Stanford University

Public Health

Global Tobacco Prevention Research Initiative

Cigarettes are producing an unprecedented worldwide health catastrophe. Global traffic in cigarettes has tripled in the last fifty years, in large part because governments have become addicted to tobacco taxes, international trade agencies have promoted tobacco sales, and marketers have devised ever more deceptive tactics. Meanwhile, tobacco-induced diseases are besieging local communities around the world. Whether in China, Brazil or Morocco, families are emptying bank accounts, often in vain, to treat smoking-caused illnesses, and then struggling with the shards of broken futures.

Crisis Preparedness: Asia and the Global Governance of Epidemics

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Throughout history, nations have waged war against epidemics, from bubonic plague to pulmonary tuberculosis. Today, we confront HIV/AIDS, SARS, and avian influenza, among other major infectious diseases. The failure to contain HIV/AIDS, the longest contemporary pandemic, and the difficulties in dealing with the threat posed by avian influenza, show that the world is not well prepared for the next health crises. Because preventing and controlling these infectious diseases is a race against time, scientists around the world scrutinize viruses and bacteria more intently than ever. Yet while scientific advances are crucial, they are insufficient.

This timely book addresses the urgent need to study the governance of infectious disease epidemics, and argues that the battle must be fought on two fronts, simultaneously. The first is within the laboratory; the second is located in a wider social context that involves ordinary individuals, groups, communities, legislators, and the state. Research by medical sociologists and other social scientists indicates that many factors influence people's behavior and, in turn, the level of success in preventing and containing an infectious disease epidemic.

Using Asia as a case study, Crisis Preparedness discusses the inadequacies of current preventive and management approaches to deal with epidemics. The distinguished international contributors to this volume present perspectives from the fields of social science, epidemiology, and public health, and collectively seek to answer the pressing question: How can we prepare for the next global epidemic?

About the Editor: Stella R. Quah is professor of sociology at the National University of Singapore. She is on the advisory boards of the British Journal of Sociology, Health Sociology Review, and Asian Population Studies. She also serves as editor of the Health Systems Section, Encyclopedia of Public Health (Elsevier).

This title is now out of print. You may download individual chapters below:

Front matter and preface (includes chapter 1) 

  1. Governance of Epidemics: Is There a Reason for Concern? (Stella R. Quah)
  2. The Global Governance of Epidemics: Possibilities and Limitations (Jim Whitman)
  3. Responding to Epidemic Disease Threats in Burma and Lessons for China: Why Good Governance Matters (Chris Beyrer)
  4. Global and Local Strategies against HIV/AIDS in South and Southeast Asia: The Cases of India and Thailand (Graham Scambler)
  5. Taming the Tiger: The Success and Failure of HIV/AIDS Policies in Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, and China (Kari Hartwig)
  6. On Trust and Health Consensus-building in the Governance of Epidemics (Stella R. Quah)
  7. Global Public Health Research Preparedness against Emerging and Reemerging Infectious Diseases (Gabriel M. Leung)
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Dr. Karen Eggleston to lead Shorenstein APARC's comparative healthcare in East asia program

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Dr. Karen Eggleston will join the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center as a center fellow on July 1, 2007. Dr. Eggleston will lead the center's program on comparative health care in East Asia.

Dr. Eggleston's research focuses on comparative healthcare systems and their link to broader social protection policies during economic development and transition from central planning to market-based economies; payment incentives and their impact on healthcare insurer and provider behavior; the market structure of healthcare, including competition, integration, ownership, and healthcare productivity; and incentives surrounding health behaviors such as the spread of HIV/AIDS, overuse of antibiotics, and smoking. She studied in China for two years and was a Fulbright scholar in Korea.

Eggleston earned her Ph.D. in public policy from Harvard University in 1999. She has an M.A. in economics and another in Asian studies from the University of Hawaii, Economics (August 1995 and May 1992, respectively.) She is currently an assistant professor of economics at Tufts University in Boston. Dr. Eggleston joined the faculty at Tufts in 1999.

Currently, Dr. Eggleston is a research associate at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University and an academic program coordinator at the Kennedy School Health Care Delivery Policy Program also at Harvard. Dr. Eggleson has been a research associate at the China Academy of Health Policy (CAHP) at Peking University, Beijing, China since 2003 and in the summer of 2004 she was a consultant to the World Bank on their project on health service delivery and the rural health sector.

"Karen will be a great addition to the center," says director of the center, Gi-Wook Shin.

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Treating Tuberculosis in North Korea: NGO Humanitarian Aid and US-DPRK Reconciliation

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Dr. Linton was born in Philadelphia in 1950 and grew up in Korea, where his father was a third generation Presbyterian missionary. He is a visiting associate of the Korea Institute, Harvard University, for 2006-07. Linton is currently Chairman of The Eugene Bell Foundation, a not-for-profit organization that provides humanitarian aid to North Korea.

Dr. Linton's talk will focus on the Eugene Bell Foundation and its programs. Named for Rev. Eugene Bell, Lintonn's great-grandfather and a missionary who arrived in Korea in 1895, the Foundation serves as a conduit for a wide spectrum of business, governmental, religious and social organizations as well as individuals who are interested in promoting programs that benefit the sick and suffering of North Korea.

Since 1995, the Foundation strives primarily to bring medical treatment facilities in North Korea together with donors as partners in a combined effort to fight deadly diseases such as tuberculosis (TB). In 2005, the North Korean ministry of Public Health officially asked the Foundation to expand its work to include support programs for local hospitals. The Foundation currently coordinates the delivery of TB medication, diagnostic equipment, and supplies to one third of the North Korean population and approximately forty North Korean treatment facilities (hospitals and care centers).

Dr. Linton's credentials include: thirty years of teaching and research on Korea, twenty years of travel to North Korea (over fifty trips since 1979), and ten years of humanitarian aid work in North Korea. Dr. Linton received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Yonsei University in Seoul, Korea, a Masters of Divinity from Korea Theological Seminary, and a Masters of Philosophy and a Ph.D. in Korean Studies from Columbia University.

This public lecture is part of the conference "Public Diplomacy, Counterpublics, and the Asia Pacific." This conference is co-sponsored by The Asia Society Northern California; The Japan Society of Northern California; Business for Diplomatic Action; Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University; and the Taiwan Democracy Program in the Center on Democracy Development, and the Rule of Law at Stanford University.

Philippines Conference Room

Stephen Linton Chairman Speaker The Eugene Bell Foundation
Seminars
Korea Program

Philippines Conference Room

Stella Quah

Shorenstein APARC
Stanford University
Encina Hall, Room E301
Stanford, CA 94305-6055

(650) 724-6402 (650) 723-6530
0
Visiting Scholar
PhD

Stella Quah, (PhD, University of Singapore; M.Sc [sociology], Florida State University) is professor of sociology at the National University of Singapore. She was a Fulbright Hays scholar from 1969 to 1971. Since 1986 she has spent academic sabbaticals as research associate and visiting scholar at the Institute of Governmental Studies, University of California Berkeley; the Center for International Studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; the Department of Sociology at Harvard University; the Harvard-Yenching Institute, Harvard University; the Stanford Program in International Legal Studies, Stanford University; and the National Centre for Development Studies, Australian National University.

Professor Quah was elected vice president for research of the International Sociological Association (ISA); chairperson of the ISA Research Council for the session 1994-98; and served as associate editor of International Sociology (1998-2004).

Among her professional activities, Professor Quah serves on two institutional review boards; is member of the Society for Comparative Research; member of the International Advisory Board of the British Journal of Sociology; member of the Editorial Advisory Board of Health Sociology Review, the journal of the health section of the Australian Sociological Association; member of the editorial board of Marriage & Family Review; member of the International Advisory Board of Asian Population Studies; editor of the Sociology in Asia Series; and editor of the Health Systems Section, Encyclopedia of Public Health (Elsevier Inc).

Professor Quah's main areas of research are medical sociology, social policy, and family sociology. The complete list of her publications is at http://profile.nus.edu.sg/fass/socquahs.

Stella Quah Visiting Scholar, Shorenstein APARC, Stanford and Professor, Department of Sociology National University of Singapore Speaker
Jim Whitman Director, MA Programme, Department of Peace Studies, School of Social and International Studies, Speaker University of Bradford, United Kingdom
Chris Beyrer Director, Johns Hopkins Fogarthy AIDS International Training and Research Program, Director, Johns Hopkins Center for Public Health and Human Rights, Speaker Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
Graham Scambler Director, Unit of Medical Sociology, and Deputy Director,The Centre for Behavioural and Social Sciences in Medicine, Department of Medicine, Faculty of Clinical Sciences Speaker University College London
Kari Hartwig Division of Global Health, Dept of Epidemiology and Public Health Speaker Yale School of Medicine
DK Owens Speaker
Gabriel M. Leung Department of Community Medicine, Faculty of Medicine Speaker University of Hong Kong
Workshops

Stella Quah

Shorenstein APARC
Stanford University
Encina Hall, Room E301
Stanford, CA 94305-6055

(650) 724-6402 (650) 723-6530
0
Visiting Scholar
PhD

Stella Quah, (PhD, University of Singapore; M.Sc [sociology], Florida State University) is professor of sociology at the National University of Singapore. She was a Fulbright Hays scholar from 1969 to 1971. Since 1986 she has spent academic sabbaticals as research associate and visiting scholar at the Institute of Governmental Studies, University of California Berkeley; the Center for International Studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; the Department of Sociology at Harvard University; the Harvard-Yenching Institute, Harvard University; the Stanford Program in International Legal Studies, Stanford University; and the National Centre for Development Studies, Australian National University.

Professor Quah was elected vice president for research of the International Sociological Association (ISA); chairperson of the ISA Research Council for the session 1994-98; and served as associate editor of International Sociology (1998-2004).

Among her professional activities, Professor Quah serves on two institutional review boards; is member of the Society for Comparative Research; member of the International Advisory Board of the British Journal of Sociology; member of the Editorial Advisory Board of Health Sociology Review, the journal of the health section of the Australian Sociological Association; member of the editorial board of Marriage & Family Review; member of the International Advisory Board of Asian Population Studies; editor of the Sociology in Asia Series; and editor of the Health Systems Section, Encyclopedia of Public Health (Elsevier Inc).

Professor Quah's main areas of research are medical sociology, social policy, and family sociology. The complete list of her publications is at http://profile.nus.edu.sg/fass/socquahs.

Drugs and Public Health in Developing Countries

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Dr. Chowdhury is a vascular surgeon and pioneering public health leader from Bangladesh who wrote "The Politics of Essential Drugs: The Makings of a Successful Health Strategy: Lessons from Bangladesh." In 1971, Dr. Chowdhury left England to return to what was then East Pakistan and join the war of liberation for Bangladesh. He helped establish a field hospital for freedom fighters and refugees, which lead to the development Gonoshasthaya Kendra (GK) or "The People's Health Center." GK has trained more than 7,000 barefoot doctors, and serves 1,000 villages in 14 Bangladeshi districts. A pharmaceutical factory was established by GK in 1981 which produces medicines on the World Health Organization's essential medicines list; employs 1,500 people and has an $11 million annual budget. One-half of its profits are reinvested and the other half go to GK's other projects. In 1985, Dr. Chowdhury and GK were awarded the Ramon Magsaysay Award (sometimes called the Asian Nobel Peace Prize) and in 1992, the Right Livelihood Award (also known as the alternative Nobel Prize). Dr. Chowdhury was instrumental in convincing the Bangladesh government to adopt a National Drug Policy in 1982. This controversial policy promotes essential medicines and discourages the use of drugs with little therapeutic value. GK hosted the People's Health Assembly in December 2000, which challenged global health organizations to improve public health care for the poor. Dr. Chowdhury is this year's International Honoree of the UC Berkeley School of Public Health Heroes.

Philippines Conference Room

Dr. Zafrullah Chowdury Vascular Surgeon Speaker The People's Health Center, Bangladesh
Seminars

Comparative Health Care Policy Research Project

The Comparative Health Care Policy Research Project was initiated by APARC in 1990 to examine issues related to the structure and delivery of health care in Japan by utilizing contemporary social science. Further, the project was designed to make the study of Japan an integral part of international comparative health policy research. Yumiko Nishimura, the associate director, under the supervision of Daniel I. Okimoto, the principal investigator, leads the project.

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