Health

Local Communities in Mexico Show Ways to Fight Obesity

By Emilio Godoy
Manuel Villegas is one of the peasant farmers who decided to start planting amaranth in Mexico, to complement their corn and bean crops and thus expand production for sale and self-consumption and, ultimately, contribute to improving the nutrition of their communities.

Entrepreneurial about Gender Equality

By Hong Joo Hahm
Asia and the Pacific needs more women entrepreneurs. Women’s economic empowerment and gender equality depend on it, as does the inclusive economic growth needed to achieve the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. This drives a new initiative by the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific, generously supported by Global Affairs Canada, focused on improving women entrepreneurs’ access to finance in our region.

A UN High-Level Meeting May See Hopes to End Tuberculosis

By Bobby John, MD
In the early months of 1993, there was frenetic activity within the Geneva headquartered WHO’s Communicable Diseases program, to get Tuberculosis designated as a Global Emergency.

India Uses Tech to Power its New Battle Against Malnutrition

By Stella Paul
Kanaklata Raula from Kaptipada village in India’s Mayurbhanj District is on duty 24x7. The 52-year-old community health worker from Odisha state rides a bicycle for hours each day, visiting community members who need nutrition and reproductive healthcare.

End Tuberculosis by Empowering Community Health Workers

By David Bryden
“I’m alive because of support from my family and the community health worker who brought medicine directly to my house, accompanied me during treatment and gave me hope. Without care and human support, there's no way I could be here today,” says Melquiades Huauya, a survivor of multi-drug resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) from Peru.

Worldwide Effects of Asbestos Use

By Emily Walsh
Earlier this summer, the Environmental Protection Agency of the United States (EPA) issued a Significant New Use Rule (SNUR) on asbestos, a naturally occurring mineral that is also a known carcinogen. Asbestos is the only definitive cause of mesothelioma, a cancer which affects the linings of internal organs.

Global Warming Threatens Europe’s Public Health

By Ed Holt
Climate change and health experts are warning of the growing threat to public health in Europe from global warming as rising temperatures help potentially lethal diseases spread easily across the continent.

Q&A: As Water Scarcity Becomes the New Normal How Do We Manage This Scarce Resource?

By Manipadma Jena
Growing economies are thirsty economies. And water scarcity has become “the new normal” in many parts of the world, according to Torgny Holmgren executive director of the Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI).

Why India’s Solar Water-Drawing ATMs and Irrigation Pumping Systems Offer Replicable Strategies

By Ranjit Devraj
At New Delhi’s Savda Ghevra slum settlement, waterborne diseases have become less frequent thanks to solar-powered water ATMs that were installed here as a social enterprise venture three years ago.

Damning U.N. Report Outlines Crimes Against Rohingya As Children Suffer from Trauma One Year Later

By Farid Ahmed
At 12, Mohammed* is an orphan. He watched his parents being killed by Myanmar government soldiers a year ago. And he is one of an estimated half a million Rohingya children who have survived and been witness to what the United Nations has called genocide.

Making the Case for Investing in Water, Sanitation & Hygiene

By Ruth Romer
Tea picker Bina, 45 from Sylhet, Bangladesh, used to walk for an hour each day to collect water from a well, also using water from a nearby stream, which was contaminated. Bina and her children were often sick as a result; leading to missed work and a loss of income.

The Fight for the Right to Abortion Spreads in Latin America Despite Politicians

By Fabiana Frayssinet
The Argentine Senate's rejection of a bill to legalise abortion did not stop a Latin American movement, which is on the streets and is expanding in an increasingly coordinated manner among women's organisations in the region with the most restrictive laws and policies against pregnant women's right to choose.

Accessible Public Transportation and Housing, a Need for People with Disabilities in Major Cities

By Carmen Arroyo
Even though over six billion people—nearly one billion of whom will have disabilities— are expected to live in urban centres by 2050, many of the world’s major urban cities have a long way to go before their infrastructure becomes inclusive for people with disabilities.

Old Age Is a Curse in India

By Pratima Yadav, Raghav Gaiha, and Vani S. Kulkarni
Old age morbidity is a rapidly worsening curse in India. The swift descent of the elderly in India (60 years+) into non-communicable diseases (NCDs e.g. cardiovascular diseases, cancer, chronic respiratory diseases and diabetes) could have disastrous consequences in terms of impoverishment of families, excess mortality, lowering of investment and consequent deceleration of growth.

Take Charge of Your Food: Your Health is Your Business

By Sunita Narain
The minimum we expect from the government is to differentiate between right and wrong. But when it comes to regulating our food, it’s like asking for too much. Our latest investigation vouches for this. The Centre for Science and Environment (CSE)’s pollution monitoring laboratory tested 65 samples of processed food for presence of genetically modified (GM) ingredients.

Joint Action Needed to Reform our Food System

By Carol Gribnau
While participating in this year’s High-level Political Forum (HLPF), one thing became crystal clear to me. Come 2030, we will not have healthy and affordable food if we continue with business as usual. But no one institution can single handedly change the course of our food system. The key to ensuring a sustainable food system is involving a diverse group of actors – from smallholder farmers to government – to generate ideas for change, together.

Let Food Be Thy Medicine

By Adelheid Onyango and Bibi Giyose
When faced with a crisis, our natural reaction is to deal with its immediate threats. Ateka* came to the make-shift clinic with profuse diarrhoea: they diagnosed cholera. The urgent concern in the midst of that humanitarian crisis was to treat the infection and send her home as quickly as possible. But she came back to the treatment centre a few days later – not for cholera, but because she was suffering from severe acute malnutrition. Doctors had saved her life but not restored her health. And there were others too, who like Ateka eventually succumbed to severe malnutrition.  

Children and Women with Disabilities, More Likely to Face Discrimination

By Carmen Arroyo and Emily Thampoe
Children with disabilities are up to four times more likely to experience violence, with girls being the most at risk, according to the United Nations Children’s Fund.

How the Lack of Affordable Vegetables is Creating a Billion-Dollar Obesity Epidemic in South Africa

By Nalisha Adams
Every Sunday afternoon, Thembi Majola* cooks a meal of chicken and rice for her mother and herself in their home in Alexandra, an informal settlement adjacent to South Africa’s wealthy economic hub, Sandton.

States Must Act Now to Protect Indigenous Peoples During Migration

By UN experts* on Indigenous Peoples
States around the world must take effective action to guarantee the human rights of indigenous peoples, says a group of UN experts. In a joint statement marking International day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples, the experts say it is crucial that the rights of indigenous peoples are realised when they migrate or are displaced from their lands:

Transforming Food Systems: Today’s Realities and Tomorrow’s Challenges

By Alice Lloyd
The world’s food systems face two immense challenges today. One, to produce enough food to nourish a global population of seven billion people without harming the environment. Two, to make sure food systems deliver nutrition to everyone, particularly the world’s poorest, many of whom suffer from chronic under-nutrition.
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