This article is about a panel at Health Journalism 2008.
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Panelists:
• Scott F. Dowell, M.D., M.P.H., chief, Global Disease Detection and Emergency Response Branch, Coordinating Office for Global Health, CDC
• Daniel Epstein, information specialist, World Health Organization Regional Office for the Americas
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• Rachel Wilson, M.P.H., director of policy and advocacy, PATH
• Moderator: Jim Simon, assistant managing editor, The Seattle Times
By Jessica Nuñez
Association of Health Care Journalists
Global health coverage in the U.S. is often limited to events of pandemic disease crises like the Ebola outbreak in the 1990s, SARS in 2003 and, more recently, the avian flu virus. Scott Dowell of the Global Disease Detection branch of the CDC explained in the Saturday panel that the center is currently focusing its efforts on planning for future outbreaks of that strain of the flu virus. Despite this trend, panelists Rachel Wilson of the global health nonprofit PATH and Daniel Epstein of the Pan American Health Organization both suggested that reporters try to focus some attention on progress that is being made through global health policy and initiatives.
Wilson highlighted her group's effort to lower the number of children born infected with AIDS in Africa. PATH developed a system of delivering one-dose pouches of medication to women about to give birth, allowing them to administer the drug to their newborn themselves. "In addition to reporting all the challenges we face in global health crises, we should pay attention to the things that are working and advancements that are made," Wilson said.
Journalists in the session asked questions that relayed their concern about finding news angles for stories like the one Wilson described. Some explained the difficulty of pitching these types of stories to editors or about gaining interest among readers. One made a plea to the panelists to find ways to make stories involving policy easier to tell in an anecdotal way. Other journalists offered advice, such as finding ways to localize global health stories and connect readers to the issues.
All the panelists pointed out that the United States is a major contributor to the health budgets of developing countries and therefore a driving force in setting the health agendas of those countries. Responding to an audience question, Wilson said there is a noticeable shift in attention among policymakers away from isolated diseases like AIDS and malaria and toward putting into place more solid infrastructure and training health workers to respond the demanding needs of developing countries. She pointed out that 3 percent of the world's health workers are dealing with 24 percent of the world's infectious diseases.
Wilson spoke about the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), an initiative that is due to be reauthorized in 2008 and would potentially allocate $50 billion to combating the global HIV/AIDS pandemic. During the first five years of the initiative, PEPFAR provided $15 billion.
