Pardee Center Kicks Off Spring 2023 Global Health Politics Workshop
On January 31, 2023, the Frederick S. Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future, an affiliate center of Boston University’s Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies, hosted the first of its Spring 2023 Global Health Politics Workshop.
Interim Director of the Pardee Center, Ambassador Jorge Heine, introduced the premier workshops speaker – Dr. Ann Swidler, a graduate Professor of the Graduate School at the University of California-Berkeley – and gave opening remarks that contextualized global public health as a fundamental piece of international politics. Dr. Swidler, presented her findings from research on barriers to treating high viral load (HVL) HIV/AIDS cases in Malawi.
Local clinics are the first line of defense in treating patients with HIV/AIDS, but Dr. Swidler noticed that these clinics were reluctant to prescribe higher doses of medication to those with a more intense form of HIV, which is the next step in providing sufficient care. Tackling antibiotic resistance, insufficient training of aid workers and nurses, and cultural nuance, are just some of the challenges she outlined. Dr. Swidler outlined her experiences in Malawi and called on global health infrastructure to tailor their global policies more specifically to individual countries.
Housed at and sponsored by the Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future, and convened by Pardee Center Faculty Research Fellow Professor Joseph Harris, the monthly Global Health Politics Workshop (GHPW) series brings together leading social scientists from the disciplines of anthropology, political science, and sociology, along with practitioners in Boston and around the world, to advance understanding of health phenomena in a globally interconnected world.Visit the Pardee Center’s website for full details on upcoming workshops.
A recording of the event can be viewed below. Dr. Swidler’s presentation was also the subject of a Daily Free Press article. Read their coverage of the event here.
Frederick S. Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future is an interdisciplinary research center affiliated with the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies at Boston University. Through programs of scholarship, outreach, and education, the Pardee Center works to improve public decision-making and policy to train future generations of interdisciplinary scholars. Read more about the center here.