- Email: [email protected]
Exploring the challenges of global health issues
Perspectives
primary health care, clinic founders Sidney and Emily Kark worked to improve housing, sanitation, and access to food. “Their innovative approach inspired other projects around the world and helped shape the first community health centers in the USA”, the show’s curators explain. One of those was the Delta Health Center of Mound Bayou, Mississippi.
“Against the Odds explores a broad range of issues linked to ill health, including stigma, war, and poverty.” Founded by H Jack Geiger, in 1967, the centre was based on the South African model. “In Mississippi it was transparent. What was making people sick? Unemployment, hunger, malnutrition, dirty water, ramshackle shacks that were not fit for human habitation, low education levels in segregated schools that didn’t deserve the name of educational institutions, and we decided to go after all of those”, Geiger said in an interview. Activists dug wells, created a farm cooperative, and trained community health nurses.
Physicians for Human Rights
Former Chinese barefoot doctor Ying Lowrey recalls her most memorable patient as part of the Against the Odds: Making a Difference in Global Health exhibition. In a video interview, she describes parents coming to her while she was working in a field, asking “please, please help our daughter”. The 2-year-old girl had a high temperature and a weak pulse. “I held this baby for the whole night while I read to try to find out exactly what the problem was and constantly gave her water and gave some medicine. And the next morning this baby opened up her eyes and then she looked at me: I was just very, very moved. I just feel sort of ‘oh my gosh, I saved somebody’s life’.” Lowrey’s account is one of many tales of dedication to community health and activism told in this exhibition. Featuring artifacts, photographs, video interviews, and promotional materials from health campaigns worldwide, it champions holistic solutions to health problems. For example, a health centre in Pholela, a Zulu tribal reserve in the eastern province of Natal in South Africa, exemplifies what can be achieved by community health workers. In addition to providing
The diversity of subjects presented is impressive. A display about land reform in Brazil features next to materials on malnutrition and obesity. The simple life-saving properties of oral rehydration therapy are explained, alongside the influential work of the Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee. Elsewhere, an “Action on AIDS” exhibit champions the work of, among others, National Institutes of Health researchers Anthony Fauci and Robert Gallo and also provides a grim reminder of the prejudice and stigma surrounding AIDS. Activists are celebrated, such as those from ACT UP who forced the US Food and Drug Administration to expedite the drug-approval process for HIVrelated drugs. Other advocates feature in a “War as Illness” section, including International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War and the International Campaign to Ban Landmines. All these topics can be seen in the online version of the exhibition, which is well worth a visit. As engaging and powerful as the exhibits are, some are focused too much on the USA. Africa is not mentioned in the AIDS section and a display on malaria features vaccinedevelopment efforts, but does not look at the effects of the disease in places where it is most prevalent. Nonetheless, Against the Odds explores a broad range of issues linked to ill health, including stigma, war, and poverty. The voices of the many committed physicians who feature are inspiring. As Victoria Cargill says in an interview urging activism for HIV/AIDS issues: “You can go to bed every night knowing that someone’s life is a little bit better because you went to the hoop. And I don’t think there are many jobs you can say that about.”
National Library of Medicine
Exhibition Exploring the challenges of global health issues
Against the Odds: Making a Difference in Global Health Showing at the National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health Campus, Bethesda, MD, USA, until 2010. http://apps.nlm.nih.gov/ againsttheodds/exhibit/index.cfm
Nellie Bristol Members of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines protest in Washington DC, 2001
www.thelancet.com Vol 371 June 21, 2008
[email protected]
2075
primary health care, clinic founders Sidney and Emily Kark worked to improve housing, sanitation, and access to food. “Their innovative approach inspired other projects around the world and helped shape the first community health centers in the USA”, the show’s curators explain. One of those was the Delta Health Center of Mound Bayou, Mississippi.
“Against the Odds explores a broad range of issues linked to ill health, including stigma, war, and poverty.” Founded by H Jack Geiger, in 1967, the centre was based on the South African model. “In Mississippi it was transparent. What was making people sick? Unemployment, hunger, malnutrition, dirty water, ramshackle shacks that were not fit for human habitation, low education levels in segregated schools that didn’t deserve the name of educational institutions, and we decided to go after all of those”, Geiger said in an interview. Activists dug wells, created a farm cooperative, and trained community health nurses.
Physicians for Human Rights
Former Chinese barefoot doctor Ying Lowrey recalls her most memorable patient as part of the Against the Odds: Making a Difference in Global Health exhibition. In a video interview, she describes parents coming to her while she was working in a field, asking “please, please help our daughter”. The 2-year-old girl had a high temperature and a weak pulse. “I held this baby for the whole night while I read to try to find out exactly what the problem was and constantly gave her water and gave some medicine. And the next morning this baby opened up her eyes and then she looked at me: I was just very, very moved. I just feel sort of ‘oh my gosh, I saved somebody’s life’.” Lowrey’s account is one of many tales of dedication to community health and activism told in this exhibition. Featuring artifacts, photographs, video interviews, and promotional materials from health campaigns worldwide, it champions holistic solutions to health problems. For example, a health centre in Pholela, a Zulu tribal reserve in the eastern province of Natal in South Africa, exemplifies what can be achieved by community health workers. In addition to providing
The diversity of subjects presented is impressive. A display about land reform in Brazil features next to materials on malnutrition and obesity. The simple life-saving properties of oral rehydration therapy are explained, alongside the influential work of the Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee. Elsewhere, an “Action on AIDS” exhibit champions the work of, among others, National Institutes of Health researchers Anthony Fauci and Robert Gallo and also provides a grim reminder of the prejudice and stigma surrounding AIDS. Activists are celebrated, such as those from ACT UP who forced the US Food and Drug Administration to expedite the drug-approval process for HIVrelated drugs. Other advocates feature in a “War as Illness” section, including International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War and the International Campaign to Ban Landmines. All these topics can be seen in the online version of the exhibition, which is well worth a visit. As engaging and powerful as the exhibits are, some are focused too much on the USA. Africa is not mentioned in the AIDS section and a display on malaria features vaccinedevelopment efforts, but does not look at the effects of the disease in places where it is most prevalent. Nonetheless, Against the Odds explores a broad range of issues linked to ill health, including stigma, war, and poverty. The voices of the many committed physicians who feature are inspiring. As Victoria Cargill says in an interview urging activism for HIV/AIDS issues: “You can go to bed every night knowing that someone’s life is a little bit better because you went to the hoop. And I don’t think there are many jobs you can say that about.”
National Library of Medicine
Exhibition Exploring the challenges of global health issues
Against the Odds: Making a Difference in Global Health Showing at the National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health Campus, Bethesda, MD, USA, until 2010. http://apps.nlm.nih.gov/ againsttheodds/exhibit/index.cfm
Nellie Bristol Members of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines protest in Washington DC, 2001
www.thelancet.com Vol 371 June 21, 2008
[email protected]
2075