Dear Colleagues,
Despite the still chilly weather, it is clear that spring arrives. Daffodils dot the streets, and the trees are budding. After the blur of the COVID years, I am so relieved and happy to be back among people who place the right to health at the center of their work. It is great to be back. The FXB offices are open and have been refurbished - come visit if you haven’t been by the 7th floor.
This spring newsletter shows how busy everyone has been. I am deeply grateful to all who ensured that the work of FXB continued to expand in my absence and a special thanks to Dr. Natalia Linos, who took on the additional work of Acting Director with verve and energy. My thanks also to her family, who I hope will now see more of her.
Wishing you a happy and healthy spring,
Dr. Mary T. Bassett, MD, MPH
Director of the François-Xavier Bagnoud Center for Health and Human Rights
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Legacies and Manifestations of Anti-Roma Racism in Health Policies, Practice, and Research
In partnership with the Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences, Harvard Chan School of Public Health, the Charles Warren Center for Studies in American History at Harvard University, the Romani Studies Program at Central European University, the Center on Forced Displacement at Boston University, and the Centre for Medical Humanities at Oxford Brookes University, the Roma Program at the FXB Center for Health and Human Rights will host a free, in-person conference at Harvard University’s Martin Center on April 6, 2023. This constitutes the Roma Program’s 11th Roma conference marking the annual International Roma Day which is celebrated worldwide every April 8th. This April 8th, we mark the 52nd anniversary of the First World Roma Congress. For more information about International Roma Day, click here.
This annual Roma conference aims to initiate a series of conversations and research efforts on anti-Roma racism as a structural determinant of health inequalities and as a health stressor in itself in order to improve data, research methods, and practice-oriented research and inform policy design. It will be accompanied by the exhibition "We Are Not Alone": Legacies of Eugenics.
According to the exhibition's curator, Professor Marius Turda, who will be speaking at the conference and presenting the exhibition: "Engaging with, and contributing to, a global anti-eugenic movement of reckoning with the past, the exhibition “We Are Not Alone”: Legacies of Eugenics reveals the shifting and fluid meanings that characterized ideas of human betterment in different national and international contexts. It offers a historically informed account of our eugenic past, present, and future, balancing various elements of continuity and discontinuity, of idiosyncrasy and similarity. Continued education about and engagement with eugenics, as well as its public condemnation, are essential components of our efforts to understand a hidden and tenebrous past, while at the same time, continuing work towards a fair and just society."
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Collective Trauma and the Armenian Genocide: Armenian, Turkish and Azerbaijani Relations Since 1839
On Thursday, April 6, 2023 from 12:30 - 2:00pm ET, Senior FXB Fellow Dr. Pamela Steiner will summarize the current conflicted situation around Armenian-Turkish-Azerbaijani relations and its background during a hybrid format event at the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies at Harvard University.
For more than two decades, Dr. Steiner, while practicing depth psychotherapy with traumatized individuals, has co-facilitated conflict resolution workshops, mostly between Israelis and Palestinians and between Armenians and Turks. She observed the failure of conflict resolution processes, asked why, and offered some likely answers in her book, Collective Trauma and the Armenian Genocide: Armenian, Turkish and Azerbaijani Relations Since 1839. Her talk will propose specific ways to actualize her proposals. Her understanding and recommendations are presented in two non-psychological contexts -- accountability through international law and power politics -- within which international conflict resolution must be forged.
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A Structural Approach to Palestinian Health
Three members of the Leadership Collective of the FXB Palestine Program for Health and Human Rights, Yara Asi, PhD, David Mills, MD, and Bram Wispelwey, MD, MPH, will be the featured speakers during a hybrid event at the Tufts University Medical School at noon on April 12, 2023 as part of the 2022-2023 Global Health Seminar Series.
This session will explore how the structures that delimit Palestinian lives generate corrosive health determinants through direct and structural violence, including movement limitations, a healthcare permit regime, inadequate funding and resources, and humanitarian aid dependence, among others. We will also discuss an example of a community-based movement for health improvement and agency in West Bank refugee camps, as well as highlight key steps toward sustainable remediation of Palestinian health determinants.
Image courtesy Health in Palestine. Both women are community health workers.
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Register for the next virtual seminar organized by the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs Research Cluster on Migration:
"The Role of Arts-based Methods in Strengthening Empathic Solidarity in Settings of War-related Migration"
Date: Thursday, April 13, 2023, 12:00pm - 1:00pm ET
Location: Zoom. Registration required.
Speaker: Cindy Horst, Research Professor in Migration and Refugee Studies and co-director of the PRIO Centre on Culture and Violent Conflict.
More information about the Migration Cluster in general can be found here.
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HHRJ Special Section in honor of Paul E. Farmer |
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Tuesday, February 21, 2023, marked one year since the passing of former Health and Human Rights Journal Editor-in-Chief Paul Farmer. In honour of his contribution to global health equity and human rights, the Journal published a section dedicated to him, called Global Voices for Global Justice: Expanding Right to Health Frameworks.
Photo credit: Ángel Martínez-Hernáez
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The O’Neill-Lancet Commission on Racism, Structural Discrimination and Global Health |
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Through leveraging partnerships, engaging communities, and conducting empirical research to understand racism and structural discrimination in global health, the Commission seeks to advance equity and improve health outcomes around the world. It is founded on the recognition that racism, rather than race, creates and maintains unjust and avoidable health inequities in countries around the world. |
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CrisisReady Co-Directors Leading Research Cluster at Harvard University to Study Climate Adaptation in South Asia |
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Caroline Buckee, CrisisReady Co-Director and Professor of Epidemiology at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, is leading a research Cluster that will study the changing climate in South Asia, and the threat it poses to agricultural systems, food security, and human health in the region. FXB Faculty Affiliate Satchit Balsari, CrisisReady Co-Director and Assistant Professor of Emergency Medicine at Harvard Medical School, will be serving as the project’s co-investigator.
The Cluster is one of five supported by Harvard’s Salata Institute for Climate and Sustainability, which awarded grants to 30 faculty members across the university. With these grants, the research Clusters will tackle a range of climate change challenges to reduce future impacts and assist those who have already been affected by the crisis.
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FXB Director of Research Professor Jacqueline Bhabha in Response to Immigration Policy Proposal |
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The Biden administration is considering reintroducing one of the most infamous anti-immigrant policies of the Trump administration – the practice of detaining migrant families, including young children, seeking protection in the US even though they are not charged with any criminal wrong doing. There was a reason why this policy, among the many egregious Trump measures targeting migrants at the Southern border – a border wall, the so-called “Remain in Mexico” policy forcing asylum seekers to wait out their access to processing in dangerous Mexican border sites, the ban on entry targeting Muslims – attracted particular outrage across the globe. Detention is what child neuroscientists call an instance of “toxic stress,” an event that can have life-long consequences for a child’s physical and mental health. Detention deprives a child of the sense of autonomy and basic dignity that are essential prerequisites for “health” broadly conceived, that sense of fundamental wellbeing that underpins the possibility of surviving and thriving. Evidence from the detention of migrant children during the Trump administration attests to the devastating health impacts of the policy long after children were eventually released – depression, self-harm, suicidal ideation. That the Biden government, repeatedly proclaiming its investment in promoting the lives of “ordinary working people” and its embrace of diversity and inclusion, would intentionally set out to harm some of the most vulnerable constituencies within its jurisdiction is hard to fathom. Hard to fathom until one reflects that electoral calculus and the desire to appease xenophobic publics ahead of the next election can trump even the most fundamental principles on which a government has been elected. A sad reflection of the state of American democracy today. And a revealing indicator of the lack of political acumen about the drivers of Central American migration, which is driven by a desperation to survive in the face of structural violence at home, rather than a Machiavellian calculus about the degree of ferocity of US border control. Draconian migration policies are a shameful substitute for equitable foreign policy and principled engagement with some of the US’s closest neighbors.
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National Academies of Practice Inducts Margaret M. Sullivan, FNP-BC, DrPH |
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The National Academies of Practice (NAP) announced the election of FXB Health and Human Rights Fellow Margaret (Maggie) M. Sullivan, FNP-BC, DrPH as a Distinguished Fellow in the Nursing Academy. Class of 2023 Fellows were welcomed into the National Academies of Practice during the awards and induction ceremony in Washington DC on April 1, 2023. Fellowship in the National Academies of Practice is an honor extended to those who have excelled in their profession and are dedicated to furthering interprofessional practice, scholarship and policy in support of interprofessional care. Founded in 1981, the National Academies of Practice advances interprofessional education, scholarship, research, practice and public policy.
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Youth as Climate and Health Advocates |
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FXB International's Climate Advocates program, aims to inform, empower, and mobilize youth to address the climate crisis. The Spring 2023 cohort of the FXB Climate Advocates program engages 200 youth from 37 countries in learning about climate change and taking action in their communities. Women are most impacted by climate impacts. Educating girls and empowering women are critical climate solutions. Following this year's Women's History Month, we want to feature female climate advocates who are making a difference in their communities.
“My name is Saudat Kamarre-Deen. A graduate from the University of Ghana who studied Animal Biology and Conservation Science. I worked with the Green Africa Youth Organization for a year where I served as the Assistant Project Coordinator on the Zero Waste Accra Project and Plastic Management Project.
Currently, I work with Tourism Aid Global and the Executive Secretary and the Young Writers Foundation as the editor. Due to my undying interest to make an impact in my world, I founded Globally Green. Globally Green is an organization that focuses on climate advocacy and inspiring individuals to come up with innovative ideas to protect our environment. We look forward to creating a world where nature will be conserved.
One of our projects is to work with female farmers to introduce sustainable farming. Our particular interest in women for this project is because women play numerous roles in this field. In my part of the world, farming is a major source of livelihood for most people living in the rural areas. This problem however is they do not practice sustainable farming which is key in climate action. Therefore, we would be introducing sustainable farming in such communities.“
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FXB Center Podcast Participation |
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FXB PhD Cohort member Marissa Chan, MS is part of a team that launched the Beauty + Justice podcast in November 2022 to examine the history and context surrounding beauty in injustices, the potential impacts on health, and the sometimes painful emotional toll of trying to attain a certain beauty standard.
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Better Off Podcast: Can we end chronic homelessness? |
Margaret Sullivan, FNP-BC, DrPH was a guest on the Harvard Chan School Better Off Podcast to discuss the issue of chronic homelessness. Even a brief period of housing insecurity can make existing health issues worse, and bring up new physical and mental traumas. Doctors and nurses who help patients navigate these issues have a prescription: More housing and more services.
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Better Off Podcast: How can we protect the health of incarcerated people? |
FXB Faculty Affiliate Monik C. Jiménez, SM, ScD and FXB PhD Cohort member Jasmine Graves, MPH, were guests on the Harvard Chan School's Better Off Podcast to discuss whether it is possible to build a corrections system that accounts for the health and safety of those incarcerated.
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How to Be a Climate Change Advocate: Natalia Linos on Why We Should Embrace the Fact That “All Public Health Is Political” |
FXB Executive Director Natalia Linos, MSc, ScD, was a guest on the Johns Hopkins Public Health on Call podcast where she talked about "why all public health is political," how to approach politics as a public health professional, and the importance of not only naming climate change problems, but getting involved with them "at every level" to advance change.
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International Women’s Day: Roots in Radical History, Labor & Reproductive Rights |
FXB Faculty Affiliate and Professor of Social Epidemiology Nancy Krieger, PhD, was interviewed on Democracy Now! in honor of International Women's Day and its history. The conversation started by looking at the root of Women's day in socialism, and what it means for the movement of reproductive justice in the United States.
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The rising tide no one’s talking about—finding homes for millions of climate crisis migrants |
FXB Director of Research Professor Jacqueline Bhabha, JD, MSc, and Professor Hannah Teicher spoke on the Harvard Kennedy School's PolicyCast podcast and discussed their work addressing ways to help those displaced by a changing climate to find a welcoming new home.
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Undiagnosed and Undertreated—the Suffocating Consequences of the Use of Racially Biased Medical Devices During the COVID-19 Pandemic
American Journal of Epidemiology, Jan. 25, 2023
Author: Marie V. Plaisime
"It is critical to examine the totality of how technology is used in clinical encounters to produce and reproduce #health inequities. Our reliance on biased instruments and measurements has led to errors, including our ability to detect hypoxia effectively. This has several implications for patients, including treatment delays and unnecessary intubation. Oximeter readings overestimate oxygen levels in patients with darker skin pigmentation. Research shows that patients with darker skin pigmentation are 3 times more likely to experience pulse oximeter measurement errors. Despite the medical community’s awareness of the pulse oximeter’s consequential design flaw, the device is still in use and provides inaccurate measurements for Black and Brown patients.”
Undiagnosed and Undertreated: The Suffocating Consequences of Racially-Biased Medical Devices During the COVID-19 Pandemic, American Journal of Epidemiology, January 25, Marie V. Plaisime.
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Other Recent FXB Center Publications
March 2023
January 2023
December 2022
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The medical system has failed Black Americans for centuries. Could reparations be the answer?
FXB Health and Human Rights Fellow Dr. Brittney Francis writes on Vox:
“We see that [wealth] doesn’t necessarily alleviate health inequities because, particularly in maternal outcomes, we see that Black women with graduate-level degrees and astronomical amounts of wealth still have poorer health outcomes than white women who haven’t graduated high school.” [...]
It’s also a matter of revamping our educational system,” she adds. “It’s no good paying [people] money if you still are going to go see a doctor who’s educated in a system that uses a textbook saying that Black folks feel less pain." Read the full article here.
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March 2023
February 2023
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Harlem to Harare (Mary T. Bassett interviewed, Think Global Health, February 28, 2023)
January 2023
December 2022
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Settler Colonialism, Structural Racism, and The Palestinian Right to Health Special Edition: A conversation with the Authors
The December issue of the FXB Center’s flagship publication, Health and Human Rights, included two special sections. One, in collaboration with the Institute of Community and Public Health at Birzeit University, Palestine, and the FXB Center, was Settler Colonialism, Structural Racism, and the Palestinian Right to Health; the other, in collaboration with the University of Toronto Connaught Global Challenges Research Program focused on COVID-19 Vaccine Equity and Human Rights.
On Dec. 14, 2022 the FXB Center's Palestine Program for Health and Human Rights hosted a virtual seminar during which the editors and authors of the HHR special issue engaged in discussion on the conceptual and material connections between settler colonialism, structural racism, and human rights approaches to Palestinian health. Catch up on the conversation in its entirety below:
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