Flickr, Ashitakka
Next week, in New York City, the United Nations is holding a big meeting that could affect the future of global health.
If all the gab actually translates into policy changes and action, it could redefine global health in a fairly significant way.
In an apparent attempt to scare off normal people from paying any attention, it’s called the UN High-Level Meeting on Non-Communicable Diseases (aka NCDs). I’ll be there, joining a group of journalists granted fellowships to attend from the UN Foundation (which got money for this from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation).
A lot’s going on next week in New York — the UN General Assembly (to which it has been reported Iranian President Ahmadinejad will be bringing gifts this year as well as his usual rants), the Clinton Global Initiative, a new media confab called the Social Good Summit and the poorly named meeting on global health focused on this poorly named category of diseases.
But don’t let the words, or acronyms, fool you. The NCDs are big killers, much bigger than that virus in the current blockbuster movie Contagion could ever hope to be. Continue reading