Dear Colleagues,
As we begin a new academic year, I want to welcome the many new scholars, staff, and students that have recently joined the FXB community. This newsletter offers just a glimpse of the important work being undertaken by our growing team on pressing health challenges – including COVID-19 – and to address the enduring impacts of structural racism, the climate crisis, and distress migration on health equity.
As the University returns to in-person teaching and events, we expect to also transition to more in-person activities at the FXB Center and hope to use this as an opportunity to enhance networking and collaboration. We will continue hosting virtual events and webinars (indeed a key learning from the pandemic is that this enabled much broader engagement with audiences and scholars outside Boston) and supporting flexible work arrangements for our team. We will also aim to make recordings of larger in-person events available on our website.
I wish everyone a productive fall semester,
Dr. Natalia Linos
Acting Director of the François-Xavier Bagnoud Center for Health and Human Rights
|
|
Can Reparations Close the Racial Health Gap?
In partnership with Harvard Public Health magazine, the FXB Center for Health and Human Rights will host a full-day, in-person symposium on anti-Black racism and health, asking the question: Can Reparations Close the Racial Health Gap? Taking place on Nov. 3 from 9am to 5pm ET, this symposium will examine how structural racism shapes health and whether reparations can be a potential solution or significant step towards closing the Black-white health gap. The focus will be on the role that the public health community can play in the ongoing conversation on reparations at local and national levels, as well as contributions that can be made through scholarly research and policy translation. Panelists will bring a wide range of expertise with backgrounds in law, history, policy, media, and community organizing.
|
|
Please save the date for "The Embodiment of Protest: Hunger Strikes, Human Rights, and the Health of Palestinian Political Prisoners," a virtual webinar presented by the FXB Center's Palestine Program for Health and Human Rights. Sponsored by Harvard Divinity School, this event will take place on Oct. 3 at 2pm ET. Hunger strikes have been used as means for non-violent resistance and protest over the past several decades by Palestinian political prisoners in Israel/Palestine. The featured panelists will draw on their expertise and experience in the fields of health and human rights to explore various legal, medical, and human rights dimensions of hunger strikes being staged by Palestinian political prisoners. |
|
Join CrisisReady on Sept. 29 at 11am ET for a timely discussion on the use of data during public health crises. Together with representatives in the field, this event will examine the barriers and potential solutions of using existing and novel data streams to protect the health of populations. CrisisReady is based at Harvard University and Direct Relief, and collaborates with academic partners, including the FXB Center, as well as technology companies and response agencies around the world to embed data-driven decision-making into local disaster planning. |
|
Harvard Medical School Memorial Event Honoring Dr. Paul Farmer
Dr. Paul Farmer — a visionary global health leader, anthropologist, physician, and Harvard professor — was a close colleague and dear friend to many in the FXB family and served as editor-in-chief of the FXB Center’s flagship publication, the Health and Human Rights Journal, since 2008. On Oct. 1 at 10am ET, Harvard Medical School will hold a special event to honor Dr. Farmer's legacy. The event will be held in-person and online. Registration is required. |
|
Join the annual Truth and Transformation Conference convened by Professor Khalil Gibran Muhammad and hosted by the Institutional Antiracism and Accountability (IARA) Project at Harvard Kennedy School's Ash Center. During this free, virtual conference on Oct. 20 through Oct. 21, participants are invited to join fellow advocates, organizers, scholars, students, and community members in engaging, challenging, and thoughtful conversations centered around this year's theme “Looking Back, Paying It Forward: Truth and Transformation through Historical Accountability.”
How can truth and transformation be achieved through historical accountability? This year's convening will examine how reparative practices, truth commissions, and institutional reckoning with structural oppression provide ways forward for equitable change, featuring FXB's Dr. Margareta Matache as closing keynote speaker.
|
|
 |
Lumas Joseph Helaire
Assistant Dean
|
|
|
|
M. Rashad Massoud
Visiting Faculty
|
|
|
|
|
Kimberly Humphrey
Visiting Scholar
|
|
|
|
Shadiya L. Moss
Health & Human Rights Fellow
|
|
|
|
|
Terence M. Penn
Fellow (Affiliate)
|
|
|
|
Tess Wiskel
Climate Change & Human Health Fellow
|
|
|
|
|
Isaac Chan
Research Associate
|
|
|
|
Danai Macridi Prado
Public Affairs & Strategic Communications Manager
|
|
|
|
Child Protection Programs |
|
The FXB Center is currently accepting applications for our Child Protection programs:
-
The G. Barrie Landry Child Protection Professional Training program: This program, which is held on the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health campus in Boston, is for mid-career professionals who work to protect children from abuse, violence exploitation and neglect, whether at an international organization, a local NGO, or a government agency. Applicants must apply as a country team of 3, and admission is limited 10 country teams. Since 2020, tuition scholarships for all selected participants are being offered through the generous support of the G. Barrie Landry Fund for Child Protection Professional Training and UNICEF USA. Please see website for details, important dates and information on how to request an application form for your country team.
-
The Child Protection Certificate: The FXB Center offers Harvard graduate students the opportunity to obtain a certificate in child protection. We are currently accepting applications for our 2022-2023 cohort. This interdisciplinary qualification is open to students from any Harvard graduate school, but admission is limited to 30 individuals. Please see website for details and the application form.
|
|
FXB International Climate Advocates Program |
|
The United Nations Security Council declared in July 2020 that “Climate change is the defining issue of our time and a multidimensional challenge.” Among other threats, climate change imperils the ability of children to exercise their rights as those were outlined in the Convention on the Rights of the Child, adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on November 20th, 1989.
The FXB Climate Advocates program, born out of a commitment to combat the existential threat posed by climate change, including on marginalized children, informs, empowers, and mobilizes youth to implement climate solutions in their communities and globally. Through the program, global youth advocates learn about the causes and impacts of climate change, explore the intersection between climate and health, consumption, and energy, and harness their passions to lead climate solutions in their communities. FXB Climate Advocates pursue a number of incredible initiatives such as planting trees, reducing electricity usage in schools, advocating for carbon pricing, starting municipal composting initiatives, leveraging Artificial Intelligence for climate advocacy, and replacing Styrofoam with sustainable reusable plastics in large school districts.
Since its inception in January 2020, the FXB Climate Advocates program has reached over 150 youth from 20 countries and 12 states in the US. Learn more here: www.fxbclimateadvocates.org.
Support the FXB Climate Advocates program today so that we can provide seed grants for climate action projects: https://secure.givelively.org/donate/fxb-usa-inc/youth-led-climate-solutions.
As background, FXB International — a global nonprofit organization that has been a pioneer in eradicating poverty since 1989 — and similar to the FXB Center for Health and Human Rights at Harvard University, was founded by Albina du Boisrouvray with a specific mission to advocate for the rights of children and to promote three conceptual framework pillars: policy, practice, and advocacy. While both organizations initially focused on vulnerable communities impacted by HIV/AIDS, over time they have evolved to address other pressing issues such as structural racism and climate change, which Albina had identified as a key component to poverty alleviation since the 1960s. To that end, the FXB Center for Health and Human Rights and FXB International collaborate to complement each other’s impact through the integration of practice and policy in order to ensure access to health and human rights.
|
|
Summer Course on Migration & Refugee Studies in Greece |
|
July 2022 offered Harvard graduate students interested in migration issues a unique experience. From simulations of rescue at sea to a meeting with the Greek Minister for Migration, from academic lectures by lawyers, environmentalists, journalists and emergency doctors to visits to refugee camps and centers for unaccompanied child refugees, students from five different Harvard graduate schools had the opportunity to spend three weeks immersed in an inaugural intensive three-week summer school on migration and refugee issues in Greece.
This immersive, interdisciplinary program spanned both theory and practice and took place in three focal areas of Greece: the city of Athens, the city of Nafplio and the island of Lesvos, each of which has its own recent and historic migration flow history. Students were engaged in class work and academic presentations, in conversations with politicians, academics, and activists and in simulation and fieldwork activities. Academic topics covered included international law, refugee rights, violence and exposure to trauma in the context of displacement. Students were also involved in discussions with a wide range of professionals, advocates and experts in discussions about the politics of displacement and repatriation, the practical challenges in addressing service delivery and rights protection, access to health, public perceptions of displacement, child protection and the impact of media during crises.
|
|
Health & Human Rights Journal |
|
The FXB Center’s flagship publication, Health and Human Rights, is delighted to have achieved its highest Impact Factor of 2.28, reflecting its relevance and importance in our field of health and human rights. To put this in perspective, and stress the role the Journal plays, BMC Health and Human Rights is no longer published, International Journal of Human Rights in Healthcare has an impact factor of 0.9, Human Rights Quarterly is 1.2, and the Journal of Human Rights is 1.5.
We welcome our new executive editorial committee to the Journal, specially selected to help the Journal further extend readership and receive submissions from all corners of the world. The committee includes the current Special Rapporteur on the right to health, Dr Tlaleng Mofokeng, who is from South Africa, a medical practitioner, and known for her advocacy around sexual and reproductive health. She is joined by Anand Grover (the Special Rapporteur on the right to health 2008-2014, and human rights lawyer in India), Sharifah Sekalala (a professor of law at Warwick University, UK), and Varun Gauri (current Board member and a senior fellow at Brookings and lecturer at Princeton University).
The Journal publishes papers-in-press online as they complete editorial processes. Our latest one examines the punitive and excessive use of compulsory treatment orders in Puerto Rico, denying people who use drugs their rights, and being inconsistent with regulations elsewhere in the United States. The next issue in December will have three special sections (Palestinian Health and Human Rights, Vaccine Equity and Human Rights, and Global Voices and Right to Health Frameworks) as well as general papers.
|
|
The Roma Holocaust/Roma Genocide in Southeastern Europe Report
In June 2022, the Auschwitz Institute for the Prevention of Genocide and Mass Atrocities and the Roma Program at the FXB Center for Health and Human Rights published “The Roma Holocaust/Roma Genocide in Southeastern Europe,” which provides synoptic knowledge that can be used to understand the place of Southeast Europe Roma in the Holocaust and WWII history, to examine practices of acknowledgment, memorialization, and commemoration, and to identify patterns of Roma Holocaust/Roma Genocide denial and distortion in eleven Southeast Europe countries: Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Greece, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Romania, Serbia, and Slovenia. Read the report here.
Study Contributors: Margareta Matache, Gabriela Ghindea, Matei Demetrescu, Bogdan Chiriac, Mirko Đuković, Ram Hadroj, Hikmet Karčić, Eleni Argiro Kouki, Vjollca Krasniqi, Hristo Kyuchukov, David Dragoljub Orlović, Milovan Pisarri, Deniz Selmani, Alenka Janko Spreizer, and Serioja Bocsok
|
|
Recent FXB Center Writing in Other Publications
August 2022
July 2022
June 2022
|
|
From The Boston Globe
“The big takeaway from this study is that universal masking policies in schools remain an important policy tool, among other mitigation measures, to consider during times of high community transmission,” FXB Health and Human Rights Fellow Tori Cowger said, as quoted in the Boston Globe regarding a new study she led, which was based on finding that masks protected students and staff from COVID-19 among Massachusetts schools. Read the full article here.
|
|
September 2022
August 2022
-
Why Every Body Counts (Satchit Balsari, Caroline Buckee, and Jennifer Leaning co-authored, PLOS Global Public Health Blog, August 16, 2022)
July 2022
|
|
Petrie-Flom Center Features FXB's Artair Rogers
"Many health systems have begun using new screening technologies to ask patients questions about the factors outside of the clinic and hospital that contribute to an individual or family’s health status, also known as the social determinants of health (SDOH)," FXB Doctoral Cohort Member Artair Rogers writes. "These technologies are framed as a tool to connect patients to needed community resources. However, they also have the potential to harm patients, depending on how patient data is used. This article addresses key harms and biases associated with the SDOH technology movement, and provides suggestions to address these issues going forward." Read the full article here.
|
|
|
|
Reproductive Health Seminar Series |
The mission of the Harvard SOGIE (Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity and Expression) Health Equity Research Collaborative aims to advance health equity for all communities, regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity and expression. To do so, it brings together internationally-recognized scientific experts from diverse disciplines whose research focuses on the intersections of sexual orientation, gender identity and expression, and health.
Please visit the Harvard SOGIE website for information about its upcoming Reproductive Health Seminar Series co-sponsored by the FXB Center.
|
|
|
|
Stay in Touch
Follow us on Facebook and Twitter to stay up to date on the latest FXB news and virtual events.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
