This group is the voice of prominent young researchers from all over the world in discussions about global health policies (in relation to clinical medicine, public health, environmental health and social studies of health and illness).
The group covers selected important problems of human health through preparing GYA statements (i.e. position or commentary papers in scientific journals) and representing GYA in forums and meetings on the subject. The statements or opinions concern either problems identified by the group or issues already debated by other relevant bodies e.g., WHO, G20 or the European Commission. The group will present voices of young scientists in the meetings and conferences such as Global Health Summit, World Health Assembly, UNFCCC conference of parties meetings and negotiations on climate change to address health etc.
Membership of GYA activities is reserved to current or former GYA members only.
Active members – Active group members are current GYA members proactively participating in the group’s overall work and progress, by contributing to discussions or (text) outputs, or organising and running workshops and other (online) meetings.
Followers – Followers of a group are subscribers to the mailing list, but are not expected to actively contribute. Followers may be current members or alumni of the GYA.
Past Members – Past members are GYA members and alumni who have previously been active in the group. They are no longer included in group communications/mailing lists.
For GYA members and alumni: please use the form below to set or change your membership status for this group.
Non-GYA members: sign up for the monthly GYA newsletter by using newsletter sign-up form at the very bottom of this page.
We currently have no links to external websites to offer by this activity.
For GYA members and alumni only: connect to the group, collaborate and discuss with other members on the GYA-internal Agora platform here.
2021/22
Members of the group have started a 1-year project on Antimicrobial Stewardship, to look into coordinated programmes that promote the appropriate use of antimicrobials (including antibiotics), improve patient outcomes, reduce microbial resistance, and decrease the spread of infections caused by multidrug-resistant organisms. The current COVID-19 pandemic is showing once more that enough has been said but little is being done about increasing antimicrobial resistance.
2021
Group members and members of National Young Academies again organised and contributed to a New Voices in Global Health session about “COVID-19 vaccination rollout: opportunities and challenges” at the hybrid World Health Summit in Berlin, Germany, in October 2021.
2020
Group members and members of National Young Academies organised and contributing to a New Voices in Global Health session about “Perspectives and responses of young scientists to the coronavirus pandemic” at the digital World Health Summit in Berlin, Germany, in October 2020. See here for more details.
In April, group member Suraj Bhattarai (Nepal) was a speaker in a webinar on Covid-19 and Maternal Health, organised by the Action against Stunting.
2019
The group published a promotional video of their work, filmed by Nerina Finetto/ Traces.Dreams.
Group members organised “The New Voices in Global Health” (NVGH) session at the 2019 World Health Summit in Berlin, Germany, in October 2019. See here for a brief report.
Group co-lead Meghnath Dhimal (Nepal) co-authored a paper titled ‘Rising rural body-mass index is the main driver of the global obesity epidemic in adults’ that was published in Nature. A shareable link for the paper is here, and visualisations of the paper’s results are available here.
2018
Several group members including Meghnath Dhimal, Shalini Arya, Mohamed Elhadidy and Yoko Shimpuku attended the GYA/JYA/SCJ Capacity building workshop on Science Leadership and Science Advice, and the INGSA Conference in November 2018 in Tokyo, Japan. Meghnath presented on Climate change, disaster and health: how to protect population health in dealing with disaster-the role of science advice.
Working group members attended the 2018 World Health Summit in Berlin, Germany, in October 2018. They also attended the 2018 Grand Challenges Annual Meeting and the 8th InterAcademy Partnership for Health Young Physician Leaders Programme. See here for a brief report.
Two members of the group, Sandra Lopez Verges and Daniel Limonta, participated in the second CILAC Forum (Latin America and Caribbean Open Science Forum) in Panama on 22-24 October 2018. They also attended a Scientific Leadership Workshop “Young scientists leading the change to 2030” sponsored by IAP, TWAS and GYA in Panama City in October 2018 as a pre-event of CILAC 2018.
The working group member Sandra López Verges also participated in another pre-CILAC workshop on Science Diplomacy organised by SENACYT (Secretaría Nacional de Ciencia, Tecnología e Innovación) from Panama, American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), Inter-American Institute (IAI) and UNESCO. This workshop aimed to give an introduction to researchers, diplomats and decision-makers of the Latin American region and to explain how to use science diplomacy as a tool to work on the SDGs together at the regional level. Sandra gave a talk on science diplomacy agreements that allowed collaborative work for preparedness on emergent and reemergent pathogens that allowed a rapid response during the recent Chikungunya and Zika introduction to the Americas.
Working group lead Meghnath Dhimal (Nepal) participated in the Fifth Global Symposium on Health Systems Research in Liverpool, UK, in October 2018. The theme of the Symposium was “Health Systems for All in the SDG Era” which encapsulated the spirit of these commitments and brings them forward into current debates and actions on the SDGs, and especially, Universal Health Coverage (UHC). The symposium was attended by over 2,000 delegates from 146 countries, including Health Policy and Systems Reasearch scholars, practitioners, funders, policy actors, community activists and the media. Over half of the attendees were from LMIC settings, and representative of all regions of the world. The Symposium was focused on four major sub-themes: multisectoral action, community health systems, engaging the private sector, and leaving no one behind which helped advance conversations and commitments to stronger and more resilient health systems.
Group lead Meghnath Dhimal (Nepal) gave a talk on climate change and NCDs at the Fourth National Global Health Programme 2018 which was organized in August 2018 at the National Centre for Health Professional Education, Institute of Medicine, Maharajgunj, Kathmandu, Nepal.
Group member Daniel Limonta (Cuba) participated in a workshop on the UN SDGs, organised by the Interacademy Partnership (IAP) and the Inter-American Network of Academies of Sciences (IANAS), in Mexico in May 2018.
Group member Meghnath Dhimal (Nepal) attended the Prince Mahidol Award Conference 2018 in Bangkok, Thailand from 29 January to 3 February 2018. As a panellist for the session on ‘Climate Change and Emerging Diseases: The Importance of Resilient Societies’, Meghnath gave a talk about the increasing risks of emerging vector-borne diseases in the Hindu-Kush Himalayan region due to climate change.
Meghnath also co-organised the Fourth National Summit of Health and Population Scientists with the theme of ‘Advancing Evidence on Changing Health Systems in Nepal’ in Nepal in April 2018. He presented a paper on Climate change, global health and funding opportunities to low and middle income countries. The summit was attended by more than 1200 participants, mostly young scientists. It provided a platform to discuss health research agenda among researchers, policymakers and external development partners.
Working group member Stefan Kohler (Germany) published apopular science article on “Precision medicine – moving away from one-size-fits-all” in Quest: Science for South Africa.
In July 2018, the group published a promotional video of their work, filmed by Nerina Finetto/ Traces.Dreams.
2017
Group member Meghnath Dhimal (Nepal) attended the “Young Leaders for Health Conference – Health in the SDGs” in 2017.
He was also involved in an international seminar on ‘Accelerating Sustainable Development Goals progress for Health, Nutrition and Environment’ at the Nepal Academy of Science and Technology (NAST), Kathmandu, Nepal, in November 2017.
