Interdisciplinary research on global health problems through the lenses of economics, nutrition and politics.
Research Spotlight
Tackling the Health of Women and Children in Global Conflict Settings
A new four-paper series in The Lancet exposes the far-reaching effects of modern warfare on women’s and children’s health. Stanford researchers, including SHP's Paul Wise and Eran Bendavid, have joined other academics and health-care experts in calling for an international commitment from humanitarian actors and donors to confront political and security challenges.
Many countries have taken digital epidemiology to the next level in responding to COVID-19. Focusing on core public health functions of case detection, contact tracing, and isolation and quarantine, the authors explore ethical concerns raised by digital technologies and new data sources in public health surveillance during epidemics.
Does Diversity Matter for Health? Experimental Evidence from Oakland
African-American men have the lowest life expectancy of any major demographic group in
the United States and live on average 4.5 fewer years than non-Hispanic white men. This paper finds that the mortality disparity is partly related to underutilized preventive
healthcare services.
China makes a unique and vital contribution to maintaining global and regional waterbird diversity and conservation. Despite considerable historical conservation efforts, the continued loss of waterbird diversity and abundance necessitates a contemporary review of Chinese sites of conservation significance. The Ecological Protection Red Line (EPRL) was proposed by China’s Central Government in 2013 to protect areas providing crucial ecosystem services and provides the opportunity for such a review to enhance waterbird conservation in China. By incorporating various sources of data, surveys and information, we identified a suite of sites of waterbird conservation significance in China, following the Ramsar Site Criteria/Important Bird and Biodiversity Area (IBA) Criteria. In total, we identified 422 sites, of which the existing 286 IBA sites formed the basis of the site safeguard network. Altogether, these sites of waterbird conservation significance constitute over 727,000 km2 (7.6% of China’s land surface). Over half of the area of these sites is outside China’s national nature reserves, thus confirming the importance and urgency of including them in the EPRL for the effective conservation of waterbird sites. We suggest that this assessment of sites of waterbird importance offers a useful model to apply to other taxa, such as terrestrial birds and mammals.