Angola: Health Care in a War-Torn Country
BY VINCENT TRAN Along the Atlantic coast of Sub-Saharan Africa lies Angola, a country attempting to recover from decades of war and turmoil. Widespread tropical diseases, poor health care, and inadequate education all contribute to a startling life expectancy of fifty-two years, one of the lowest in the world.1 Compared to the US life expectancy…
Vietnam: Height Initiative Faces Growing Criticism
BY HANH NGUYEN The Vietnamese government recently announced an ambitious USD 287 million plan aimed at increasing the average height of Vietnamese men and women. The plan seeks to raise height averages for 18-year-old men and women from current meager figures of 1.67 and 1.56 meters to 1.685 meters and 1.575 meters, respectively, by 2030.…
China: The Not-So-Sweet Rise of Type II Diabetes
BY MICHAEL MARCEL In 1987, KFC brought its signature fried chicken to Beijing, becoming the first Western fast food chain to open its doors in Mainland China. By 2011, the number of KFCs in China had grown to over 3,000 across 650 cities, with one new restaurant opened per day.1 McDonalds, Pizza Hut, and other…
Photo Feature – Community Development in Uganda
BY SOPHIA KECSKES In Uganda, community-based health promotion initiatives are vital. These pictures strive to provide a sense of life in Uganda, and depict the strong communal ties that unite individuals both in rural and urban areas. Literacy support, healthy food, and supportive communities where youth feel loved and empowered help much more to promote…
Mental Health of Syrian Refugees in Jordan
BY FARAH AL HADID When Syrian refugees cross the border to Jordan, their physical injuries are clearly evident. The mental injuries that they have incurred, on the other hand, are far less apparent.1 It is estimated that, on average, more than 50 percent of refugees worldwide manifest mental health problems ranging from chronic mental disorders…
Access and Implementation of Reproductive Rights in Urban Haiti
BY MARA BLUMENSTEIN “Reproductive rights … rest on the recognition of the basic right of all couples and individuals to decide freely and responsibly the number, spacing and timing of their children and to have the information and means to do so, and the right to attain the highest standard of sexual and reproductive health.”-International…
Midwife Certification & The Key to Reduced Maternal Mortality in the Democratic Republic of the Congo
BY ANNA SOPHIA YOUNG Belvie is lying on a mat in a hut in a rural village in the south of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). As her two children, Claude and Ruth, play outside, she is trying to give birth to her third child. Belvie has not had any antenatal care, and…
Quebrada Cali: Panamá Photo Feature
BY CHLOE YEE We arrived in Panamá Tocumen airport in the late afternoon. A group of 24 Yale undergrads, mostly strangers to each other and to the country, we found ourselves sardine-packed into a tiny bus. With our luggage and medications strapped to the roof almost two stories high, we headed towards a location that…
New in Tech: Yale Undergraduates Develop Neonatal Sepsis Diagnostic Test
BY ALEXANDRU BUHIMSCHI More than a third of the four million neonatal deaths occurring annually are caused by severe infections.1 Nearly one million of these annual deaths can be traced to neonatal sepsis, a bacterial infection in newborn infants. Neonatal sepsis can arise early (≤3 days after birth) or late (4-90 days after birth). Three…
United States: Hippocratic Loyalties and Unwilling Judges
BY MAX GOLDBERG While primary care physicians play a pivotal role in determining levels of disability benefits in the United States, their perspectives are largely ignored in both media accounts and scholarly examinations of national and state-level disability benefits. Drawing jointly from interviews I conducted with eleven physicians from March 27 through April 16 and…
Tanzania: The Girls’ Group
BY SOFIA LAPIDES-WILSON The alarm went off at 6, and I dragged myself out of bed, ate the three pieces of white bread that constituted breakfast, and headed out to school. The walk to get there took about twenty minutes. I treked over a brook, through corn, banana and coffee fields, past small shops and…
A Call to Action: Psychological Harm in Slaughterhouse Workers
BY MICHAEL LEBWOHL “Down in the blood pit they say that the smell of blood makes you aggressive. And it does. You get an attitude that if that hog kicks at me, I’m going to get even. You’re already going to kill the hog, but that’s not enough. It has to suffer. When you get…
The Anti-Vaccine Movement: A Lesson in Ignorance
BY CARLIN SHERIDAN Parents want what is best for their children. In the modern era where many first world families with the means to do so pursue healthy lifestyles centered on organic food, natural household care products, and homeopathic remedies, some have begun to question the safety and regulation of vaccines. Despite consistent and clear…
Human Health and Climate Change: The Co-benefits of Climate Change Mitigation
BY CLAIRE CHANG The International Panel on Climate Change predicts that the global mean surface air temperature in 2016 to 2035 will be between 1 and 1.5°C warmer than the global mean temperature in 1850 to 1900.1 As one of this century’s biggest environmental threats, climate change influences both social and environmental determinants of human…
India: Resilience-Based Responses to Sexual Violence
BY AARON BERMAN How do vulnerable communities come to reckon with the unthinkable? The question of how best to respond to communal atrocities in the wake of violence has occupied much scholarly discourse in response to recent outbreaks of violent conflict. In particular, a recent trend toward collective acknowledgement and verbal elaboration of trauma, an…
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