27Feb 2018 by ib41@duke.edu

Analysis: Are We on Track to Achieve SDG Goals for Maternal and Child Health?

Policy Blog
Seventy-nine countries are off track to meet ambitious global health targets for maternal and child health, according to an analysis by researchers from the Brookings Institution and the Duke Global Health Institute (DGHI). If those countries were to recover and accelerate their progress according to the targets, the authors note, 11.8 million lives—1.6 million mothers and 10.2 million children—could be saved. To arrive at these numbers, John McArthur and Krista Rasmussen of the Brookings Institution and Gavin Yamey of DGHI examined trends in child and maternal mortality and extrapolated them forward to 2030. They examined how their findings stacked up against targets in the third Sustainable Development Goal (SDG), “ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages.” Adopted by United Nations member states in 2015, the SDGs…
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09Feb 2018 by ib41@duke.edu

Penny-wise, pandemic-foolish

Latest News from the Center, Policy Blog
This blog was originally published as an editorial in various newspapers including the Times Union on February 8, 2018 and the original version can be found here. A few days ago, I joined several thousand global health practitioners, researchers, activists and policymakers at a conference in Bangkok titled "Making the World Safe from the Threats of Emerging Infectious Diseases."  The audience was abuzz about a new study by a team of economists — including former U.S. Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers — that shows the staggering economic costs of a future pandemic. They estimate the annual losses from a moderate to severe pandemic would be about $500 billion, or 0.6 percent of global income. That's similar to the annual costs of global warming, double the cost of natural disasters and five…
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