Dr. Nicholas Alipui Speaks on Future Vision of UNICEF

Dr. Nicholas Alipui and Pia Rebello Britto, Ph. D.,
assistant professor at the Yale Chid Study Center

As the closing keynote for the 2013 GHLI Conference Nicholas Alipui, M.D., director of programs at UNICEF, noted the organization’s recent successes and their decision to focus now on early childhood development. With a 40% reduction in the transmission of HIV between mothers and infants, nearly one billion people lifted out of poverty, and immunization rates on the rise, great accomplishments have been made. These achievements are challenged by the need for new strategies in other areas. Early childhood development issues are a growing concern and UNICEF is dedicated to determining who, where and what needs to change to improve the lives of children around the world.

The first 24 months of a child’s development are crucial. Child development paradigms are very different based on culture and social norms. UNICEF’s work aims at understanding the environment where children are raised as key to their growth. As Dr. Alipui noted, “Early childhood development is essential to fostering productive citizens and sustainable communities. By acknowledging and taking ownership of issues, it is possible to sustain impact.”

Delegates from Brazil, Ghana, the Eastern Caribbean and Uganda spent one week at the GHLI Conference learning from each other and Yale faculty about strategies to address specific health issues.  At the close of the week, Elizabeth Bradley, Ph.D., offered a toast to the group acknowledging the importance of their work in tackling global health issues.  “This Conference allows us the opportunity to be in each other’s shoes and to learn from each other.  With this collaboration we are able to create more comprehensive, creative and compassionate approaches to health issues.” 

The country delegations focused on taking on the challenging issues related to early childhood development, non-communicable diseases and mental illness.  Each delegation will be accompanied home by a GHLI Student Fellow student who will work with them for two months to execute the strategies developed at the Conference

Yale GHLI Conference Welcomes Delegates from Around the Globe

Rosalind D'Eugenio,
GHLI Director of Communications

Brazil, the Eastern Caribbean and Uganda joined Ghana this year at the 5th Yale GHLI Conference. More than 25 delegates came to Yale’s campus for a week to share experiences and create strategies for priority health issues in their countries.

The Eastern Caribbean and Uganda will focus on non-communicable diseases (NCDs), like diabetes, that are rapidly adding to the mortality rates of those regions. In Uganda, patients with chronic NCDs do not receive proper care in the government health sector. During the Conference, Ugandan delegates will seek to find ways to build capacity in clinical care, health worker training and research to help provide effective and integrated care for patients with NCDs. Similarly the Eastern Caribbean delegation will look to the collection and integration of data and evidence into planning for strengthened primary health care to address NCDs.

Brazil comes to Yale with a focus on early childhood development. The delegates would like to leave this week with a strategy to implement for self-sustaining and replicable programs to provide quality early childhood care and education services to improve health and reduce violence.

Ghana returns with a continued focus on mental health issues, but noted many improvements in this area since they attended the GHLI Conference in 2011. Dr. Angela Ofori-Atta noted several changes in Ghana’s mental health system based on the partnership developed between Yale, the South Essex Partnership Trust in the UK and the delegation, including passage of landmark mental health legislation and the creation of five year mental health plan. They still face delays in implementing the new law and inadequate human resources and funding, but hope to come away with a plan to address these hurdles when they return to Ghana.

In one of his final appearances as President of Yale, Richard Levin addressed the crowd to thank them for partnering with Yale in taking on such important global health problems. “Together we can make a difference in the health of all individuals across countries,” said Levin.

Transferring Knowledge: The Public/Private Partnership

GHLI staff met with personnel at Coca-Cola Kwanza
as part of a new public-private partnership. 

Kristina Talbert-Slagle, PhD,
Associate Research Scientist, GHLI

Our GHLI team recently traveled to Dar es Salaam, Tanzania to conduct interviews on progress made in a partnership between The Coca-Cola Company and the Medical Stores Department (MSD) in Tanzania. The goal of this public/private joining is to transfer expertise from The Coca-Cola Company to MSD on how to deliver products in hard-to-reach areas, in order to improve access to medicines throughout Tanzania.

On our first day, we interviewed local bottlers from Coca-Cola Kwanza to learn more about how they share their knowledge of product delivery with MSD. Particularly striking to me was the level of commitment to the project from these individuals, who told us touching stories about the work they had done with their fellows at MSD, how motivated they felt to improve access to medicines in Tanzania, and how happy they were to give their personal and professional time to this project.

One person told us how, growing up in Uganda, he had watched people die from lack of medicine, and so he understood on a deeply personal level the importance of this project, and he was committed to giving it whatever time and energy it took in order to help save lives.

We also interviewed staff members at MSD to hear their perspectives on changes that have resulted from this partnership. We came away excited about all the good work and good ideas that have been put in place in the most recent phase of this ongoing collaboration.

I later visited an MSD warehouse to witness piloting of a route for medical delivery that was developed using new network optimization software and the process to get materials distributed. I also got a firsthand look at what challenges remain in implementing network optimization, such as incorrect GPS codes and extremely slow data processing software.

We came away from Tanzania inspired by the good work that has been done in improving delivery of medicines, and we look forward to sharing our findings in our research publications and online case over the coming months.