Videos from Spring 2021 Global Health Tuesday webinars are available:
- COVID-19 in Ecuador
- What’s Next for COVID-19
- Holistic Healing Within Community: Global Mental Health Perspectives During COVID-19
- Planetary Health Scholars Flash Talks
Descriptions of each webinar are below.
Facing COVID-19 in Ecuador, the intersection of illness and climate change, mental health and planetary health will be explored when the Global Health Tuesday webinars resume on January 26.
Hosted by the University of Wisconsin-Madison Global Health Institute (GHI), the monthly webinars host researchers and practitioners from campus and across the world. The speakers showcase the complexity of global health challenges and the many kinds of expertise needed to address them. By sharing their experiences, these guests provide insights into global health, encourage conversation and help connect colleagues locally and globally.
Here’s a look at what’s coming up:
January 26, 4:30-5:30 p.m.
“COVID-19 in Ecuador”
Avriel Rose Diaz, executive director of Walking Palms Global Health in Bahia De Caraquez, Ecuador, will discuss measures taken in Ecuador with a focus on the city of Bahia de Caraquez, located in the Manabi Province. “The pandemic caught global health systems off-guard, in part because governments lacked adequate Disaster Risk and Response plans,” Diaz says. “In both developed and developing countries, slow and inadequate responses to the crisis exacerbated virus transmission, illness and fatality, and worsened acute economic contractions which disproportionately impacted the most vulnerable populations.” Diaz will identify how national and regional municipalities reacted to the crisis, and how those actions impacted interconnected social and economic systems essential to maintaining quality public health. The coastal province of Manabi is under the constant threat of earthquakes, floods and mudslides, exacerbating health challenges.
Diaz co-founded Walking Palms Global Health in 2016 in the aftermath of the devastating 7.8 magnitude earthquake that hit Ecuador. She is a systems ecologist with a master’s degree in Evolution, Ecology and Conservation Biology with a focus in Infectious Diseases from Columbia University. Her specialization in natural disasters, mosquito-borne illnesses and public health forms the basis for the scientific research conducted by Wild Palms. She has collaborated with UW-Madison’s Lyric Bartholomay on Mosquitos y Yo, a program to teach children about insect-borne diseases.
February 23, 4:30-5:30 p.m.
“What’s Next For COVID-19?”
GHI Director Jonathan Patz, M.D., MPH, and Professor of Pathobiological Sciences Kristen Bernard, Ph.D., M.S., DVM, join Associate Professor of Population Health Sciences Ajay Sethi , Ph.D., MHS, in a discussion about lessons learned from COVID-19 and preparing for the next pandemic. The panelists—who come from population health/epidemiology, global health/climate science and pathobiological sciences/zoonoses—explore what’s been learned from the coronavirus epidemic in 2020 and the challenges still facing the world as it attempts to control COVID-19 in 2021. They also look to the future, considering the impacts of climate change and animal-to-human disease transmission as they discuss what’s needed to prevent the next pandemic.
Patz, M.D., MPH, the John P. Holton Chair of Health and the Environment, is a recognized leader in the field of climate change and health and has worked as a lead author for the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and a c0-chair of the U.S. National Assessment on Climate Change. He has appointments in the Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies and the Department of Population Health Sciences.
Sethi, Ph.D., MHS, is in the School of Medicine and Public Health. His research interests lie in the study of infectious disease, especially modifiable behavioral and structural factors associated with transmission and death once infections are established.
Bernard, DVM, M.S., Ph.D., is in the School of Veterinary Medicine. Her research looks to further the understanding of the virus-host interaction with an aim to develop new therapies and vaccines.
March 30, 8:00-9:00 a.m. (NOTE SPECIAL TIME)
“Holistic Healing Within Community: Global Mental Health Perspectives during COVID-19.”
In October 2020, the sixth International East Africa Psychology Conference provided an opportunity for a collaborative learning community to convene in a modified in-person and virtual format under the theme “Holistic Healing Within Community: Bridging Home, School, and the Workplace around The Globe during COVID-19.” The bio-psycho-social model of holistic healing, used to promote psychological well-being in general and particularly in the midst of a pandemic, was central to the conference. Participants reconvene for the webinar to discuss lessons learned and next steps related to mental health and resiliency.
GHI Associate Director Lori DiPrete Brown will moderate the webinar.
Lori DiPrete Brown, MS, MTS, focuses her scholarship and practice on global health, particularly the health and well-being of women and children in highly vulnerable situations around the world. She teaches in the Department of Civil Society and Community Studies at the School of Human Ecology and is an Associate Director of the UW-Madison Global Health Institute, where she has been an architect of UW-Madison’s global health education programs and has developed and facilitated internships and service-learning programs in local settings and around the world.
DiPrete Brown is the lead author and editor of Foundations for Global Health Practice, a text that articulates a broad vision of global health that goes beyond health care systems, to include topics such as human rights, global mental health, water and sanitation, food systems, climate change and urban health. She is also the founding director of the campus-wide 4W Women and Well-being Initiative, which has catalyzed a range of innovative programs that address gender-based inequality and injustice.
Before joining UW-Madison, DiPrete Brown collaborated with a range of international organizations to develop quality improvement strategies for health and development programs. She continues this work at UW through the QI Leadership Institute, which has trained over 100 leaders from 17 countries and has collaborated on QI research, capacity building, policy development and evaluation in Chile, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Ecuador, Ethiopia, Cameroon, India, Nepal, and Malawi.
Participants include:
- Sebastian Ssempijja, PhD, licensed psychologist, CEO and clinic director of Sebastian Family Psychology Practice, LLC (SFPP), in Glendale, Wisconsin. A graduate of Marquette University, and immigrant from Uganda, Ssempijja has utilized his trans-cultural education and experiences to treat clients of diverse cultural backgrounds. His interest in ethno-psychology expanded his work from solo practice to co-founding SFPP with Yvonne Ssempijja, and managing it with a cross-cultural multidisciplinary team. His deep interest in Global Health issues has propelled pioneering of consultations and conferences aimed to increase awareness on Mental Health needs, especially in reference to Uganda and Eastern Africa.
- Fred Coleman, MD, UW-Madison clinical faculty and medical director of Kajsiab House, Hmong Refugee Project and the Cambodian Temple Project of the Cambodian Refugee Project, with “Biopsychosocial Models of Holistic Healing, and the Roles of Resilience” Clinical Faculty. Participant in 3rd, 4th, 5th East African Psychology Conferences in Uganda (for Rift Valley Countries). Member of the International Academy of Law and Mental Health and International Association for the Study of Forced Migration.
- Hafsa Lukwata Sentongo, MD, MPH, director of the Mental Health Department in the Ministry of Health, Uganda, with “Holistic Healing in the Community During COVID Times.” A physician with medical training from Mbarara University, a postgraduate diploma in tropical medicine from the Institute of Tropical Medicine at Nagasaki University Japan, and a Master’s degree in public health from Makerere University School of Public Health, Sentongo is currently the acting head of Mental Health and Control of Substance Abuse Division, Ministry of Health, Uganda with extensive work in medical care, pediatric care, infectious disease, and administrative healthcare.
- Tim Ehlinger, PhD, associate professor and William Collins Kohler Chair of Systems Chance and Peacebuilding at UW-Milwaukee Partners in Health, with “Engaging Knowledge Equity in Holistic Health and Healing.” His work focuses on the study of risk-response relationships between natural and anthropogenic stressors and understanding their complex impacts on the integrity and resilience of social-ecological systems. Ehlinger uses a diverse array of methodologies to examine human-environmental interactions and to explore the implications of policies and interventions on ecosystem services and their effects on environmental health, human well-being and conflict. His current programs are the result of an evolution in his understanding of the importance of human-environmental systems and their role in promoting peace and sustainability.
April 27, 5:00-6:30 p.m.
Planetary Health Graduate Scholars flash talks.
Each year, graduate students and their faculty advisors come together from across disciplines to study how the health of the planet and the health of humans are interdependent. Together, they are working toward solutions that benefit health and well-being for all.
Nine Planetary Health Graduate Scholars will give 5-minute x 5-slide flash talks about their projects at the April 27 Global Health Tuesday webinar. The students look at a wide range of planetary health challenges, from raising insects for human and animal food to the environmental and human health impacts of nanomaterials to incorporating healthy eating and active living strategies in urban and regional planning policies.
Rebecca Alcock, a master’s student in Biomedical Engineering, looks at the intersection of product design and social sciences to tackle global inequality, especially in health. Yaa Oparebea Ampofo, a doctoral student in Educational Policy, considers the intersection of education, decolonization, environmental studies and sustainable development. Daniel Hayden, a doctoral student in Plant Pathology, is interest in Indigenous food sovereignty and his research links soil microbial diversity to plant diversity and productivity in crops.
GHI Director Jonathan Patz leads the Planetary Health program and will serve as the night’s moderator.
The 2020-2021 Planetary Health Graduate Scholars come from Engineering, Education, Nursing, Agricultural and Life Sciences, and the Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies. A Q&A will follow the talks.