The Disease Burden Associated with Water, Sanitation and Hygiene
Tuesday, July 22nd, 2008Last month the World Health Organization (WHO) released, without much fanfare, Safer Water, Better Health, its estimate of how many deaths or how much “disease burden” can be attributed to deficiencies in water, sanitation and hygiene (WSH). Access to safe drinking water and proper sanitation is key to improving health conditions in developing countries. Water-related […]
Country Profiles of Environmental Burden of Disease for LAC
Friday, August 3rd, 2007Several weeks ago the World Health Organization (WHO) released what it billed as "the first ever country-by-country analysis of the impact environmental factors have on health." It phrased it that way ("country-by-country") because it released a more global analysis of the issue last year — in fact, that report was the subject of one of […]
Helping Poor Countries Deal with Chronic Non-Communicable Diseases
Thursday, July 26th, 2007Last month the World Bank issued an interesting report on chronic non-communicable chronic diseases (NCDs) such as cardiovascular disease, cancer, diabetes, and chronic lung or kidney disease, which I am adding to the Temas Recommended Reading List section on health. Perhaps by now you’re thinking that I have some sort of obsession about NCDs, since […]
Assessment of Non-communicable Chronic Disease in Uruguay / Diagnóstico de las enfermedades crónicas no transmisibles en Uruguay
Sunday, July 22nd, 2007Recently Uruguay’s Ministry of Public Health (MSP) released the results of its survey into its population’s chief risk factors for non-communicable chronic disease (NCD). The major NCD categories are cardiovascular disease (CVD), cancers (“malignant neoplasms”), chronic respiratory disease, diabetes and chronic kidney disease. NCDs constitute 70% of deaths in Uruguay (33.8% CVD, 22.6% malignant neoplasms). […]
Cardiovascular Disease in LAC Revisited
Tuesday, July 3rd, 2007Fellow bloggers, has this ever happened to you? You run across an important piece of news — a breakthrough study just released, for example — and are tempted to simply cut-and-paste into your blog the Reuters or other news blurb, or a related press release, or you’re tempted to make a “quick-and-dirty” post making (perhaps […]
A Health Agenda for the Americas
Saturday, June 9th, 2007The annual General Assembly (GA) of the Organization of American States (OAS), held this year in Panama just last week, was used as the venue for formally rolling out the “Health Agenda for the Americas” developed over the last two years by the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) and the World Health Organization (WHO). The […]
PAHO Throws Down the Gauntlet on Trans-Fats
Friday, June 8th, 2007Temas Note: Although the task force report mentioned in these Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) press releases was actually approved several weeks ago, it was not formally released to the general public until today (07 June). Rather than release it quietly and let it be approved without much public discussion (outside of PAHO and Health […]
Argentina Seeks a Healthier Lifestyle
Monday, May 21st, 2007Synopsis in English: Last Thursday (17 May) Argentine President Kirchner formally launched a “National Healthy Life Plan.” The government, concerned by recent statistics about the health of Argentina’s population — particularly growing obesity and rising incidence of cardiovascular disease — has decided to push stress health promotion and prevention — promoting the adoption now by […]
PAHO Calls for a “Trans Fat Free Americas”
Saturday, April 28th, 2007From the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO): Nutrition Experts Call for “Trans Fat Free Americas” PAHO task force cites scientific evidence that transfatty acids are “toxic” to human health Experts on nutrition and public health today called for eliminating transfatty acids from food supplies throughout the Western Hemisphere, at a special task force meeting convened […]
What to Expect from WHO’s New Director-General
Wednesday, November 15th, 2006On Thursday 09 November 2006 the World Health Organization (WHO) elected a new chief executive, and it wasn’t a Latin. Dr. Margaret Chan of Hong Kong (but representing China in the contest) beat out Mexican Health Minister Julio Frenk for the post of Director-General (DG) — first for the WHO Executive Board (EB) endorsement, and […]
« Previous Entries Next Entries »