The Role of Public Health Improvements in Health Advances: The 20th Century United States

The Role of Public Health Improvements in Health Advances: The 20th Century United States: "Mortality rates in the US fell more rapidly during the late 19th and early 20th Centuries than any other period in American history. This decline coincided with an epidemiological transition and the disappearance of a mortality 'penalty' associated with living in urban areas. There is little empirical evidence and much unresolved debate about what caused these improvements, however. This paper investigates the causal influence of clean water technologies - filtration and chlorination - on mortality in major cities during the early 20th Century. Plausibly exogenous variation in the timing and location of technology adoption is used to idetify these effects, and the validity of this identifying assumption is examined in detail. We find that clean water was responsible for nearly half of the total mortality reduction in major cities, three-quarters of the infant mortality reduction, and nearly two-thirds of the child mortality reduction. Rough calculations suggest that the social rate of return to these technologies was greater than 23 to 1 with a cost per life-year saved by clean water of about $500 in 2003 dollars. Implications for developing countries are briefly considered."

Peanut Butter and Patents - Richard Cash's experience in Bangladesh

Peanut Butter and Patents - Richard Cash's experience in Bangladesh: "...I asked Cash after class at Harvard's School of Public Health earlier this week whether he had ever sought a patent for ORT. He said that as a member of the US Public Health Service (with the NIH) in 1968, he doesn't think patenting was an option for him or his colleagues. Also, he admitted, it never really crossed his mind. Perhaps if it had, he said with a twinkle in his eye, he might not still be teaching at the School of Public Health [...]"

Chidi Chike Achebe: The Polio Epidemic in Nigeria:

Chidi Chike Achebe: The Polio Epidemic in Nigeria:

New Guidelines for Addressing Mental Health in Emergencies

17 Nov 2007 00:10:00 GMT

Source: International Medical Corps (IMC) - USA

Stephanie Bowen

Website: http://www.imcworldwide.org

New Guidelines for Addressing Mental Health in Emergencies New York Launch of Guidelines Important Step Forward

Full article: http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/fromthefield/218615/119525842810.htm

It's relevant to what the Alderman's are doing.

War's assault on the mind

By Paul Salopek |Tribune foreign correspondent

8:54 AM CST, November 15, 2007

MOGADISHU, Somalia — Abdulrahman Habeb was a man with problems, the most pressing of which involved a barrel of tranquilizer pills.

The barrel — containing 50,000 capsules of fluphenazine hydrochloride, a potent anti-psychotic drug ordered from America—was boosting his patients' appetites. This was not good. Patients at Habeb Public Mental Hospital were scaling the facility's mud walls to scavenge for food outside, in the war-pocked streets of Mogadishu. One had been shot...

For full article see: http://www.chicagotribune.com/features/lifestyle/health/chi-071115mental-story,1,1673232.story

Politics & Health and Community Participation

Hi class,

Following are some useful links for our presentation tomorrow. Hope you find them useful. Thanks. More to be posted shortly.

http://www.euro.who.int/document/e88137.pdf
http://siteresources.worldbank.org/NEWS/Resources/Ghana-Health-text.pdf