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At India’s Kumbh Mela, world’s largest gathering, researchers document public health concerns
February 12, 2013 -- Tens of millions of people are gathering for the Kumbh Mela, a 55-day Hindu religious festival currently underway in Allahabad, India. The event happens every 12 years, with a massive temporary city constructed to accommodate…
Infectious disease expert works to ban landmines, fight tuberculosis and AIDS
Since the 1980s, infectious disease specialist Anne Goldfeld has worked to ban landmines, treat victims of tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS in Cambodia and Ethiopia, and conduct research aimed at eradicating those diseases. A professor in the Department of Immunology…
Can doing good be done better?
[ Spring/Summer 2012 ] Better-trained aid workers, closer coordination among relief agencies, and a bigger dose of humility while working in unfamiliar cultures would help ensure that the billions of dollars spent each year on humanitarian assistance are…
Jeannie and Jonathan Lavine provide new gift to expand, improve training for humanitarian aid leaders
[ Spring/Summer 2012 ] Wars, natural disasters, genocide, and other tragedies in recent years have transformed global humanitarian aid into a $160 billion-a-year industry that employs 240,000 people in thousands of organizations across more than 100 countries. But too often,…
Research team corroborates Darfur abuse allegations
After reviewing and analyzing medical records, researchers say they’ve corroborated allegations by Darfur civilians who say they were tortured, sexually assaulted, or otherwise abused by Sudanese government or Janjaweed forces in the Darfur region of Sudan. The research…
Documenting public health needs in African communities destabilized by militia violence
March 6, 2012 The militant group the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) has waged a 25-year campaign of fear in Uganda which has since spread to neighboring Sudan, Central African Republic, and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), killing…
Why civilian war deaths matter
November 1, 2011 -- Experts estimate that hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians have died since 2003 as a consequence of the United States war in Iraq. But John Tirman thinks Americans haven’t paid enough attention. Still, he…
Life after death: Helping former child soldiers become whole again
[ Fall 2011 ] Today, among the 87 war-torn countries in which data have been gathered, 300,000–500,000 children are involved with fighting forces as child soldiers. Some, as young as seven, commit unspeakable atrocities: killing parents and siblings,…
Saving lives in the heat of battle
[ Fall 2011 ] Christian Benjamin, MD, MPH ’96 and Michael McCarten, DO, MPH ’99 are delivering evidence-based military medicine in Afghanistan Medics roll a badly wounded U.S. soldier into the military hospital in Kandahar, Afghanistan. He has…
Teaching leadership to leaders
[ Fall 2011 ] The National Preparedness Leadership Initiative teaches seasoned professionals how to handle unprecedented disasters. At the World Trade Center on 9/11, the New York Fire Department set up a command center at the bottom of…
