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Common River is a US-based nongovernmental organization (NGO) implementing a community development program in Aleta Wondo, Ethiopia. This NGO is founded on the principle of positive deviance, in which local best practices are identified and replicated to maximize agricultural production (organically grown coffee is produced in this region), as well as to improve the nutritional status, health, and education of orphaned and vulnerable children. Since 2009, a group from the University of Texas School of Medicine has travelled annually to Aleta Wondo to provide school health screening and free health care, including treatment of endemic helminth infections, trachoma, and skin diseases, while collaborating with and supporting the local government-sponsored health clinic (Figures 7-1A and B). In Figure 7-1C, the schoolchildren of Common River are looking at the new group of American medical students that have just arrived in Africa. In the coming week, these children will receive oral albendazole to treat intestinal parasites and have complete physical exams to detect and treat other common conditions, such as head lice, tinea capitis, trachoma, and foot infections. Note that many of the children are barefoot. In Figure 7-1D, a group of women have just completed their woman’s literacy class for the day. Improving women’s literacy can improve the health of the entire community.
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What is Global Health?
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For years, the term international health has described health work in resource-limited settings with an emphasis on tropical diseases, communicable diseases, and illness caused by poor nutrition and inadequate access to water, sanitation, and maternal care.1 More recently, global health is commonly used to emphasize mutual sharing of experience and knowledge, in a bilateral exchange between industrialized nations and resource-limited countries, and the emphasis is expanding to include noncommunicable diseases and chronic illness.2 One definition ...