Education

Professional development and training are essential for promotion of Accountability and Transparency for Health. ACT for Health offers a graduate level course in corruption prevention for health programs. We also present papers at professional meetings and give guest lectures on the topic of corruption prevention strategies.

Courses

Training seminar for Norwegian NGOs in Oslo, funded by Norad, attracts participants from many development partners.

BU is collaborating with the U4 Anticorruption Resources Centre in Bergen, Norway, in offering an in-country workshop for donor agency staff on "Corruption in the Health Sector: Causes, Consequences and Avenues for Action." Staff from European agencies, including Sida, CIDA, DFID, Norad, GTZ, MinBuZa, BTC, and national Ministry of Foreign Affairs counterparts can request the course.  Contact the U4 staff listed for your agency, www.u4.no/about/partneragencies.cfm

Boston University is the first public health school in the United States to offer a graduate course in Preventing Corruption in Health Programs. The course teaches students to assess vulnerabilities to corruption and builds the confidence and knowledge needed to advocate for anti-corruption reforms that promote accountability and transparency.

Renowned ethicists George Annas and Michael Grodin from BU’s Department Health Law, Bioethics, and Human Rights, teach courses on Ethical Issues in Medicine and Public Health focusing on professional ethics, patient rights, ethics of physicians in the military, and ethical conduct of research (the role of institutional review boards, informed consent, and conflict of interest). Other Public Health Law courses cover government regulatory authority, the role of health policy in market economies, corporate regulatory compliance programs, and professional self-regulation.

Within the International Health Department, BU faculty teach an advanced course on Pharmaceutical Policy and Drug Supply Management. The course covers the administrative systems needed to limit discretion in drug selection, registration, inspection, and procurement, in addition to policies and strategies to strengthen rational use of drugs, including control of promotion. Another course focusing on Antiretroviral Drugs and Management Issues is offered through the BU Summer Institute for International Health.

Presentations

Informal Payments in Kyrgyzstan
In May, BU Center for International Health and Development was pleased to welcome Melitta Jakab, Resident Health Policy Advisor for the DfID/WHO-funded Manas Health Policy Analysis Project in Kyrgyzstan. Ms. Jakab, who is also a PhD candidate at Harvard, presented her ongoing empirical research on Informal Payments in Kyrgyzstan. The study is examining the socio-economic distribution of informal payments, and whether price discrimination in informal payments is pro-poor. Ms. Jakab’s team is also evaluating whether policies for formal co-payments are effective in reducing under-the-table fees.

Addressing Informal Payments in Transitional Economics: a Case Study from Albania
(American Public Health Association 2004 Annual Meeting)
Accountability and Transparency for Health sponsored an APHA panel in 2004 which drew together work on health policy reform and informal payments research in Albania.

Informal Payments in the Public Sector in Albania: Qualitative Research on Citizen and Provider Perspectives
(American Public Health Association 2004 Annual Meeting)
This paper describes the major findings of a research study on informal payments funded by USAID's Partners for Health Reformplus Project (Abt Associates). See Powerpoint

Reducing Informal Payments through Policy Reforms and Management Strategies
(American Public Health Association 2004 Annual Meeting)
See Powerpoint

Accountability and Transparency for Health was the topic of an International Health Grand Rounds at Boston University School of Public Health in 2003. See Powerpoint