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Health policy

How can we prepare for the next global epidemic? Shorenstein APARC publishes new book on crisis preparedness

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Throughout history, nations have waged war against epidemics from bubonic plague to pulmonary tuberculosis. Today we confront HIV/AIDS, SARS, and avian influenza, among other major infectious diseases. Scientists around the world scrutinize viruses and bacteria more intently than ever. Yet while scientific advances are crucial, they are insufficient. The world is not well prepared for the next health crisis.

This timely book argues that the battle against infectious disease epidemics must be fought on two fronts. The first, of course, is the laboratory. The second is the wider social context that involves ordinary individuals and groups, legislators, and the state. The failure to contain HIV/AIDS and the emergence of new infectious diseases highlight the inadequacies of current preventive and management approaches to deal with epidemics.

The authors of Crisis Preparedness offer perspectives from social science, epidemiology, and public health, collectively seeking to answer the question: How can we prepare for the next global epidemic?

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Debt for Democracy

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Larry Diamond
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From a humanitarian perspective, few international policy proposals appear more compelling than debt relief for the world's poor. The poorest countries have seen their external debts spiral to the point where interest payments are crowding out desperately needed investments in roads, schools, sanitation, health care, and other social services. The majority of their people live below the poverty line, struggling to survive on a dollar or two a day. Average life expectancy is well below 60 years and declining in many countries because of AIDS. Lacking access to safe drinking water, preventive medicine, and basic education, as well as to markets, credit, and justice, people live needlessly short and degrading lives.

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DNA for Peace: The Balance Between Biosciences for Development and Security

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One of the world's greatest ethical challenges is the inequities in global health. Life expectancy in the United States is about 80 years and rising, while in many parts of the developing world, particularly in Africa as a result of HIV/AIDS, it is 40 years and falling. On the "bright side," the globalization of life sciences is key force to improve health in the developing world. For example, the rise of the Indian biotechnology industry has improved availability of vaccines and programs like the Grand Challenges in Global Health Initiative funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation provide hope for upstream discovery science against global health problems. However, on the "dark side," the globalization of life sciences poses risks to global biosecurity including bioterrorism by non-state actors.

This lecture will explore how to optimize the benefits of the "bright side," and mitigate the risks of the "dark side," of the globalization of life sciences. Dr. Singer will argue that the biological case is different from the nuclear case and demands a different approach, and explore the potential role of the United Nations in enhancing global biosecurity.

Peter A. Singer is senior scientist at the McLaughlin Rotman Centre, University Health Network; professor of medicine, University of Toronto; co-director of the Canadian Program in Genomics and Global Health; and a distinguished investigator of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research. He studied internal medicine at the University of Toronto, medical ethics at the University of Chicago, public health at Yale University, and management at Harvard Business School. Between 1995 and 2006, Singer was Sun Life Financial Chair in Bioethics, director of the University of Toronto Joint Centre for Bioethics, and director of the World Health Organization Collaborating Centre for Bioethics at the University of Toronto.

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History Corner, Building 200, Room 002

Peter A. Singer Senior Scientist, McLaughlin Rotman Centre, University Health Network, and Professor of Medicine Speaker University of Toronto
Lectures

TeachAIDS Educator Handbook: A Comprehensive HIV/AIDS Prevention Curriculum

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TeachAIDS and SPICE have collaborated to provide pedagogically-grounded interactive health materials that promote a powerful and dynamic approach to HIV/AIDS education. Built by an interdisciplinary team of experts at Stanford University, these high-quality materials have been rigorously tested and are used in dozens of countries around the world. Given the tremendous need for these materials, TeachAIDS and SPICE are offering this unit for free download.

Charlotte J. Haug

Aamotveien 19a
N-0880 Oslo
Norway

(47) 92222096
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Adjunct Affiliate at the Center for Health Policy and the Department of Health Policy
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Charlotte J. Haug has an MD and PhD from the University of Oslo, Norway and a MSc in Health Services Research from Stanford University, USA. She is Exectutive Editor of NEJM AI, International Correspondent at the New England Journal of Medicine, Senior Scientist at SINTEF Digital Health (Norway), and Adjunct Affiliate of Stanford Health Policy, Stanford University.


Dr Haug has worked in clinical medicine and research in Norway and with organization, priority setting and supervision of healthcare systems both nationally and internationally. From 2002 - 2015, she was Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of the Norwegian Medical Association and a member of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE, the “Vancouver group”). She was a Council Member of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) from 2005-2015 and Vice-Chair of COPE from 2012-2015. She received the Council of Science Editors (CSE) Award for Meritorious Achievement in 2013, and was on the International Advisory Board of the 4th World Conference on Research Integrity in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in 2015. She has worked extensively with issues concerning scientific publication, research and publication ethics with a particular emphasis on how to handle and optimize the use personal data collected in clinical and clinical research settings while preserving the individuals’ right to privacy.

A major interest going forward is the application of AI in clinical medicine and health care in a responsible and ethical way to protect privacy, to avoid bias and exploitation, and provide better care to those who do not get the best care now.

 

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Vincenzo Atella

Via Columbia 2
00133 Rome Italy

+39 06 7259 5606 +39 06 2020687
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Associate Professor, Department of Economics and Finance - University of Roma
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Vincenzo Atella is Associate Professor of Economics at the University of Rome "Tor Vergata" where he teaches Macroeconomics and courses in Applied Health Economics at graduate and post graduate level. He is also adjunct associate of the Center for Health Policy at Stanford where he has been visiting professor in different occasions.
Currently, he is CEIS Tor Vergata Director and Scientific Director of the Farmafactoring Foundation, member of SIVEAS (Health Care Services National Evaluation System) of the Ministry of Health, chief economist of the Italian Association of General Practitionners (Società Italiana di Medicina Generale – SIMG) and member and co-founder of the Italian Public Affair Association.


In the recent past he has been member of the International Committee of Experts advising IQWiG (the German Agency for Health Care) for setting national guidelines for Economic Evaluation and member of the Italian Committee for Drug Price appointed by the Ministry of Treasury. He also served as member of the “Strategic Evaluation Committee” of the Italian Drug Agency (AIFA), and has been consultant for the Italian Regional Agency for Health Care Services (http://www.assr.it/), the National Institute of Health (http://www.iss.it/), the WHO and the World Bank. Prof. Atella has been coordinator of a large European Research Network called TECH Europe (http://healthpolicy.fsi.stanford.edu/tech/) which has received financial support by the European Science Foundation. His most recent research activity has focused on poverty, income distribution and health economics. In this last field his research deals with the introduction of new technologies in the health sector, the impact of different co-payment systems on pharmaceutical decision making by physicians and on drug consumption by patients, forecasting health expenditure and with health related income inequalities. The results of this research activity have been published on several international refereed journals as well books.

Director of the Centre for Economic and International Studies (CEIS) at the University of Rome “Tor Vergata”
Adjunct Affiliate at the Center for Health Policy and the Department of Medicine
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Tactical Prevention of Suicide Bombings in Israel

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Suicide bombings targeting Israeli civilians were once the favored tactic of Palestinian terrorists. Israeli deaths from suicide bombings peaked in the spring of 2002, but Israeli countermeasures dramatically lowered the number of successful suicide bombings since then. This talk will assess the impact of various countermeasures on suicide bombing rates with an eye towards understanding the decline in successful suicide bombings in Israel.

Edward H. Kaplan is the William N. and Marie A. Beach Professor of Management Sciences at the Yale School of Management, a professor of public health at the Yale School of Medicine, and professor of engineering in the Yale Faculty of Engineering. An elected member of the National Academy of Engineering and the Institute of Medicine, Kaplan uses operations research and statistical methods to study problems in public policy and management. His earlier work was devoted to evaluating HIV prevention programs, while his more recent studies focus on counterterror topics such as the tactical prevention of suicide bombings and response logistics in the event of a bioterror attack. He has also dabbled in predicting the outcomes of presidential elections and NCAA basketball tournaments. His efforts have been recognized with several awards in the fields of operations research and public health.

Reuben W. Hills Conference Room

Edward Kaplan William N. and Marie A. Beach Professor of Management Sciences, Professor of Public Health, and Professor of Engineering Speaker Yale University
Seminars

The Global Burden of Infectious Disease

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Despite predictions of their eradication in the 1960s, infectious diseases remain a significant cause of global health, economic, and social problems. There has been a renewed focus on the background "matrix" of infections that occur around the globe, as well as on emerging, re-emerging, and deliberately emerging (i.e. bioterror) agents. This talk will provide a global health perspective on infectious diseases in 2007, and highlight the lessons that can be learned from three conditions (HIV/AIDS, influenza, and SARS).

Daniel Libraty is an associate professor of medicine at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. He is a member of the Center for Infectious Disease and Vaccine Research (CIDVR), and the Division of Infectious Diseases/Department of Medicine. He received his MD degree from the University of California, San Diego. He completed his post-graduate residency in internal medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, and obtained subspecialty training in infectious diseases at the University of California, Los Angeles. His research focuses on understanding the protective and pathogenic human immune responses to emerging and re-emerging viral diseases such as dengue, hantavirus, SARS, and influenza. He has lived and traveled extensively throughout Southeast Asia and other parts of the world in the course of working on these infectious diseases.

Reuben W. Hills Conference Room

Daniel Libraty Associate Professor, Department of Medicine Speaker University of Massachusetts
Seminars
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