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Greetings!
If you're into global health, Duke is the place to be starting this Thursday through next weekend. That's because it's Global Health Week! Organized by more than 20 student groups, there are programs and activities to fit any interest. Check out the full schedule of activites and speakers below.
DGHI is also proud to co-host two leaders in global health over the coming weeks. Make plans to attend the lectures featuring Ugandan AIDS pioneer Peter Mugyenyi (March 31 at 4:30 pm) and the leading scholar in the field of global mental health, Vikram Patel (April 7 at 4 pm).
Until next week,
Geelea Seaford and Everyone at DGHI
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Protective and Mental Health Services Critical for Orphans Worldwide
A new study by Duke University researchers calls for increased support, protection and appropriate mental health services for orphaned and abandoned children on a global scale. Published in the Journal of Traumatic Stress Friday, the  study of more than 1,200 orphaned and abandoned children across five low- and middle-income countries is one of the first to identify and quantify violence, physical and sexual abuse as other potentially traumatic events endured by orphans, after having lost one or both parents. Led by Kathryn Whetten, director of the Center for Health Policy and Inequalities Research at the Duke Global Health Institute, the study shows that 98 percent of the orphaned and abandoned children surveyed had experienced more potentially traumatic events than "simply" the loss of their parent, with more than half experiencing four or more such events. Children reported such traumatic events as physical and/or sexual abuse, the death of other family members and witnessing family violence. The study found increased traumatic events during childhood were linked to statistically significant increases in anxiety and emotional and behavioral difficulties that can last into adulthood and result in poor performance in school. Researchers suggest that further traumatic events could be averted with early and community-wide interventions and mental health care. The study indicates children and caregivers are willing to discuss these events with trained interviewers. 
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It's one of the most anticipated global health events of the year at Duke. This year, more than 20 student groups teamed up to plan Global Health Week 2011, which will feature opportunities for the student body to get involved and learn about the world's most pressing issues.
"Every year we strive to make Global Health Week bigger and better, and we have certainly accomplished that rich  tradition again" said junior Braveen Ragunanthan, a public policy and global health certificate student and one of the lead organizers. "Building off of the relationships that were strengthened last year, a vibrant culture of partnerships has blossomed at Duke amongst the undergraduate health and global health student organizations."
Global Health Week 2011 kicks off this Thursday with a lecture by Peter Mugyenyi, a leader in the fight against HIV/AIDS in Uganda, and the opportunity for students to live as refugees in "DISPLACED." This event is designed to raise awareness of the millions of displaced people worldwide who lost their home, sense of community and livelihood. Each day of Global Health Week 2011 will be centered on a global health theme, such as preventive health, innovation and sustainability, chronic and infectious diseases, neglected issues and global health at home.
Since last year's event hosted by the student-led Global Health Forum, the undergraduate group merged with the larger student umbrella organization Duke Partnership for Service (dPS) to become its largest sector - the Domestic and Global Health Branch.
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Duke Receives Part of $10M Grant from CDC to Reduce Health Care-associated Infections
Duke University Medical Center is one of five academic medical centers being awarded part of a $10 million grant from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC) Prevention Epicenter Program, which supports efforts to develop and test innovative approaches to reducing infections in health care settings.
While investigators from Duke are leading this project in North Carolina, it represents an active collaboration with co-investigators from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
The Duke University-UNC Prevention Epicenter will be a collaborative, multi-hospital study that will investigate the effectiveness of standard chemical cleaning strategies compared to new ultraviolet light techniques for sterilizing hospital rooms and reducing the spread of health care-associated infections (HAI).
"We know that cleaning in a hospital is important, but the actual methods and techniques have been poorly and inadequately studied," said Daniel J. Sexton, principal investigator of the study and director of the Duke Infection Control Outreach Network.
"This is a really important study, because prior small-scale studies suggest objects in patient rooms, such as television remotes, bedrails, and equipment, become heavily contaminated with bacteria. We have to be certain that these items are clean when a new patient enters the room in order to reduce the risk of spreading infections."
DGHI faculty member Christopher Woods, chief of infectious diseases at the Durham VA Medical Center, is one of the co-investigators on the grant. Other co-investigators include Deverick Anderson and Luke Chen, of Duke; Bill Rutala and David Weber, of UNC.
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 Global Chronic Disease: Lessons from Around the World
A new video on TheHeart.org features the training and research of Global Health Fellow Jerry Bloomfield, whose work in Eldoret, Kenya focuses on the causes of heart failure. Eldoret is a training site of the Duke Global Health Residency/Fellowship Pathway Program and is a Cardiovascular/Pulmonary Disease Center of Excellence, launched by the Hubert-Yeargan Center for Global Health. Interviewed by Robert Harrington, a DGHI affiliate and director of the Duke Clinical Research Institute, Bloomfield engages in a wide-ranging discussion on chronic disease, including the cardiovascular implications of HIV and HIV treatment in sub-Saharan Africa. He also discusses various training opportunities, such as the Fogarty International Clinical Research Scholars Program, and the advantages of working in global health. Mark Huffman of Northwestern University is also a featured panelist.
*To watch the video, free registration on TheHeart.org is required.*
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