that’s the title of a short article in the jan/feb 2013 atlantic– and i couldn’t think of a better one. i have written previously about the joys of getting and giving directions in lower-income countries – specifically for research and household follow-up, although the general taxi/auto/tuk-tuk stories of trying to reach any specific location purposefully are equally funContinueContinue reading “‘where the streets have no name’”
Category Archives: Global health
embracing local
a nice sentence, on which i will follow-up (from booth 2012, development as a collective action problem, citing kelsall 2008): developing efforts have a greater chance of success when they stop treating cultural factors as a problem to be solved and try instead to harness them as a means to channel behavior in more positiveContinueContinue reading “embracing local”
thank you. water, sanitation, infrastructure, cholera.
someone said something helpful here. about cholera. but not about a new vaccine, a new super-antibiotic, or engineering a new vector that can be lulled to sleep by harp music, along with plans for a helicopter drop of harps or new ways to subsidize harps. whenever epidemics of cholera occur, the global public health communityContinueContinue reading “thank you. water, sanitation, infrastructure, cholera.”
diwali and drugs – lessons from drug sales in india
as, you know, possibly from watching The Colbert Report, it’s dwali. as stephan and wikipedia note, diwali is the festival of lights or lamps. being in india – or at least chennai – however, one might be hard-pressed to think that it was not the festival of sound (also, sweet pongal). firecrackers – or ‘crackers’ – playContinueContinue reading “diwali and drugs – lessons from drug sales in india”
AMFm post over at CGD – a few thoughts on the conversation
here’s the series: http://blogs.cgdev.org/globalhealth/2012/09/what-the-pre-post-evaluation-of-amfm-can-tell-us.php http://blogs.cgdev.org/globalhealth/2012/11/the-future-of-amfm-making-sense-from-all-the-noise.php http://blogs.cgdev.org/globalhealth/2012/11/the-future-of-amfm-realpolitik-and-realistic-options-part-ii.php @altmandaniel pointed out that our position on what the Board should decide in the final post was not entirely clear. this is true – our goal was to lay out the positions and process rather than take a strong stance on the outcome. with regard to outcomes, the matching-basedContinueContinue reading “AMFm post over at CGD – a few thoughts on the conversation”
why avon and not tupperware? among other questions on micro-franchises for health (& beauty) commodities in low-income settings
sometimes there are things that you say about work-related topics that you think you should only say with friends at the bar and then it turns out other people are thinking about it. like, ‘why can’t haiti be part of africa?’ and then this happens. my growing feeling is that there shouldn’t be such aContinueContinue reading “why avon and not tupperware? among other questions on micro-franchises for health (& beauty) commodities in low-income settings”
magic bullets are bad and silver bullets are hard to come by (agenda for approaching resistance to malaria treatments)
i have previously discussed the bizarre origin of ‘magic bullets’ as a phrase used positively and aspirationally in public health – as well as the folly it represents: relying on a single approach to a public health problem rather than doing multiple, hopefully coordinated, activities.* my feeling is that something silver-bullety is going on right now in discussionsContinueContinue reading “magic bullets are bad and silver bullets are hard to come by (agenda for approaching resistance to malaria treatments)”
pirates and the rolling stones (not keith richards in the movie)
pirates (secuity, employment) around minute 14:00: http://www.ted.com/talks/jason_mccue_terrorism_is_a_failed_brand.html also, the enduring power of the rolling stones, at the end of the talk
P4P, habits, context, process
Mark Nichter and Prascilla Magrath (hereafter, M&N) have a nice new paper on pay-for-performance (P4P), stating that “understanding the processes by which P4P targets are reached demands a reorientation… towards an understanding of motivation as a component within a complex adaptive social system.” (Complex systems are so hot right now!) the paper is worth reading inContinueContinue reading “P4P, habits, context, process”
fresh fruit, folk flu, confessions, cold season, & conclusions
the main gist here is that it is not fun to have an illness with no name, no clear prognosis, and, insofar as someone thinks it is necessary, no clear, commensurate-to-symptoms treatment plan. the need to restate this grew out of recent discussions around malaria diagnosis and treatment of malaria and the broader range of illnessesContinueContinue reading “fresh fruit, folk flu, confessions, cold season, & conclusions”
Heather E. Lanthorn 