Dr. Ike Anya is a consultant in public health medicine, writer, honorary lecturer in Public Health at Imperial College London, cofounder of Nigeria Health Watch and cofounder and principal consultant of EpiAfric, a public health consultancy in Nigeria.
Dr. Anya obtained his medical degree at the University of Nigeria (1995), before eventually moving to the UK in 2001. Here, he obtained a Master’s from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, before completing the Southwest England public health training program in 2008.
Dr. Katherine Semrau, PhD, MPH, is an Associate Epidemiologist at the Division of Global Health Equity at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Assistant Professor at Harvard Medical School, and the Director of the BetterBirth Program at Ariadne Labs, a joint health innovation center between Brigham and Women’s Hospital and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. The BetterBirth Program is focused on improving quality of care in facility-based childbirth using the WHO Safe Childbirth Checklist. This quality improvement program recently completed a large-scale study of the peer-mentoring implementation of the WHO Safe Childbirth Checklist in facility-based deliveries conducted in Uttar Pradesh, India.
I woke up abruptly from my jet-lagged sleep surrounded by a bed net, two fans, and the smell of the DEET bug spray I had applied before going to bed. One of my team members was knocking on the door, saying that a large group of women was already outside the hostel where we were staying and had been waiting for us to come out. I was surprised to find out they had been coming every morning, anticipating our arrival, but I also realized how different this place had already become in my mind.
Chronic conditions, such as Type II diabetes and hypertension, account for seven in 10 deaths in the United States each year. And by some estimates, public health factors, such as the physical environment we live in, socioeconomic status and ability to access health services, determine 90% of our health. Biomedical sciences and actual medical care – the stuff doctors do – determine the remaining 10%.
Clinical medicine can treat patients when they are sick, but public health provides an opportunity to prevent disease and poor health. But too often, medical students don’t get to learn about public health, or how to use it when they become doctors. That means many of today’s students aren’t learning about health care in a broader context.
Mellissa Withers, MHS, PhD, is an assistant clinical professor at University of Southern California (USC) in the Institute for Global Health and leads the Global Health Program of the Association of Pacific Rim Universities, a network of 45 universities in the region, where she teaches global health-related courses. Withers also works as an independent health research consultant, with research focusing on global reproductive health and women’s empowerment, including human trafficking, preventing unintended pregnancy, HIV/AIDS prevention among sex workers in Asia, and engaging male partners in family planning in sub-Saharan Africa. She received a bachelor’s degree in global development with a minor in ethnic studies from University of California, Berkeley (2001), a Master of Health Science (MHS) in international health systems management from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health (2003), and a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) in community health sciences with a minor in cultural anthropology from University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) Fielding School of Public Health (2010).
Dr. Beth Seltzer
Beth Seltzer’s path to MD and MPH was not a straight line. She started out as a documentary filmmaker in San Francisco, where she created award-winning documentaries with a national reach, shared in creative decisions from idea to final edit, hired and supervised staff, conducted community outreach campaigns, wrote grant proposals, and managed finances. While there, she co-produced programs that garnered long list of honors such as Northern California Area Emmy Award; Gold Apple, National Educational Media Festival; Gold Hugo, Chicago International Film Festival; Best Documentary Short, Nashville Independent Film Festival; and Finalist, IDA Documentary Awards.
Beth received her MD from Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, Cleveland, in 2003, and her MPH from Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health (NY) in 2008. Her residencies included general preventive medicine and public health at Stony Brook University School of Medicine, and a transitional year at Lehigh Valley Hospital in Allentown. Beth is board certified in Public Health and General Preventive Medicine, and is a medical consultant and writer, creating original, nonfiction works for wide audiences, including 101 Careers in Public Health, a comprehensive career guide from Springer Publishing Company, which has been endorsed as “first-rate advice” by the American Public Health Association.
