Global Health the Focus of Jan. 29 Symposium

In addition to the complex political, economic and social challenges facing the Obama administration, a host of unresolved global health care issues will compete for the new president’s attention.

To help shine a light on global health issues—including wide international disparities in health and health care—a symposium will be held Jan. 29 at Yale Law School titled “Global Health Policy for the New Administration.” The event is co-sponsored by the Yale Law School Law and Health Initiative, the Yale School of Public Health, the Global Health Leadership Institute, the Health and Foreign Policy Seminar Series, and the Program in Global Health at the MacMillan Center. It is free and open to the public. No registration is required.

“Yale has an amazing array of global health programs and resources across the University,” said Megan Barnett, associate dean of academic affairs at the Law School. “The Law School Law and Health Initiative is excited to build on this momentum and to gather such a distinguished and interesting group of speakers for this event.”

The symposium begins at 2:00 p.m. with a panel discussion | Video | on “Global Health Policy for the New Administration,” followed by a panel discussion on “Global Health and Development: Perspectives from Washington.” Panelists are Dr. Jim Kim (Harvard Medical School), Martin Collier (Glaser Progress Foundation), Jennifer Prah Ruger (Yale School of Public Health), Robert Makuch (Yale School of Public Health), Natasha Bilimoria (Friends of the Global Fight), and Shannon Smith (Senate Foreign Relations Committee), who will discuss key issues that the administration will have to address, and perspectives on global health policy for the administration and the U.S. Congress.

Georgetown law professor Larry Gostin will deliver the keynote address | Video | at 4:30 p.m. on “International Development Assistance for Health: Ten Priorities in a New Political Era.” An internationally acclaimed scholar, Gostin is the Linda D. and Timothy J. O’Neill Professor of Global Health Law at the Georgetown University Law Center, where he directs the O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law. He is also professor of public health at the Johns Hopkins University and director of the Center for Law & the Public’s Health at Johns Hopkins and Georgetown Universities. The keynote speech is part of Yale’s Health and Foreign Policy Seminar Series.

Paul Cleary, dean of the Yale School of Public Health, said that while domestic health concerns have received considerable attention before and after the election, relatively little has been said on the issue of global health.

“One way of catalyzing activity in this area was to have a conference of the topic,” he said. “Our goal is to stimulate thinking about global health policy issues.”

All sessions will be held at 127 Wall Street, room 127. For more information, visit the conference website or contact danielle.dibianco@yale.edu.