Global Health Institute

By Meera Parikh

On Tuesday, the Conversations in Global Health class hosted Dr. Rebecca Katz, professor and the Director of the Center for Global Health Science and Security at Georgetown University. While she currently works on the intersection between global health, technology, and security, she spent her undergraduate years studying political science and economics at Swarthmore University. However, after developing an infection while volunteering in India, Katz found herself studying Brucella melitensis instead. “When you have a rare infection, you have to become your own expert,” Dr. Katz cited as her sudden interest in the bacteria. As she simultaneously pursued a Masters in Public Health at Yale University in Infectious Disease Epidemiology, Dr. Katz personally experienced disease at the patient level. This was one of many seemingly coincidental events in her career path. 

As she researched more about Brucella, she found a lot of literature about bioweapons—this was because Brucella was a possible bioterrorism agent in the 1950s. She began thinking about the intersection between disease and technology, which lead her to develop a thesis proposal about public health and national security. At the time, most Ph.D. programs were not interested in her research, however she was finally offered a spot at Princeton University. And then another coincidence occurred. On September 10, 2001, Dr. Katz turned in her thesis on public health security, one day before America’s security faced a major threat. Suddenly, the ideas she presented in her paper became issues of national concern. In 2004, Dr. Katz began consulting for the Department of State, while concurrently conducting global health security research at the George Washington University. Four years ago, she moved her research team to Georgetown University, where she currently works.

While listening to Dr. Katz’s career path, I began to wonder, does the job that I will have in five or ten years exist yet? How do I plan for the future, when so many people stumble into their careers through a combination of chance and life experience? In the fleeting moment that I considered these ideas, the conversation shifted to 2019-nCoV, the novel Coronavirus. 

In response to the question “Are we better prepared to deal with pandemics?” Dr. Katz offered a simultaneously optimistic and ominous response: “Yes, but not enough.” She explained that while we have improved infrastructure and adherence to the International Health Regulations, it is impossible to keep up with nature. China has revised their disease surveillance systems and been more transparent about the 2019-nCoV than they were with SARS, but there are still critical questions about the pathogen that are unanswered. The scary, yet fascinating thing about the outbreak is that it is both an issue of the present and the future, and we need to keep both in mind as we develop interventions. After the WHO failed to declare the 2019 Ebola outbreak a public health emergency of international concern (PHEIC) in time, I thought that they would not do the same with this outbreak. But after hearing Dr. Katz elaborate on the political, social, and economic implications of declaring a PHEIC, I realized how nuanced the pandemic response is. I see the same ideas echoed in her recommendations for Global Health Diplomacy in which public health and policy experts must work together to determine the best interventions. Global health issues have no borders, so it takes an international, interdisciplinary team to solve them. Despite all the chaos and fear that pandemics cause, there are researchers, like Dr. Katz, who do their best to prepare for them. And while my career probably won’t follow a linear trajectory, I too can prepare for the unpredictable.

Meera Parikh (NHS ‘22) is a second-year undergraduate student studying Global Health.

By Maya Gabby

On Tuesday, January 21, 2020, our “Conversations in Global Health” lecture welcomed Keifer Buckingham, Senior Policy Advisor for International Public Health at Open Society Foundations (OSF). Buckingham began with an overview of her path to her current role at OSF. In speaking about critical moments in her educational journey, she cited both her undergraduate and graduate programs as having significant impacts on her career trajectory. 

Buckingham, like many other global health professionals, has worked on a variety of health areas over the course of her career, but has grappled most with the politics of reproductive health rights. When asked about the current state of the Global Gag Rule (GGR), it was obvious that it remains her passion. Under the Trump administration, the GGR – or the Mexico City Policy as it is also known as has been vastly expanded and is now the “Protecting Life in Global Health Assistance. Funding for international health services through USAID and PEPFAR have been drastically impacted. Having lobbied for the Global Health Empowerment and Rights (HER) Act this past summer, which would permanently end the GGR, I was curious if there had been any meaningful improvement. Unfortunately, while global health funding used to be a relatively bipartisan issue, the current administration has caused increasing polarization and the bill has not been moved beyond democratic participation. 

However, hope is not lost -- at least not according to Buckingham. She is a firm believer in “budgets [as] moral documents, even when they don’t pass”. And while the Trump administration has offered very little to improving sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR), house democrats have continued to list global health assistance as a top priority in their budgetary considerations. Buckingham is quick to cite the financial return of family planning (for every $1 spent on family planning there is a $7 return on investment) and wealth of positive data as key ways to engage with morally opposed individuals. After all, relationship building has been at the heart of her success in the political world. With the upcoming election in the front of my mind, this brought me great hope for the future of the GGR and my own interest in health policy. As advocates for global health equity, Buckingham’s parting words were meant as inspiration and encouragement to those of us still in the undergraduate portion of our journeys. Facing us, she said “We need more curiosity and empathy in the world.” 

Maya Gabby (NHS ‘21) is a third-year undergraduate at Georgetown studying global health, with specific interests in sexual and reproductive health and rights and health policy.