Fifty students from over twenty UK universities took part in the UK’s first Aid 4 Health Simulation in Cambridge on March 9th & 10th. The simulation, organized by the Humanitarian Centre, aimed to capture the complex dynamics of the negotiations for aid and wider aid processes. Students played the role of a multitude of actors and institutions including, amongst others, ministries of the Malawian Government, the World Bank, UNICEF, the World Health Organisation and USAID.

Prior to the (more...)

Part 3. Debates and Reflections

By Alexa Zeitz
The conference threw up many questions, as is to be expected at this early phase in the NCD movement. Among these was the role of the private sector and conflicts of interest. While the tobacco industry has been roundly rejected from debates about NCDs because of its vested interest in perpetuating one of the behavioural causes of NCDs, the alcohol, food and drug industries still have conflicted positions. Many corporations from these sectors (more...)

Part 2. Mental Health and Partnerships

By Alexa Zeitz
The topic of mental health had been largely off the agenda at the UN Summit, the Humanitarian Centre conference recognized the importance of addressing this most neglected chronic disease. Carol Brayne, Director of the Cambridge Institute of Public Health, explained that mental health goes unaddressed because of a big lack of data, low numbers of health workers and, most importantly, stigma and discrimination. Brayne argued forcefully that (more...)