A MESSAGE FROM OUR EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
December 15th, 2020

Dear Colleague,

This has been a most difficult year for so many. Our hearts go out to those who lost loved ones, not only due to the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, but also from a myriad of other diseases, traumas and social dislocations. We witnessed a deeply disturbing rise in nationalism, disregard for human rights and outright attacks on democracy in many quarters. On top of this, the assault on nature continues unabated.

The pandemic hit academia hard, disrupting our education and research mandates. The economic consequences of this challenge are sadly being realized for students, faculty and institutions. Longstanding, deep structural disparities between and within countries have been exacerbated, with those who are most vulnerable being impacted the most.

However, bright lights are at the end of this dismal tunnel. Vaccines are being rolled out to address the pandemic, the embers of international cooperation are being fanned, disparities acknowledged, and climate change, biodiversity losses and pollution receiving greater attention. This crisis has compelled us to arrive at the long overdue conclusion that we must build forward better. The pandemic is an opportunity to do just that. We must not fail to rise to the challenge. Too much is at stake.
At CUGH we worked hard all year long to use our networks, programs, and platforms to address most of these challenges. In the coming year, with you, we will continue to press forward in these efforts.

To know how far we have come you will see in this bulletin (courtesy of Dr. Roger Glass, Director of the Fogarty Center – NIH), a special recording of our very first annual meeting. Many of CUGH’s founders are in the video.

Finally, our work to improve the health of people, and the planet, could not occur without our members and the work of many committed individuals. I would like to extend my profound thanks to our members whose membership sustains our organization and those who serve on our Board of Directors, committees, subcommittees, working groups and panels. They are all volunteers and without their hard work we would not be able to provide the activities, opportunities, and products that we deliver for our members and the broader global health community. Finally, I would like to send my deepest gratitude to my staff: Dalal, Jenna, Julia, Monica, and Roara who work tirelessly at our Secretariat to support our work.

From all of us at CUGH, we wish you and yours a safe, restful holiday season and to those who celebrate, a blessed Christmas.

Best wishes,




Keith Martin, MD, PC
Executive Director
Consortium of Universities for Global Health
CUGH Events & Updates
Great news! See our website www.cugh2021.org for the expanding list of outstanding sessions and speakers we will feature from around the world. This includes keynote talks by Dr. Anthony Fauci, Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, and a leading member of the White House's Covid-19 Task Force, and Dr. Hugo Ramirez, the Deputy Secretary of Prevention and Health Promotion in Mexico. Special interviews with: Inger Anderson, Executive Director of the UN Environment Program; Elizabeth Mrema Executive Secretary of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity and others; more than 600 posters, 31 satellites, over 32 other sessions and the Pulitzer-CUGH Global Health Film Festival will be featured.

The conference will be held March 12-14, 2021, and satellite sessions will take place March 1-11, 2021. For more information about CUGH2021 and to register, see: www.cugh2021.org

Get global visibility at CUGH2021 for your organization or institution as a sponsor or exhibitor.

Join Dr. Trish Davidson, Dean, School of Nursing (JHU Nursing), Dean Ann Kurth (Yale School of Nursing), Dr. Keith Martin (CUGH's Executive Director) and others for a Facebook Live event on December 17th, 6 PM - 7 PM ET for a discussion on COVID-19 and the future generation. COVID-19 has forced universities across the world to tackle online higher education, many for the first time, with some thriving and others faltering. It has challenged pedagogical skills of faculty and expectations of students. Technological innovation, the disruption of business models, and an increase in social inequality are rampant and many are considering the value of university as we know it. This interactive panel will discuss the future of higher education and focus on how we address challenges and embrace opportunities for the good of individuals, nations, and society.

We want to hear from you what priorities the new Biden Administration should focus on. Join us on December 18th at 2 pm-3 pm ET to provide this feedback. This is an opportunity to provide the new administration with ideas as to what their policies should be. We will be sharing these ideas with them.

The webinar will include a short summary outlining some of the potential opportunities for policy changes but the majority of the time will be devoted to hearing from you.

Ocean pollution is damaging the health of our people and that of the planet. An important report, Human Health and Ocean Pollution led by Dr. Philip Landrigan, Director of the Global Pollution Observatory at Boston College and others was released this month in Monaco. Additionally, a companion commentary written by CUGH's Executive Director, Dr. Keith Martin, was published, titled, "As the Oceans Go, So Too Do We." Read both the report and commentary here.

Deadlines are upcoming for the CUGH 2021 Awards!

Submit by December 31st

Submit by December 31st

Thanks to Dr. Roger Glass, Director of NIH's Fogarty Center, we have acquired the recording of CUGH's first ever annual conference, held in 2009. Hear some of the founders of CUGH & see how far we have come. Watch here!

Drs. Agnes Binagwaho and Philip Landrigan published this article in The Lancet Planetary Health, on the opportunity COVID-19 presents to change the world's approach to eliminating fossil fuels and reducing air pollution. Read here.

The CUGH Campus Representative Program and Training Advisory Committee are asking for insights into shaping and improving advocacy efforts by international and domestic global health students and trainees. The survey will identify priority global health advocacy topics.
 
This survey is for current students and trainees in the field of global health. You are eligible to take this survey if you are a: student (undergraduate, graduate, medical, doctoral, etc.) and/or trainee (post-doctoral, post-graduate student one year after graduation of college or upper level graduate program). Students/trainees cannot hold a faculty position. If you are not a student or trainee, we still encourage you to share this survey with any eligible respondents in your network.
 

The PHI/CDC program is gearing up to open the application period and begin recruiting its 2020-2021 fellowship cohort. Join us in promoting the fellowship program with your networks and urging anyone you know that is interested to apply. If you are contacted by interested applicants, please refer them to info@phi-cdcfellows.org, where the program team will respond to their questions.

Current fellows interested in pursuing a new fellowship placement for the 2021-2022 year must submit their application by January 14th, 2021. Similar to last year, this is done through completing and submitting an application through the Application Portal. Note that previously submitted application materials from last year cannot be re-used. When you submit a new application, you will be required to register, create a profile, and complete the application with the required documents. 

Submitting an application for a new fellowship placement is separate from renewing for another year. A standalone communication with information on the renewal process will be sent to Mentors and Fellows in early January. If a Fellow commits to renewing, they then forfeit any application submission for new fellowship placements.
News & External Events

Dr. Ahmadreza Djalali is a scholar of disaster medicine who has been wrongfully convicted and sentenced to death in Iran. Iranian authorities recently put Dr. Djalali into solitary confinement and are preparing to carry out his death sentence at any moment. Dr. Djalali is an Iranian-born resident of Sweden, who teaches at universities in Italy and Belgium, and whose work involves frequent international scientific collaborations. Since his arrest in April 2016, Dr. Djalali has been refused medical care despite his rapidly deteriorating health. Read and take action here.

The World Health Summit 2020 was online, featured over 50 sessions in three days and included more than 300 international speakers. See the recorded sessions on the World Health Summit YouTube Channel.

The meeting featured the German Federal President, the President of the EU Commission, the Secretary-General of the United Nations and the Director-General of the World Health Organization. 
Their call for action is in the M8 Alliance Declaration 2020.

Demetri Kofinas speaks with Tom Burgis of the Financial Times about the rise of a new, international kleptocracy. Trillions of dollars are looted every year in a virtuous cycle of fraud, criminality, and wide-spread corruption of the very system of liberal, democratic capitalism upon which these same kleptocrats depend on for their survival. Listen here.

The Lancet Healthy Longevity (https://www.thelancet.com/healthy-longevity) is a new open access journal from The Lancet group that focuses on longevity and healthy ageing. Learn more about it here.
REDUCING DEFORESTATION AND IMPROVING ACCESS TO HEALTH CARE

Here are 3 videos as well as a paper addressing the link between reducing deforestation and improved access to health care. Please take advantage of these resources.

The Roux Prize is intended for anyone who has used health evidence in innovative ways to improve the health of the population. They welcome diverse entries: winners might be workers within government agencies, researchers at academic institutions, volunteers in charitable organizations, or health providers working in the community. 
The winner receives $100,000. Past recipients have used their winnings to fund academic scholarships, their research, or their own life’s causes. 

The deadline to submit an abstract to the NIH-National Cancer Institute's 9th Annual Symposium on Global Cancer Research, March 10-11th 2021 has been extended to Thursday, December 31st. This is a satellite session that occurs annually just before CUGH's annual conference. The ASGCR Steering Committee invites abstract submissions from all persons wishing to report original research, projects, or programs related to global cancer research and control. Accepted abstracts will be selected for posters or presentations and will be published later in 2021 in an American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) journal. Abstract submission guidelines and additional information can be found here.
STRATEGIES TO ADDRESS THE CONDITIONS OF REFUGEES AND MIGRANTS IN THE US

The following are diverse strategies to address the urgent and unacceptable conditions refugees and migrants are confronted with in the US.

    Learn more about migrants, immigrants and asylum seekers: 
    Learn more about the current efforts to undermine immigration and asylum seeking:
    Learn about best-practices in health care for migrants:
    Know your rights and those of your patients to ensure that your practice is as safe a space as possible: 

The Center for Emerging Markets at Northeastern University in Boston has developed a resource website, Reverse Innovation to Fight COVID-19, which highlights COVID-19 innovations and ideas from around the world. They have organized more than 50 ideas across topic areas such as prevention, testing, isolation/quarantining, and contact tracing. 

The website specifically considers how and why some countries in Asia and Africa, with previous experiences fighting epidemics, have fought COVID-19 much more effectively than the US or Europe. Less-wealthy countries may offer simple, low-tech solutions that are highly effective at containing infectious diseases. 

The project is led by Dr. Ravi Ramamurti, and builds on ideas in his recent articles “Global Crowdsourcing Can Help the US Beat the Pandemic” (October 2020) and “Using Reverse Innovation to Fight COVID-19” (June 2020), both published in Harvard Business Review.

Join the Us. vs HPV Prevention week during January 24-30, 2021 for a series of webinars that will provide the latest updates on the FDA’s approval of the HPV vaccine for oropharyngeal cancer, World Health Organization’s (WHO) formal adoption of the global strategy to eliminate cervical cancer and American Cancer Society’s modifications to the cervical cancer screening guidelines, among other important topics. Register here.
NEW ISGLOBAL SHORT COURSES AVAILABLE


Migrants and refugees health in the Mediterranean will be an in person class at the University of Barcelona and will take place April 27-May 6, 2021.

GIS for Exposure Assessment in Environmental Health Research will be a 5 day online course from May 3-7, 2021. Both of these courses will be run in English.

The University of California Global Health Institute is pleased to announce an RFA for letters of intent (LOI) Global Health Incubator Awards.

We are launching a competitive grants program to provide 5 to 10 UCGHI Incubator Awards of between $5000 and $10,000. These grants are designed to stimulate multi-campus and multidisciplinary teams that also include international partners to propose innovative strategies for addressing significant global health challenge. 

Proposed projects can focus on a variety of topics or approaches but should integrate anti-racism, diversity, equity and inclusion in global health.

UCGHI encourages diverse teams that include members from backgrounds who are not adequately represented in global health such as individuals from gender, racial or ethnic groups underrepresented in health-related sciences; with disabilities; and from disadvantaged backgrounds or areas of the country. The deadline for letters of intent is January 15, 2021.

The CDC and partners jointly released data showing that while measles vaccinations have saved more than 25.5 million lives globally since 2000, progress has stalled in recent years.  
 
The new CDC MMWR report entitled Progress Toward Regional Measles Elimination — Worldwide, 2000–2019 includes the following key data and findings:
  • Worldwide, measles deaths climbed 50% from 2016 to 2019, claiming 207,500 lives in 2019 alone
  • The estimated number of measles cases in 2019 (i.e. 869,770) represents the highest number of measles cases reported in 23 years, with increases observed in all WHO regions 
  • The rise in cases is linked to:
  • Weak health systems that fail to deliver on-time vaccinations to children
  • Poor-quality data and limited capacity for outbreak detection and response
  • Eroding trust in vaccine safety and efficacy

The book "Health: A Political Choice -- Act Now, Together", edited by Prof. John Kirton is a part of a series published by the Global Governance Project in collaboration with WHO. The book gathers perspectives from global health leaders from around the world and is free to read. You can access the book here.

The MCW Office of Global Health hosted a two-day virtual meeting on September 29-30, 2020 to discuss the impact of COVID-19 on midwestern university's global health programming. It's notable that 35 academic institutions were represented amongst its registrants. The event's slide decks and recording replays are here: https://www.mcw.edu/departments/office-of-global-health/events

The AAVMC is pleased to introduce our new website. The WordPress based site is streamlined, better organized, more flexible and includes an easily searchable Knowledge Center. It is easy to navigate, mobile-friendly and better projects a high-performance, professional society working to advance the success of modern academic veterinary medicine.
The site is also fully integrated with the new web-based version of our Veterinary Medical School Admission Requirements (VMSAR) and will anchor future microsites we develop to create immersive, dynamic digital conference experiences. Please take a moment to visit.

Child Family Health International (CFHI) Virtual Global Health Elective is designed for interprofessional final year health professions trainees (resident physicians, 4th year medical students, NP, PA, pharmacy, allied health senior students). The elective allows trainees who cannot travel due to COVID-19 an opportunity to develop global health competencies including low resource clinical reasoning, health systems design, cross-cultural effectiveness & adaptability, global health ethics, critical reflections, and much more.  These electives take place January through April 2021 for 3 or 4-week duration.
Job & Funding Opportunities
(see our new Jobs Board to see the latest listings)

The Johns Hopkins International Injury Research Unit (JH-IIRU), within the Health Systems Program in the Department of International Health at the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health, is seeking candidates for a Senior Research Associate or Assistant Scientist position to serve as Operations Manager for a new USAID-funded project, Learning, Acting and Building for Rehabilitation in Health Systems (ReLAB-HS).

The Center for Global Health at the Perelman School of Medicine seeks candidates to serve as a Program Leader in the Penn Medicine Center for Excellence in Cardiology – Vietnam. Applicants must have a M.D or M.D./Ph.D. degree. Board certification in Internal Medicine and Cardiovascular Disease at a US-national or international level is strongly preferred. Candidates will be eligible for associated faculty positions at the University of Pennsylvania depending on qualifications. The primary responsibility of the position is to guide the education and clinical functions of the Center, which is jointly held by Penn and the Vinmec Health System. The position is based in Hanoi, Vietnam, however close linkage to Penn’s clinical cardiology program is essential.

The Fogarty International Center at NIH offers funding to support global health research. Fogarty also offers a variety of resources for those seeking global health research funding across NIH, and from other organizations.

The following three resources from Johns Hopkins University are continuously updated repositories of federal and private funding opportunities for individuals in various stages of their career.
Featured Reading & Listening
DETER Tracks Touch: A Coronavirus Study
Read about students who braved the unknown landscape of COVID-19 by agreeing to gather data on people’s touch behaviors after leaving hospitals and medical centers. This project, spanning from March to May, tracked changes as the curve flattened and the weather warmed, earning the team a New York State GIS Applications/Dashboard Award. Read here.

Social Inequities Explain Racial Gaps in Pandemic, Studies Find
Read about Dr. Gbenga Ogedegbe's study on coronavirus infections among Black and Hispanic patients. Higher rates of infection and mortality among these groups can be explained by exposure on the job and at home. Read here.
Global Health Journals & Newsletters
Consortium of Universities for Global Health
202-974-6363 | info@CUGH.org | www.CUGH.org