By Emily Morin
UNC Chapel Hill Global Photo and Video Competition – Nov. 15th deadline
UNC Chapel Hill Global Photo and Video Competition – Nov. 15th deadline is getting closer!!!
Only 9 days remain before the deadline for this high-profile photo and video competition run by the UNC-Chapel Hill Gillings School of Global Public Health! Submit your work by November 15th! The competition focuses on global public health themes and is open to all. This is a great opportunity to compete for cash prizes and showcase your work at a top-ranked public health school!
The contest, called Gateway to the future: Global Health Challenges and Opportunities, will highlight health challenges that face people around the world. It will also capture success stories and the public health heroes who meet those challenges. Photographs and videos can capture any public health issue or challenge in any part of the world. Twenty prizes will be awarded, with grand prizes for best video and photograph set at $500.
Submission information is available online. http://tinyurl.com/
The Global Gateway Facebook page www.facebook.com/
The Competition is made possible by the generosity of Gillings School alumnus Stephen A. Morse, MSPH (‘66), PhD (‘69)
CGHD 2014 Internship Opportunity in Ethiopia Information Session
Come to the "Evaluating Organizational Capacity in Ethiopia" internship information session
Friday, November 15th at 12:15 in CT305
Find more information here: CGHD Ethiopia Info Session 2013
To Apply
Come to the information session with the BU research team and past interns – Friday November 15 January, 12:15pm-1:00pm, Crosstown, 305. If you are unable to attend email please Elizabeth DeMare at edemare@bu.edu for application instructions
2014 International EarthCorps application is now open
2014 INTERNATIONAL CORPS PROGRAM
EarthCorps is now recruiting for our 2014 International Corps Members! EarthCorps offers a six-month service learning program in Seattle, Washington, USA that brings together emerging environmental leaders to learn the fundamentals of environmental service, community building and leadership. EarthCorps charges no tuition for its services and in fact supplies insurance, individual host families, food, gear and a monthly stipend to all international participants.
Before you apply, please note that EarthCorps is required by the US government to ensure that every applicant meets strict criteria in order to qualify for a US J-1 Trainee visa. EarthCorps has established the following criteria to be considered for our program:
· Between 18-28 years old
· No Criminal Record
· Conversational English
· Four year college degree in the environmental field and one year of work experience in the environmental field OR five years of work experience in the environmental field
TO APPLY:
Applicants can now use our online application to start, edit and complete their application to EarthCorps. Click here for more information and for application instructions.
DEADLINES AND START DATES:
· Application deadline: December 20, 2013
· Participant selection: February and March 2014
· EarthCorps Program start date: June 2014
· EarthCorps Program graduation: mid-December 2014
Development Manager with Spark MicroGrants
Learn more here!
Research Associate position with Amend, in East Africa. Position begins January 2014
Learn more here: Research Associate with Amend in East Africa
Fetal Alcohol Syndrome in the Western Cape, South Africa: Multiple exposures in a particularly vulnerable population, and what to do about it? EH Seminar Nov. 8th
November 8: noon-1pm L210
Title: “Fetal Alcohol Syndrome in the Western Cape, South Africa: Multiple exposures in a particularly vulnerable population, and what to do about it?”
Speaker: Leslie London, MD
Professor, School of Public Health and Family Medicine, University of Cape Town and Associate Director of the Centre for Occupational and Environmental Health Research,
http://www.coehr.uct.ac.za/staff/staff_london.php
Summary:
Rural farming communities in the Western Cape province of South Africa are a vulnerable community who experience a diversity of hazardous exposures. One particular phenomenon that captures this conundrum is that of Foetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS). FAS has been reported in 5 to 10% of school-going children in the province, which are rates that are the highest in the world, much higher than even so-called high-risk populations in North America. The direct antecedent of FAS, alcohol consumption in pregnancy, is itself a product of multiple behavioural, social and historical factors related to alcohol consumption by workers in agriculture in the region. However, consumption of alcohol during pregnancy may not be sufficient to explain these tremendously high rates, since the alcohol consumption of Western Cape mothers with FAS children is not as high as in other high-risk populations. There may thus be other factors common in this population which contribute individually, or synergistically, to increased risk of intra-uterine damage. Candidate exposures include pesticides, smoking and toxic contaminants within cheap wine drunk in the Western Cape, and genetic and nutritional deficits may also interact in the genesis of a public health calamity of this scale. Understanding the aetiology of the FAS epidemic in its fullest dimensions in the Western Cape, using the full range of exposure science characterization, is critical to successful interventions to reduce the burden of disease due to FAS in the region, particularly given that community-based interventions and upstream public health policies are likely to be the mainstay of FAS prevention.
Reading:
1. London L, Mazok H, Adams H, Parry C. If the alcohol doesn’t get you, then the toxins will:
The health impacts of bulk wine provision in the Western Cape province of South Africa. Poster presented to the American Public Health Association conference, Nov 2006.
[Source document is Henn C, Adam H, London L. (2005). The impact of bulk wine on Western Cape communities. Report to the Department of Economic Development and Tourism. DOPSTOP, Stellenbosch – available on request.]
Other background reading:
1. Morojele NK, London L, Olorunju SA, Matjila J, Davids AS, Rendall-Mkosi KM. Predictors of Risk of Alcohol-Exposed Pregnancies among Women in an Urban and a Rural Area of South Africa. SocSci Med 2010;70: 534-42.
2. May PA, Gossage JP, Marais AS, et al.The epidemiology of fetal alcohol syndrome and partial FAS in a South African community. Drug Alcohol Depend. 2007 May 11;88(2-3):259-71.
Optional Reading
1. Rendall-Mkosi K, London L, Adnams C, Morojele N, McLoughlin J, Goldstone C. Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder in South Africa: Situational and Gap Analysis. Unicef, Pretoria, March 2008. http://www.unicef.org/southafrica/SAF_resources_fetalalcohol.pdf
2. London L. Alcohol consumption amongst South African farm workers: a post-apartheid challenge. Drug and Alcohol Dependence 2000 ; 59 : 199-206.Topic: Differentiating the Impacts of Alcohol and Alcohol Contaminant Exposures in Promoting Fetal Alcohol Syndrome
Navigating the Right to Health: What Happens When Civil Society Activists Move into Government?
Boston University School of Public Health
Department of Health Law, Bioethics & Human Rights
will be hosting a Visiting Scholar Luncheon on
Friday, November 15th at 12:30 PM
715 Albany Street
Talbot Building, Room 307 C (Founders Room)
Navigating the Right to Health: What Happens When Civil Society Activists Move in to Government?
Leslie London, MD
University of Cape Town, South Africa
School of Public Health and Family Medicine
Professor Leslie London is a Public Health Specialist at the University of Cape Town in South Africa. He served as Director of the School of Public Health and Family Medicine and is Head of its Health and Human Rights program. He has served on the South African National Health Research Ethics Council, the Advisory Committee on Human Rights, Ethics and Professional Practice for the Health Professions Council of South Africa and on Boards and Committees of health and human rights non-governmental organizations. His research includes work on the right to health, civil society agency for health rights, dual loyalties and human rights, and environmental justice, as well as health hazards related to pesticide exposures in rural communities.
Lunch will be served
RSVP is preferred but not required
Contact: gduong@bu.edu
GMS Spring 2014 course: Religion, Culture and Public Health available as IH Credit!
Religion, Culture and Public Health
(shhh! Can we talk about this?)
GMS MA 622 A1
Spring Semester, 2014
***This course counts for the 8 credits for IH that can be taken outside of IH course offerings.
Faculty:
Lance D. Laird, Th.D.
Assistant Director, MA Program in Medical Anthropology & Cross-Cultural Practice
Department of Family Medicine, Division of Graduate Medical Sciences
What is this course about?
This medical anthropology course will critically and self-reflectively examine multiple dimensions of the relationship between religions, religious communities and health in the context of public health projects and organizations, both domestic and international. Among topics explored:
· Christian missions and healing
o Is it still the same old thing?
o Using medicine for religious goals
o Do other religious traditions do “missions”?
· Global health and/as “mission”
o Public health “proselytizing” for religious, political, economic, and scientific values
o Using religion for other goals
· Religion, Spirituality and Health
o Is religion good for you? (e.g. prayer, church attendance, stress and longevity)
· Religion, discrimination, and health
o How does social exclusion affect the person? (e.g., Islamophobia, racism, heterosexism)
· Faith-based public health organizations
o (e.g. Muslim clinics and anti-smoking campaigns, Buddhist HIV/AIDS outreach, Jewish service organizations)
· Religion as barrier:
o abortion, contraception, conspiracy theories and alternative healing
· Religious health assets:
o What are they? Can you measure them?
o What is the “value” that “religion” brings to public health work?
TOP 5 REASONS TO TAKE THIS COURSE:
1. You want to be a critical participant in policy discussions about religion and government public health collaborations
2. Public health is more than just a job for you; it is a “vocation.”
3. You are planning to work for or with a faith-based organization.
OR You’ve worked with one before
OR You never want to work for a faith-based organization
AND You are suspicious of them
BUT You recognize how pervasive they are in public health
4. You are preparing to be a medical or public health missionary
OR You can’t stand missionaries
5. You want to save the world with public health campaigns
OR You want to save bodies and souls together
