August 2008

Alastair Ager has been appointed to the newly established Wellcome Trust Steering Committee on Public Health Impact of Disasters. The committee is being asked to review evidence, identify gaps, and develop a research agenda relating to the public health impact of disasters.
While lives are often lost as an immediate result of a disaster, there are also often many further deaths in the aftermath, for example from diarrhoeal disease and other infectious diseases.  There is also often increased nutritional stress, particularly in children, which seems to be exacerbated by recent commodity price increases.  The recent floods in southern Africa highlighted other concerns about the impact on pre-existing chronic conditions, with reports of people unable to reach clinics to receive antiretroviral drugs, or treatments for tuberculosis.  And a further area that has received little attention is the longer term mental health impacts for survivors of a disaster.
Tackling the public health impacts of disasters will require the strengthening of local systems and infrastructure to allow improved disaster preparedness, risk reduction and first responder capacity development.  However, it will also depend on developing a research agenda that provides evidence to inform better disaster management. It is anticipated that this agenda will inform wider thinking about research to improve emergency health response as well as the Wellcome Trust’s own exploration of opportunities in this area.

The July 2008 issue of Congressional Quarterly, Global Researcher provides an overview to child soldiers; Neil Boothby contributed to the article and is quoted in the article.

The Journal of Refugee Studies includes a review of A World Turned Upside Down edited by Neil Boothby, Alison Strang and Mike Wessells.

May 2008 articles in New Scientist and Science News highlights the work of Neil Boothby and Mike Wessells.

Neil Boothby received $1.3 million grant from Oak Foundation to establish the Care and Protection of Children Interagency Learning Network (CPC Learning Network). The CPC Learning Network aims to strengthen and systematize child care and protection in emergency settings through the collaborative action of humanitarian organizations, local institutions, and academic partners.

Alastair Ager spoke at SIPA's Conflict Resolution Working Group Roundtable Discussion Series on 'The Psychosocial Dimension of Violent Conflict' on February 13, 2008.

Neil Boothby participated in the January 2008 UN Global Protection Cluster Meeting in Geneva, Switzerland.  He spoke on the PFMH's new CPC Learning Network initiative, and his work on systematic approaches to child protection in emergencies.  The PFMH is the only academic member of the Cluster's Working Group on Child Protection.

On December 5th, 2007 at the United Nations Secretariat in New York City, Columbia University, in conjunction with UNOCHA, conducted a discussion of ongoing research in conflict-affected areas led by members of the PFMH's Care and Protection of Children in Crisis-Affected Countries (CPC Project) research team. PFMH faculty, Les Roberts and Alastair Ager, and students, Lindsay Stark and Ann Warner, discussed a methodology used in northern Uganda (in partnership with Christian Children's Fund) and in Liberia (in partnership with the International Rescue Committee) to establish incidence rates for gender based violence. The assessments involve a novel 'Neighborhood Methodology,' in which women are asked about their own experience, their sisters' experiences, and their neighbors' experiences of sexual violence.

Alastair Ager gave the closing address at the one-day international symposium 'The Heart of Humanitarian Relief' organized by Headington Institute and People in Aid on November 14, 2007 in Baltimore, MD.

Neil Boothby received $48,000 over two years from the US Institute for Peace to create a system for rapid identification of the prevalence and frequency of child protection concerns within conflict-affected areas. This grant supplements an existing 3-year, 1.2 million grant from USAID and the Oak Foundation to develop evidence for effective protection programming for children in countries affected by crisis.