Global Health Tuesday: High Youth Death Rates – An Emerging Global Health Crisis

The Global Health Institute’s February Global Health Tuesday Webinar is scheduled for Tuesday, February 24, 2026, from 9-10am CST. Dr. Carol D. Ryff, Director, Institute on Aging; Hilldale Professor, Department of Psychology; and MIDUS Principal Investigator, UW–Madison, moderates a timely conversation on High Youth Death Rates – An Emerging Global Health Crisis.

Dr. Ryff leads the discussion with panelists Dr. Eve Puffer, Pamela & Jack Egan Associate Professor, Duke University and Founding Director, Duke Center for Global Mental Health; Dr. Prakash Tyagi, Executive Director, GARVIS and Founder-Director, GARVIS Hospital; and Dr. Githinji Gitahi, MBS, Group Chief Executive Officer, Amref Health Africa.

Please register for the webinar with this link.

MEET THE MODERATOR:

Dr. Ryff’s research addresses aging as a multidisciplinary challenge requiring integration of many levels of analysis: sociodemographic characteristics, psychosocial resources, life stresses, health behaviors and practices, neurobiological risk and protective factors, and health outcomes (mental and physical). She studies the pathways through which these influences come together in longitudinal investigations, involving local, state, and national samples.

Dr. Ryff approaches optimal aging in terms what key ingredients comprise healthy mental functioning. Her studies focus on six dimensions of well-being: autonomy, environmental mastery, personal growth, positive relations with others, purpose in life, and self-acceptance. Her research as shown these qualities are contoured by sociodemographic characteristics (age, gender, socioeconomic status, ethnicity, culture) as well as by the events and experiences that individuals confront (both unexpected life stresses and planned, normative transitions).

MEET THE PANELISTS:

Eve Puffer, PhD, is a global mental health researcher and a licensed clinical psychologist. She is the Pamela and Jack Egan Associate Professor at Duke University and the founding Director of the Duke Center for Global Mental Health. Her research focuses on developing and evaluating integrated community-based interventions to promote child mental health and improve parenting and family functioning. She conducts much of her work in Kenya and conflict-affected settings, such as the Thailand-Myanmar border, and also works with low-resource communities in the United States. Before joining Duke, Dr. Puffer was a research advisor at the International Rescue Committee.

Dr. Prakash Tyagi has an MD, PGDGM, and is the Executive Director of GRAVIS and Founder-Director of GRAVIS Hospital. In his academics, he has studied Medicine and Geriatrics. He has been the recipient of a Fulbright-Humphrey Fellowship to study global health, received a Ford Fellowship to study non-profit management at Columbia University in New York and has studied public policy through a Fleishman Fellowship at Duke University. He has supported various non-profits working on health and development aspects nationally and internationally. With his global health experience, he has contributed to various international forums and has written frequently on major global health issues with greater emphasis on healthy ageing and priorities.

As the Executive Director of GRAVIS, he is leading the organization since last 20 years. GRAVIS works extensively in the Thar Desert of India and in other regions, with key focuses on water security, food security and community health. GRAVIS reaches out to about 2.5 million people living in poverty with its work and has helped formation of over 4,500 Community Based Organizations including Older People Associations and Self-Help Groups. Dr Tyagi had founded a rural hospital and currently direct its administration which is an important medical centre in the Thar Desert of India.

Dr Tyagi is an active development practitioner and public health professional and has contributed significantly in the fields of healthy ageing, HIV, TB and occupational health through writing, research and field work. He is also a Clinical Professor at the School of Global Health of University of Washington, US, and a members of various groups such as the CCHA and GNLTC, WHO and is in the board of IFA.

A passionate advocate for Universal Health Coverage (UHC) in Africa, Dr Githinji Gitahi joined Amref Health Africa as the Global Chief Executive Officer in June 2015. Amref Health Africa, headquartered in Kenya, is the largest Africa-based international health and development organisation providing training and health services to over 20 million people annually in at least 35 countries in Africa.

Previously, Dr Gitahi was the Vice President and Regional Director for Africa, Smile Train International. Prior to that, Dr Gitahi was Managing Director for Monitor Publications in Uganda as well as General Manager for Marketing and Circulation in East Africa for the Nation Media Group. He held progressively senior positions at GlaxoSmithKline and worked at the Avenue Group.

Dr Gitahi is the Co-Chair of the Strategic Advocacy Committee for Partnership for Maternal, Newborn and Child Health (PMNCH) and a member of the African Union Commission on Africa’s COVID-19 Response. He also serves in various Boards, notably – Governing Board of the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), Board of Directors of the Standard Group in Kenya and Board of Trustees of Safaricom Foundation. In June 2023, Dr Gitahi was appointed by the UN Secretary General as a member of the Scaling Up Nutrition (SUN) Movement Lead Group – a global initiative dedicated to eradicating all forms of malnutrition by 2030.

Previously, he served on the Governing Board of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC), and co-chaired the UHC2030 Steering Committee, a World Bank and World Health Organization (WHO) initiative for UHC. His engagement with UHC continues and earlier this year, he chaired a UN multi-stakeholder hearing in New York, NY, USA, ahead of the UN High-Level Meeting on UHC in September, 2023.