Who cares about global health?

MARCH 04, 2009 12:03 AM| no comments

When the average American watches the evening news there is precious little international coverage. And you can bet that what there is pays scant regard to the millions of lives affected each year in the world’s poorest countries by disease and malnutrition.

And it’s the same when it comes to newspapers. Throughout the United States thousands of editorial jobs have been lost, budgets cut and revenue restricted which has led to a narrowing of coverage. And this means less room for stories about the world’s poor who after all don’t vote and don’t buy advertising.

And here lies the paradox. Because the United States is also responsible for spending hundreds of millions of dollars on fighting these killer diseases in the developing world. The Government through its various aid projects and wealthy private sector organizations such as the Gates Foundation.

So how do we square this circle? There is clearly both the interest and the money to fight disease but no place for coverage in traditional media. Part of the answer here lies in new technology. Take Global Health TV as an example. The channel tackles many of the issues talked about here and is funded via several initiatives. But even so being a web based channel it suffers from the normal competition driving traffic to its site.

So enter the EdgePlayer. Global Health TV has transformed its reach by putting video players on high profile sites whilst retaining control of the content played on them. Take a look at thelancet.com and globalhealthcouncil.org as examples. And the result is over 100, 000 people each month tuning into coverage on global health. And given the problems we have to deal with that coverage is invaluable.Air Jordan 1 Retro High OG “Board of Governors” White/Black-Royal Blue

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