| Center for Public Health and Human Rights |
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Current Projects Responding to Burma’s Pro-Democracy Movement The Center, along with the Global Health Access Program and several human rights groups on the ground, will train health care workers along the borders of Thailand, India and China how to investigate and document, on a population level, human rights violations in Burma’s hard-to-reach zones of conflict. The workshops will also provide intensive training in human rights principles, gender equality and social justice. Lastly, as activists, monks, nuns, students and others flee to areas under ethnic control, especially as a result of the Saffron Revolution in 2007, it will be critical to document their accounts and advocate on their behalf. Read the latest update of current issues in the Alternative ASEAN Network's August 2008 Bulletin Supported by: The U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor The Mobile Obstetric Maternal Health Workers Project The Mobile Obstetric Maternal Health Workers (MOM) Project employs a unique approach to addressing the dire neonatal and maternal health situation among internally displaced persons (IDPs) living in eastern Burma. Our partners—the Global Health Access Program, the Mae Tao Clinic, the Back Pack Health Worker Team and Mobile Clinic ethnic groups—have been able to establish a network of 12 mobile health centers inside Burma that serve as capacity building sites for 33 maternal health workers, 147 health workers, 350 traditional birth attendants and other community participants. Read the MOM Project's current activities presented in the Cross-Border RH Fact Sheet Although the long-term objective of the project is to reduce maternal and neonatal morbidity and mortality among IDPs within eastern Burma, the primary aim is to increase access to proven antenatal interventions and to basic emergency obstetric care. The centers provide proven and appropriate antenatal, peripartum and postpartum newborn and maternal health interventions, and are sites for standardized collection of program indicators, as well as referral centers for specialized emergency obstetrical care. The need to quantify the associations between human rights violations and health outcomes is increasingly obvious and this project gives evidence to the feasibility of obtaining data to understand such associations. By illustrating the intricate and undeniable influence that human rights violations play on the health of marginalized populations, policies can be created or changed and programs can be implemented. To this end, Drs. Luke Mullany and Chris Beyrer have been presenting the lessons learned from this project to local and international organizations with the hopes of bringing about future action for research, advocacy, and program implementation in the context of human rights violations. Borderline Health Johns Hopkins Magazine presents an in-depth look at the dedication of the MOM Project team Read the latest presentation to the CDC: Public Health and Human Rights: Challenges, Synergies, and Methodologies. Supported by: The Bill and Melinda Gates Institute for Population and Reproductive Health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Cross-Sectional Evaluation of the Prevalence of HIV among Men who Have Sex with Men in Southern Africa The evaluation serves as an epidemiologic probe of HIV prevalence among men who have sex with men (MSM) in four sites throughout Southern Africa—the Republic of South Africa, Mozambique, Namibia and Malawi. The study encompasses 200 men per site and is led by South African researchers with local LGBT/human rights advocacy groups responsible for study recruitment and advocacy efforts. HIV testing is completed using oral fluid-based rapid HIV testing kits. The serologic and behavioral data collected will be used by African NGOs as an instrument to advocate for more ownership, interest and support by African governments and civil society for MSM needs. In addition, these data will form the basis of a public health argument which, in conjunction with a human rights argument, aims to show how HIV prevention, treatment and care needs of MSM have been ignored and how repressive laws/policies and societal stigma have led to human rights abuses and poor health outcomes for this population. Supported by: Open Society Institute in Southern Africa (OSISA) and OSI’s Sexual Health and Rights Project (SHARP) View Dr. Beyrer's presentation at USAID, July 2008. Understanding Risk Factors for HIV and Creating Innovative Prevention Interventions in Kazakhstan: Grave concern exists among international health leaders in respect to the current HIV epidemic in Central Asia, a region where the prevalence of HIV is continuing to rise. In Kazakhstan, the existence of heavy drug-trafficking, availability of low-cost heroin, and mobile populations of migrant workers and traders place groups such as sex workers, injecting drug users (IDUs), and migrant vendors at the greatest risk of infection, while cities, such as Almaty, that are involved in heavy trading activity tend to have higher levels of HIV infection as well. CPHHR investigators, Dr. Chris Beyrer and Mark Berry, have been invited to collaborate with Dr. Nabila El-Bassel and researchers from Columbia University’s Global Health Research Center of Central Asia (GHRCCA) to further examine the risk factors and societal influences on HIV and sexually transmitted infection (STI) epidemics in Kazakhstan. The Marketplace Study, conducted in 2008 – 2012 in the Barakholka Market of Almaty, focuses on HIV and STI rates among migrant male market vendors. This study is conducted in two phases; the first phase includes qualitative interviews among 60 randomly selected vendors to understand the context of sexual risk, while the second phase is a longitudinal assessment of HIV/STI incidence among 2,000 randomly selected vendors. This study is supported by the National Institue of Mental Health (NIMH). The long-term objective of these studies are to augment the knowledge of HIV and STI transmission factors and risky behaviors, as well as inform local officials and organizations so more appropriate and efficacious HIV and STI prevention and treatment programs can be made available to vulnerable populations in Central Asia. AOSI vs. USAID: Challenging Global AIDS Funding Restrictions In September 2005, Open Society Institute spearheaded a legal challenge to the U.S. government’s requirement that recipients of global HIV/AIDS funding consent to an anti-prostitution pledge to exclude sex workers from HIV prevention services supported by the funds. The plaintiffs—Alliance for Open Society International (AOSI), Open Society Institute (OSI) and Pathfinder International—maintain that the U.S. government's policy requirements for grantees of global AIDS funding violates the First Amendment by forcing private organizations to adopt the government’s point of view and by restricting what they can say and do with their private funds. The Center for Public Health and Human Rights was asked by the Brennan Center for Justice at the New York University School of Law—the legal counsel representing OSI—to review the existing scientific evidence on strategies that effectively reduce rates of HIV among sex workers and to present our findings in a Declaration for the court. For updates and information on the ongoing case, please visit the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law. Advocating for HIV and STI Prevention Services for Men who Have Sex with Men in the Russian Federation AIDS Infoshare, a Moscow-based Russian NGO, in collaboration with CPHHR, is working to expand its advocacy efforts on behalf of men who have sex with men (MSM), a group that has been overlooked by the Russian government’s HIV/AIDS prevention programs. While MSM communities in the U.S. and Western Europe have made a large contribution to stalling the spread of HIV among its members, the mobilization of MSM around basic human rights and health issues in Russia is still at an early stage. The project includes the use of both quantitative and qualitative scientific evidence to elucidate the barriers to inclusion of MSM into national HIV/AIDS prevention programs. Advocacy on behalf of MSM will be conducted primarily through the project’s Advisory Board, which will be responsible for constructing a written statement containing concrete data from a wide range of influential professionals. In the past, the involvement of vulnerable populations in the design and implementation of HIV/AIDS prevention programs has proven to be very effective, as have grassroots efforts by MSM communities in other countries to stop the spread of HIV. Therefore, members of the MSM community will be engaged as much as possible in the project and will receive training that will enable them to advocate for improved health care on their own behalf. Supported by: The Ford Foundation |
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