Progress
2019
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 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.
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.
Outcomes
2018
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.
