|
|
Greetings!
Global Health Week is in full swing. Be sure to drop by the Bryan Center to check out the displays, and the calendar for a schedule of events. In particular, make plans to attend Thursday's lecture by the world's foremost expert on global mental health, Vikram Patel.
Finally, congratulations to the DGHI faculty and affiliates who received the Provost's PFIRST grants that were announced today by the Office of Interdisciplinary Studies.
Until next week,
Geelea Seaford and Everyone at DGHI
|
|
|
|
Ugandan AIDS Leader Discusses Progress, Challenges of Epidemic
To kick off Duke's Global Health Week 2011 last Thursday, Ugandan physician and HIV/AIDS pioneer Peter Mugyenyi gave a talk on the unresolved AIDS crisis in Africa. Before a packed room of Duke students, Mugyenyi reiterated that progress has been made in the fight against HIV/AIDS, but the epidemic is not over. He emphasized that millions of people around the world are alive today because of the implementation of the US President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, otherwise known as PEPFAR, and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. One of the many beneficiaries of this funding, Mugyenyi directs the Joint Clinical Research Center in Kampala, which has been able to bring life-saving antiretroviral therapy to hundreds of thousands of Ugandans. In this video, Mugyenyi shares his thoughts on the role of universities in the fight against HIV/AIDS and his concerns if funding is not maintained. Mugyenyi's visit to Duke was co-sponsored by the Program on Global Health and Technology Access, Sanford School of Public Policy, Center for AIDS Research, CHAVI and DGHI.  | | Peter Mugyenyi: The Unresolved AIDS Crisis in Africa |
|
|
1 in 4 Overweight or Obese Adults Don't Believe They Have a Problem
When it comes to losing weight, perception is not always reality - in fact, it's often a major hurdle. In a new study, nearly one in four adults who were either overweight or  obese did not believe they had a weight problem, and as a result did not see a need to improve their health. With nearly 70 percent of Americans classified as either overweight or obese, the findings have serious implications for how to target efforts that will help Americans lose weight, researchers said.
"It's often said that the first step in improving a problem is believing that you have one. That's particularly true for obesity," said Gary Bennett, associate professor of psychology and neuroscience and global health at Duke University and senior author of the study. "A sizeable proportion of obese Americans don't accept that they have a weight problem. This group is less likely to practice healthful behaviors that will help them lose weight and improve their health."
The researchers used data from the 2003-2006 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. They examined associations between weight misperception and several weight-related attitudes and behaviors, including wanting to weigh less, having tried to lose weight, dietary intake, and physical activity among overweight and obese adults in the U.S.
|
|
|
DGHI Faculty Makes Recommendations for Healthy Eating in Child Care
A new publication by DGHI faculty member Sara Benjamin Neelon, assistant professor of community and family medicine and global health, suggests that food and nutrition practitioners should work more closely with child-care providers and families to meet children's nutrition needs.
In the April Journal of the American Dietetic Association, registered dietitians Benjamin-Neelon and Margaret Briley, professor in the School of Human Ecology at the University of Texas-Austin, lay out a set of recommended benchmarks for child-care providers who care for children under the age of five. Young children in full-time child-care programs typically consume half to three- quarters of their daily calories at child care centers, making the centers an ideal setting for the promotion of healthy eating.
Recommendations include higher consumption of fruits and vegetables; limiting portion sizes and foods high in calories, sugar and sodium; more physical activity; posting menus at child-care centers; food and nutrition consultation services for child-care providers and families; and expanding child-care provider knowledge about basic child nutrition.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
DGHI-affiliated Faculty Win Provost's Research Funding
Congratulations to our faculty and affiliates who have been awarded a PFIRST award. The awardees include Deborah Jenson and Laurent Dubois of The Haiti Lab, Marc Jeuland, Subhrendu Pattanayak and Avner Vengosh, a DGHI pilot grant awardee.
Can $30,000 replace millions of coal-burning cooking stoves, reduce climate-changing emissions, and improve health for millions of people in rural India? Probably not, but it does provide the seed funding for a half-dozen Duke University faculty to begin that quest. An interdisciplinary project to examine the health, environmental, and climate impacts of household energy choices in India, led by Subhrendu Pattanayak, associate professor of public policy and environmental economics, is one of five projects recently selected to receive funds through the Provost's PFIRST competition held earlier this spring.
PFIRST, for Problem-Focused Interdisciplinary Research-Scholarship Teams, was designed to award seed funds to support faculty-led collaborations that address problem-focused research areas from multiple perspectives.
The four other funded proposals address environmental health, mental health, regulation, and communication around risky behavior.
DGHI is Featured in The New York Times
 Duke Global Health Institute Founding Director Michael Merson is quoted in a New York Times article on the surge in student interest for global health work. A member of the Consortium of Universities for Global Health, Duke has worked to meet the growing demand for global health programs that train students and clinicians to work in some of the poorest communities in the US and around the world.
"...More than 70 universities in the United States and Canada now offer formal academic programs in global health, most of them developed in just the past five years, according to the Consortium of Universities for Global Health.
"Today's students really want to make a difference in the world," said Michael H. Merson, director of Duke University's Global Health Institute. "They have a passion for sacrifice and service. It reminds me of the '60s..."
|
|
|
| Received this as a forward? Sign up for future issues.
|
|
|
|
|
|
