United States

future-forward-covid-response-website-banner-new

Q&A with Arwa Alkhawaja, COVID Outreach Specialist in San Diego

By Natalia López-Thismón When the COVID-19 pandemic began in 2020, Global Communities (then operating as PCI) moved quickly to collaborate with the County of San Diego Health and Human Services Agency to prevent the spread...
future-forward-healthy-start-website-banner

Reducing Black Maternal Deaths by Raising the Standard of Care

Quality, equitable maternal care should be a right, not a privilege. But this care is not guaranteed for all mothers in the United States, resulting in increased rates of infant and maternal mortality, especially for...
PCI12

Facts about Human Trafficking and COVID-19’s Impact on the Illicit Industry

By Lizzie Hickman Although Human Trafficking Awareness Month is coming to a close, Global Communities continues our work to diminish human trafficking in San Diego by educating children, parents and teachers to identify the signs...
GC_Tech_Brief_01-22_ss

Closing the U.S. Sanitation Equity Gap: Exploring Opportunities to Learn from the Global Sanitation Sector Experience

The purpose of this technical research brief is to describe equity gaps in safely managed sanitation for people living with poverty and other disadvantaged communities in the U.S. and to understand how lessons learned by...
BREWERVILLE, LIBERIA: Aug. 22, 2017 - Wislyne S. Yarh Sieh is a registered nurse and Officer in Charge (OIC) at Kpallah Community Clinic in Brewerville. Wisylne worked as a healthcare worker during the Ebola outbreak in 2014-2015. Healthcare workers like Wislyne were left isolated and alone to fight this mysterious disease from the heart of the jungle. But, she, along with many others, continued to fight. "Being a nurse is like being a soldier. You cannot take your uniform off when there is battle. Then you are not a soldier. So I went on the frontline because I wanted to save lives," she remembers. 
The Ministry of Health did not have a centralized system to communicate vital information to healthcare workers across the country at the same time. UNICEF and USAID worked together to create a platform that utilized mobile phones to facilitate a two way communications system between healthcare workers and the centralized ministry. 
Because of this new technology, healthcare workers across the country can receive text messages with important information about health emergencies. They are also able to use their phones to inform the Ministry of Health about the status of stocks in the clinic. 
Since Ebola, Wislyne has started using the new platform and now feels more connected and informed. She says, "If this program just stopped without things being in place, it would carry our work backward. It would make my work longer and delay treatment of the patients." Photo by Sarah Grile. 

.

Global Health

Health is shaped far beyond the walls of hospitals and clinics. It's defined by the environments people live in, the food they eat, the safety they feel and the power they hold to influence decisions...
DSC_0357

An Infant Carrier Intervention and Breastfeeding Duration: A Randomized Controlled Trial

Emily E. Little, PhD, CLEC, Camille C. Cioffi, PhD, Lisa Bain, MPH, Cristine H. Legare, PhD, Jennifer Hahn-Holbrook, PhD OBJECTIVES: Parent-infant skin-to-skin contact immediately after birth increases initiation and abstract duration of bodyfeeding. We hypothesized...
san-diego-photographer-sophia-elizabeth-photography-maternal-health-newborn-postpartum56of128

Youth-led development of a Chatbot to Increase Early Prenatal Care Utilization in Santa Cruz County, Arizona

A TECHNICAL BRIEF on the Arizona Initiative of the Border States CoIIN The Border States Collaborative Improvement and Innovation Network (CoIIN; see inset) Arizona team sought to better understand barriers associated with the initiation of...
san-diego-non-profit-sophia-elizabeth-photography-maternal-health187of240

Enhancing the Pregnancy Test Visit to Increase Timely Prenatal Care

A TECHNICAL BRIEF on the Texas Initiative of the Border States CoIIN In March, 2018, the Texas team of the Border States CoIIN was convened by BCFS Health and Human Services, the Texas state lead...
san-diego-non-profit-sophia-elizabeth-photography-maternal-health202of240

Cross-border Prenatal Care Utilization: Using Design Thinking to Drive Improvements in Birth Data Quality

A TECHNICAL BRIEF on the California Initiative of the Border States CoIIN n 2018, a team of stakeholders collaborating through the Border States CoIIN Initiative (see next section) convened in Imperial County, California, to employ...