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April 7 is World Health Day, focusing this year on universal health coverage. If you want to help students understand the health crises facing their communities and the world as a whole, we have resources for you. Here are our top 5 global health lessons for World Health Day 2019:
Screenshot from "Mawah - When Ebola Came to our Village." Image by Carl Gierstorfer. 2015.
1. Reporting on Epidemics
Students explore how health topics are presented in the news media and go behind the scenes of two Pulitzer Center reporting projects on Ebola and HIV/AIDS.
Screen shot from the July 11, 2016 "Ending AIDS" PBS NewsHour broadcast
2. Ending Epidemics: Strategies for Preventing the Spread of Infectious Diseases
Students learn about the concept of epidemiology and how it is used to control or prevent the spread of infectious diseases through a hands-on simulation game and other activities.
A young girl jumps over piles of drying animal hides that have just been treated with a mix of chemicals and dyes. Image by Sean Gallagher. India, 2013.
3. Toxic Business: Pollution, Industry, and Health in India
Students learn about tannery and e-waste pollution in India and how it impacts people's health, as well as how Americans are connected to the crisis through consumer goods.
Transmission electron micrograph (TEM) of the Zika virus. Image by Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
4. Outwitting Nature's Greatest Killer: Mosquitoes and Disease
Half a million people die from malaria annually. What do we do? Students use information from a multimedia story to debate strategies for preventing mosquito-borne diseases.
Magdonia Reyes Salazar and Pastor Rafael Soto work together to build a solar oven frame behind their Iglesia Evangelica Dominicana church in Sosua. Image by Makenzie Huber. Dominican Republic, 2016.
5. Cooking Up Pollution: The Health Crisis of Open Fires and Leaky Stoves
Students learn about health problems from solid fuel cooking and resultant indoor pollution, alternative cooking methods that could help, and obstacles to implementing change.