Getting “the right care to the right patient at the right time” is hard enough in highly developed countries like the United States. In low- and middle-income countries, the challenges are only magnified. Delivering on global health means dealing with a broad array of details that differ depending on the intervention and the location involved. Whether it’s saving the lives of women giving birth in rural Peru, or influencing the spread of effective antimalarial medications in Africa, enormous difficulties must be overcome to combat disease and death.

The July-August issue of Health Affairs, supported by a grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, is a thematic volume that addresses the challenges of global health care delivery. The issue will be released at a briefing on July 14, at the Capital Hilton in Washington D.C. At the briefing:

• Ramanan  Laxminarayan of  Resources for the Future will discuss an innovative international approach to  delivering affordable antimalarial treatments in a way that will avoid the  development of treatment-resistant strains of  malaria.
• Judith Kaufmann,  a  visiting scholar at the Paul Nitze School of Advanced International Studies,  will discuss diplomatic efforts undertaken during an official boycott of  polio immunization in Northern Nigeria and the lessons that can be learned  from those efforts.
• Scott  Barrett, the  Lenfest–Earth Institute Professor of Natural Resource Economics at Columbia  University, will discuss the challenges involved in eradicating  polio.
• David Gaus of  Andean Health and Development in Ecuador will describe how rural Ecuadoreans  convinced him of the critical need for a high-quality and affordable secondary  care hospital in their community, and how such a hospital achieved financial  sustainability.
• And  veteran health policy reporter Nellie Bristol will  discuss the challenges involved in reducing the number of women in poor  countries who die during pregnancy and  childbirth.

Here are the details:

WHEN:
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
9:30 a.m. – 11:30 a.m.

WHERE:
Capital Hilton
1001 16th St., NW (northeast corner of 16th and K), Washington DC
Metro: Farragut North (Red Line); Farragut West (Blue & Orange Lines)

RSVP for this event online here.

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