has been assured $4.3bn. Great – no question.   Continue reading →

Posted in Aid, Global Fund, HIV/AIDS, malaria, NCD | 8 Comments

The Johnnie Walker Maternal Initiative?

Posted on June 12, 2011 by Devi Sridhar

The British government has made an effort to bring the private sector into public health. With the move to bring the food industry to the table to solve the obesity problem (which has been questioned), perhaps it’s not surprising to read today that the Drinks Firm Diageo is funding a pregnancy health initiative. Diageo which includes Johnnie Walker, Smirnoff and Guinness, is funding the training of 10,000 midwives in England and Wales- on what else- the dangers of alcohol in pregnancy. Am I the only one concerned? How does this fit with the recent call by the PLoS editors and Karen Grepin for alcohol to be subject to the same scrutiny as tobacco?

Devi Sridhar

Posted in Private sector | 3 Comments