"Key facts

• Over a billion people, about 15% of the world's population, have some form of disability.
• Between 110 million and 190 million people have significant difficulties in functioning.
• Rates of disability are increasing due to population ageing and increases in chronic health conditions, among other causes.
• People with disabilities have less access to health care services and therefore experience unmet health care needs.

Disability and health

Interactive Panel Discussion on the Promotion and Protection of the Rights of Children with Disabilities, 17 June, 1.15 to 2.30 p.m., Conference Room 7, UN Headquarters, New York
http://www.un.org/disabilities/default.asp?id=1573

Sports for Inclusive Development: Sports, Disability and Development: Key to empowerment of persons with disabilities and their communities, 27 June, 1.15 to 2.30 p.m., Conference Room 6, UN Headquarters, New York
http://www.un.org/disabilities/default.asp?id=1574

DESA Briefing Series: Disability and Economics: The nexus between disability, education and employment, 1 July, 1.15 to 2.30 p.m., Conference Room 7, UN Headquarters, New York
http://www.un.org/disabilities/default.asp?id=1575

Fourth Conference of States Parties
7 to 9 September 2011
http://www.un.org/disabilities/default.asp?id=1571

International Day of Persons with Disabilities, 3 December 2011
http://www.un.org/disabilities/default.asp?id=1561

Find out more at www.un.org/disabilities

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---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Haitian Studies Association <hsa@umb.edu>
Date: Tue, May 3, 2011 at 2:25 PM
Subject: Last call for Newsletter Submissions!
To: lamahassoun@gmail.com

We have received some great submissions thus far for the HSA newsletter.  This is the last call for any articles, photos, or other pieces that you would like to submit to keep this tradition rolling.  This year we are also celebrating milestones of HSA members, broadly defined.  Thus, if you were accepted to a program, were hired, received a scholarship, were featured in a publication, etc, please let us know so we can highlight these moments too.  

Submissions can be in Haitian Creole, English, or French, 500 words maximum. Submission must be sent to Manoucheka at manouchekac@gmail.com to be included in the May 2011 issue. Do not miss out on this opportunity to be featured in our Spring issue! Get connected and stay connected with the HSA community.

--

Lama Hassoun

S.M. Candidate 2011

Global Health and Population

Harvard School of Public Health

E: lamahassoun@gmail.com

P: +1 (508) 287 5105

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States of Exception—Haiti’s IDP Camps

The Massachusetts Health Policy Forum invites you to a forum entitled, “Accountable Health Care Delivery: Models and Policy Actions for Massachusetts”. As Massachusetts seeks to control costs and improve the efficiency of the health care delivery system, this forum highlights four organizations as models for progress:  Norton Healthcare in Louisville, Kentucky, Tucson Medical Center in Arizona, Mount Auburn Cambridge Independent Practice Association and Hampden County Physician Associates in Springfield. In different ways these organizations are integrating a range of care, changing payment and incentive structures and working on quality improvement.

Speakers will include Stuart Altman, Sol C. Chaikin Professor of Health Policy at Brandeis University, Andrew Dreyfus, President and CEO of Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts, Palmer Evans, Senior Vice President and Chief Medical Officer of Tucson Medical Center, Philip Gaziano, Medical Director of Hampden County Physician Associates, Gary Gottlieb, President and CEO of Partners Healthcare, Steven Hester, Senior Vice President and Chief Medical Officer of Norton Healthcare, Meredith Rosenthal, Associate Professor of Health Economics and Policy at Harvard School of Public Health, and Barbara Spivak, President of Mount Auburn Cambridge Independent Practice Association.
Date:                 Tuesday, November 30, 2010

Time:                8:30 a.m. – 12:30 p.m.

Location:          Omni Parker House Hotel – Rooftop Ballroom
                         60 School Street, Boston, MA                        

An informal breakfast will be served between 8:30 – 9:00 a.m.

We hope that you will be able to join us.  Seating is limited, so please register as soon as possible.  Click here to register.

If you have any questions, please contact Sarah Ferguson at ferguson@brandeis.edu or (781) 736-3940.

The Working Group on Sustainable Cities at Harvard University, a nascent cluster of experts from the University’s design, business, health, and government communities, is working toward that end, and is ready to welcome voices from every discipline. Attending the group’s eighth private meeting last month (Sept. 14) were an authority on climate change, a public health scholar, a city planner, an architect, a political scientist, and even a professor of divinity.

The group is meant to “focus our brain trust so we can immediately help,” said its originator, architect Martha Schwartz, adding that Europe is already 30 to 40 years ahead of the United States in its thinking about sustainable cities. Cities are the fulcrum of the economy and the heart of culture, she said. “In order for the United States to go forward, we have to rethink our cities.”

Schwartz is a professor in practice in the Department of Landscape Architecture at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design and a self-described student of “the public realm.” She is co-teaching a “Generative Ecologies” studio course this semester, the second in a row to use Edessa, Greece, as a model for sustainable development.

The group’s first event was a working luncheon with two Boston-area mayors, hosted on Sept. 30 by the Institute of Politics (IOP) at the Harvard Kennedy School. In attendance was the former mayor of Detroit, Dennis Archer, who is an IOP Fellow this semester.

Climate scientist Dan Schrag has offered the working group a temporary home at the Harvard University Center for the Environment, where he is director. But he was skeptical of meeting with mayors and preferred to use the University’s immense “convening power” to look at urban sustainability from another angle: healthy cities, for instance.

“Jack could go to town,” said Schrag, gesturing across the table at John D. “Jack” Spengler, the Akira Yamaguchi Professor of Environmental Health and Human Habitation at the Harvard School of Public Health.

To keep those facts in order, the working group is using a Surdna Foundation grant to design a web-based “knowledge platform,” and will also be getting information technology help from the Harvard Office for Sustainability. “It’s clear to the mayors this could be a resource,” said Schwartz. “We’re trying to energize mayors, and to learn from them.”

Perhaps an executive education model is best, said working group member David Luberoff, executive director of the Rappaport Institute for Greater Boston, or perhaps an “executive session” model in which participants keep coming back to talk.

Harvey G. Cox Jr., Harvard’s Hollis Research Professor of Divinity Emeritus, suggested an active collaboration on sustainability with a small city near Harvard.

It was a Sunday morning when the navy lieutenant was driving four doctors to Thatta for the Pakistan Navy flood relief medical camp. To me the vision of Thatta or Thatto as the natives call it, was that of the historical town. Emperor Shah Jehan ( Moghul dynasty)  built a mosque during the 1600’s , which comprised of 101 domes  is designed in such a way that imam's voice can reach every corner of this building without the help of any loudspeaker. In August 2010 Thatto was one of the worst affected districts of Pakistan as a result of devastating floods. The sea was on high tide when flooded river water reached it multiplying the damage manifold. By August 28, 175,000 people had left their homes camping on the main road under open sky. Most of them have been rescued by the navy personnel .

The reason for holding medical camps in such areas extended beyond the liberation theology – to provide a preferential option for the poor and homeless- rather it encompassed keeping the threat of looming epidemics at bay, Particularly after the floods, gastroenteritis, skin infection and respiratory infections were turning into a hopeless scenario.

Dr Farooqui- a surgeon, has been actively involved in extending help to areas where inaccessibility and lack of means had been remarkably active in aiding diseases causing distress. Arranging and coordinating the availability of doctors, surgeons and ob gyn for the refuges of Pakistan Navy Medical camp has been on Dr Farooqui priority list ever since august 29^th , since the camp became operational.

We reached the camp site . The steep gradient of inequality became evident. However, the lieutenant Noman told us that the whole area was covered with thorned , wild bushes , which the personnel removed over night  and set up 1000 tents. Amazing how quickly and durably 2000 families were accommodated. Three meals a day were being provided to the refuges, drinking water had been made available , a generator provided light at night, walking sticks for the elderly were also distributed, a shed for keeping the bulls and cows of the refugees was also set up, plus a medical camp. The camp was run on the funds accumulated as donations. As people feel reluctant to give to the government owing to corruption, they readily give to the reliable sources.

On Sunday we saw 250 patients.  So far the public health training has made realize that a great “ epi divide” ( epidemiological) divide exists in the developing world. And the epi  divide usually has brown or black skinned people on the “other” side. The scenario of post floods emphasized all such caveats. These refuges , some of them not willing to go back to their homes , felt very safe in this camp. Flood had exposed them to the lack of almost every necessity, clean water , shoes , medicines , food and shelter. 

Almost every third woman coming to the medical camp was pregnant. Made me think how far do we need to go in terms of population control. We were giving out folic acid and iron supplements to them. But what will happen once when they return “home”.  The sights at the camp site were rather dramatic, children and adults with no shoes lugging water, people sleeping in the tents floor. It was a depressing sight. But I had to remind myself that these people were better off than so many others. But some how as humans it was not enough.

The lieutenant said that the rescue was so difficult. There was an incident where about 15 navy people escorted by a native sindhi went looking for a submerged – flooded village and after several hours of looking around for any sign of life, their guide says, “ mathay pheray weyo”…. Meaning he cannot understand nor recognize where to take them. As he recognized nothing.  I learnt that heroes were many. Whether it was the lieutenant and his fellows trying to save lives, whether it was Dr Farooqui, leaving the benefits of the elite surgeons life and coming and working here, whether it was the locals, supporting one and other….most stories were inspirational and had a hero. I stared out at the tent city, tent after tent sprawling with people busy in their every day life, struggling to recover , an alarm system went on inside me…. How to long term rehabilitate them. World and we should not forget Pakistan. Post flood rehab would need us for a long time to come.

iStockphoto

Worry less about the problems that are rare and more about the commonplace risks that can lead to real harm.

Shoomp shoomp shoomp. Hear that?

That’s the sound of helicopter parents hovering over their children, worrying every second of the day that terrorists could strike Johnny's school or a stranger will snatch Jane from the bus stop.

Scary stuff. But it turns out most parents are worrying about all the wrong things.

"These worries that we have are so rare," says Christie Barnes, mother of four and author of The Paranoid Parents Guide. "It’s like packing a snow shovel in case it snows in Las Vegas."

1. Kidnapping
2. School snipers
3. Terrorists
4. Dangerous strangers
5. Drugs

1. Car accidents
2. Homicide (usually committed by a person who knows the child, not a stranger)
3. Abuse
4. Suicide
5. Drowning

This unnecessary worrying, she argues, is detrimental to parents. The stress worry-wracked parents endure can harm their health and their relationships with other adults. Also, focusing on rare dangers distracts parents from the dangers that matter.

So, what’s a worried parent to do? Barnes has a simple prescription: helmets and seatbelts. Yup, that’s right, helmets and seatbelts. "I know it sounds boring," she says, but according to her research, making kids wear protective gear and buckle up in the car cuts kids' chances of death by 90 percent and their chances of serious injury by 78 percent.