GHLC at JHU: Dr. Tara Kirk Sell

Recording not currently publicly available

Dr. Tara Kirk Sell, Ph.D., Senior Scholar at the JHU Center for Health Security, Assistant Professor, Department of Environmental Health and Engineering

Responding to COVID-19 Vaccine Hesitancy and Misinformation:

Factors:

- Confidence

- Complacency

- Convenience

Infodemic:

Misinformation - information that is false in the scientific context of the time, often the result of ignorance and poor understanding

    - False cures

    - Mischaracterizing disease/cure

    - Scapegoating

    - Conspiracies

Disinformation - purposely created and disseminated falsehoods

Ways to check:

- Assess source credibility

- Review other content from the source

- Verify with other sources

- Be wary of emotion-invoking

- Understand your biases

Critical needs:

- Maintaining and building trust

- Engaging with identity

- Communicating uncertainty

Plan for action:

- Intervene against false and damaging content

- Promote and ensure dissemination of true information

- Increase the public's resilience to false information

- Inter-sector collaboration

Responding to people who believe false information:

- Respect

- Connect on values

- Talk about tactics

- Discuss alternatives

- Encourage verification

- Provide true information

When you come across false information:

- Don't repeat

- Report

- Limit engagement

- Provide true information

Building vaccine trust

- Understand, engage, trust

- Communication, motivate, nudges, patience

Building vaccine trust:

- Understand

- Engage

- Trust

- Communication

- Motivate

- Nudges

- Patience

GHLC at JHU: Dr. Amesh Adalja

Dr. Amesh A. Adalja, MD, Senior Scholar at The JHU Center for Health Security

The Center for Health Security:

- Goals

    Pandemic preparedness and response programs

    Awareness among leaders

    Connections between experts and the government

- Health security is a diverse field

- US woefully underprepared and guidelines ignored (Clade X experiment)

- Characteristics of pandemic pathogens

    Efficient transmission

    Moderate fatality

    Contagious during the incubation period

    Mild illness

    Immunologically naive population

    No vaccine

    Evasion of immune response

- Vaccination platforms

    Vaccines key to preventing disease

    "Prototype" vaccines can help (mRNA and DNA vaccines - rapid development)

- At-home diagnostics

- Interface of public health and primary care

    Public health is underresourced

    Can be augmented with primary care

    

GHLC at JHU: Dr. Thomas C. Quinn

Dr. Thomas C. Quinnn, MD, MSc, is the Director of Global Health at JHU and Associate Director for International Research at NIAID.

My Journey into the World of Global Health

- First mentor, George B. Craig, Jr. got him into malaria

- Second mentor, King K Holmes

- Mentor relationship is important - forms a lifelong bond

- Went out to Africa to investigate AIDS

    It was originally thought to only be in homosexual men but quickly spread to the rest of the population

- Met lots of people - relationships are really important!

- HIV becomes a huge problem in developing countries

- Term global health becomes prevalent as HIV/AIDS starts spreading

- Health is now an important foreign policy issue

- Social inequality/demographics are important

- Climate change causes natural disasters - harms health

National Geographic: There’s a new ocean now—can you name all 5?

By Sarah Gibbens

    On World Oceans Day, National Geographic cartographers officially acknowledged the Southern Ocean, the world's fifth ocean. There has long been a debate over whether the region around Antarctica has enough unique features to warrant its own name. The ocean is rimmed by the Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC) at around 60 degrees south latitude and encircles the Antarctic continent while touching three others.

    The ACC first formed when Antarctica separated from South America 34 million years ago and the current facilitates the movement of water around the southern end of the Earth. The waters there are colder and less salty than the more northern areas. It extends from the ocean floor to the surface, allowing it to transport the most water out of any current, and because its cold, dense waters bury carbon in the ocean, it has important environmental impacts as well. Warming of the current in recent years has also led to faster melting of the Antarctic shelf.

    The ocean holds a variety of unique creatures and ecosystems like whales, krill, seabirds, and fish. Industrial fishing has had a major impact on many of these animals, increasing the importance of recognizing the Southern Ocean and making sure more people are educated.