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Best of 2023

Our favorite Think Global Health stories from 2023

Honor Ford, a supervisor at the Doylestown Bookshop, holds a copy of "Heartstopper" that she donated as part of the "Read with Love Book Drive" run by PFLAG Bucks County to help place LGBTQ+ books in Bucks and Montgomery County libraries at the Doylestown Bookshop in Doylestown, Pennsylvania, U.S., April 7, 2023.
Honor Ford holds a copy of "Heartstopper" that she donated as part of the Read with Love Book Drive run by PFLAG Bucks County, at the Doylestown Bookshop in Doylestown, Pennsylvania, on April 7, 2023. REUTERS/Hannah Beier
by Thomas J. Bollyky, Caroline Kantis, Alejandra Martinez, Ted Alcorn, Nsikan Akpan

Think Global Health strove in 2023 to bring you the stories behind the stories of the global struggle for better health—from narratives on Africa’s crisis of trust in global health initiatives after COVID-19 to zombie viruses in the permafrost in the Arctic, to explorations on the struggle for health care for India’s gig workers, food labeling in Mexico, and health outcomes in the United States’ leftover places.  

In doing so, Think Global Health published 193 articles from more than 140 authors this year.  

No one can predict what will happen with health on the international stage next year, especially as more than three dozen countries host elections, conflicts in Israel and Ukraine continue to threaten humanitarian aid, and climate-fueled disasters plague the world. 
 
This year’s tranche of Think Global Health stories offers insight on how to face whatever may come in 2024. 

A Sudanese girl moves past makeshift shelters near the border between Sudan and Chad, while taking refuge in Borota, Chad, May 13, 2023.
Africa’s Crisis of Trust Michele Gavin examines Africa’s crisis of trust in global health initiatives after COVID-19. She quotes one African leader noting that the global COVID-19 vaccine rollout demonstrated with “unforgettable clarity” the little regard that Western nations have for African lives. Some fear that eroding support for the President’s Emergency Plan For AIDS Relief threatens U.S. leadership on global health, but Gavin writes that many African governments already have doubts.
A pink tractor sits at Iverson Family Farms near Monitor, Oregon, U.S., September 17, 2020.
Examining the Diversity of the Rural United States The rural United States is sometimes defined as the leftover places, the spaces on the map that exist between U.S. metropolitan areas. Parkes Kendrick of the University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation presents a fascinating examination of the staggering variation in health outcomes in those leftover places, especially among American Indian or Alaska Native populations. In particular, she digs deep into the example of Jefferson County, Oregon.
A man walks through a tunnel in permafrost covered with ice crystals
Zombie Viruses From the Arctic Virologist Jean-Michel Claverie examines how ancient microbes stored in the frozen earth—the permafrost of the Siberian Arctic—for nearly a million years could be released by accelerated thawing, and what that means for international public health.
Delivery worker Devender Singh, who works for Licious, an online meat store, rides his bike on a deserted road, in New Delhi, India, on April 6, 2020.
India’s Gig Workers  “Rizwan’s violent death has focused the spotlight back on the precarious working conditions of platform workers, who comprise a significant portion of [India’s] gig workforce.”
Republican presidential candidate and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis listens to a question from the audience at a campaign town hall meeting in Newport, New Hampshire, U.S., August 19, 2023.
Did Florida Get It Right Against COVID-19?  “Florida should not be used as evidence that masks, stay-at-home orders, and vaccines did not matter in this pandemic when the reality is that Floridians continued to adopt them even after Governor DeSantis turned away from them.”
Former U.S. President and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks during a 2024 presidential campaign rally in Dubuque, Iowa, U.S. September 20, 2023.
American Conservatism and Global Health The Heritage Foundation’s version, the Mandate for Leadership 2025: The Conservative Promise, has received attention because it sparked an abortion-related controversy over reauthorizing the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief. David P. Fidler digs deeper into the nearly nine hundred pages of The Conservative Promise, as a window into the evolving American conservative foreign policy vision for global health. The exercise yields important and sometimes surprising insights
A woman walks past a poster of a NHS worker displayed on hoardings outside a temporary field hospital at St. George's Hospital, in London, Britain, on January 8, 2022
The Demise of the National Health Service David McCoy on the struggles of the United Kingdom’s National Health Service (NHS). He writes how the once-celebrated NHS is now threatening to exacerbate social inequality rather than mitigate it.
Corey Feist, cofounder of the Doctor Lorna Breen Heroes Foundation, holds a painting of his late sister-in-law at his home in Charlottesville, Virginia, on April 7, 2021.
When Someone Great Is Gone “Sometimes I wish I could forget it—but that would dishonor Lorna’s extraordinary life and work, which should serve as a reminder to protect our frontline health-care workers by making our health systems safer. Because if it could happen to Lorna, it could happen to me, and it could happen to you. “
A poster of an infant reading Estoy Buscando A Mi Familia, or
Guatemala’s Forgotten Voices “The real perpetrators were those in power . . . . They took advantage of the vulnerability of young mothers who were extremely poor and encouraged them to abandon or sell their children to give them up for adoption.”
A member of a research team investigating emerging zoonotic diseases walks towards a bat breeding shed at the Accra Zoo in Accra, Ghana, on August 19, 2022.
Pandemic Fund to Africa: Step to the Back of the Line In spite of—or perhaps because of—U.S. government boosterism, the Pandemic Fund has been the target of sustained critiques.
The Philippines’ Blind Spot for Alcohol 
The Philippines’ Blind Spot for Alcohol  San Miguel, one of the largest alcohol companies in the Philippines, promotes its products with a tagline that references a “shared history” with the Filipino people. But given how dearly it costs the government and the community, it is also a shared suffering.
People react as they pay tribute following a school mass shooting after a boy opened fire on others, killing fellow students and staff in Belgrade, Serbia, May 4, 2023.
Gun Violence Arrives on Serbia’s Doorstep It was a record year for mass shootings in the United States, but they are not a problem in America alone. Masha Raznatovic writes about a mass shooting at an elementary school in Serbia—at the school she attended as a child.
a chicken coop
Poultry Vaccine Hesitancy “If  poultry vaccines have been shown to work, why aren’t more countries using them?”
A shopkeeper sells powdered spices at Kawran Bazar, in Dhaka, Bangladesh, on May 22, 2022.
Global Lead Poisoning Is the Biggest Threat You’ve Never Heard About Bangladesh’s government was aware of lead’s dangers and had already phased out leaded gasoline, once a leading source of exposure, in 1999. Yet study after study showed that children still commonly had elevated blood lead levels, even in rural regions far afield from any industrial contamination.
Native American family watching the sunset wearing masks for protection from COVID-19, at Monument Valley Tribal Park, Utah.
Navigating Health Disparities in Navajo Nation “One of the most beautiful things about Dine/Navajo culture is the emphasis on the multi-generational home and multi-generational families. Unfortunately, when people live together in small areas, that is the perfect way to spread COVID.”
A syringe and a vial with vaccine against COVID-19 are seen at the Masaka hospital in Kigali, Rwanda, on March 5, 2021.
Rwanda’s Health-Care Success Holds Lessons for Others What did Rwanda change between the genocide and the pandemic to improve its health-care accessibility, and what lessons can other low-income countries adopt to strengthen their own health-care systems? Three developments stand out: low-cost community-based health insurance plans, national investments in rural health posts, and ramped-up foreign collaborations.
A
Health Practitioners Say #MeToo “Ann Keeling, a senior fellow at the advocacy organization Women in Global Health, can hardly think of a single nurse, young doctor, or community health worker she has met in her forty-year career in global health ‘who didn’t have a story of sexual harassment.’”
People walk past a bus during an HIV/AIDS awareness campaign on the occasion of World AIDS Day at the Kuchingoro IDPs camp in Abuja, Nigeria, December 1, 2018.
PEPFAR, Politics, and PSI: An Implementer’s Perspective Karl Hofmann of PSI writes that U.S. laws and regulations concerning U.S. foreign assistance “do not constrain American nongovernmental organizations such as PSI from doing what is legal with other people’s money.”
Thousands of galaxies flood this near-infrared image of galaxy cluster SMACS 0723. High-resolution imaging from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope combined with a natural effect known as gravitational lensing made this finely detailed image possible.
Outer Space and Global Health “In slipping “the surly bonds of earth,” terrestrial politics endanger what the new era of space activities means for global health.”
Hu Hushen, a 78 year old former miner, breathes using a nasal cannula for oxygen supply outside his room at Yangjia Hospital in Wuyi County, Zhejiang Province, China October 19, 2015.
Build an Oxygen Ecosystem Amy Maxmen writes that medical oxygen, like clean water, is vital and conceptually simple, but it requires a sustainable system and not just empty donations to provide it to those in need.
A snapshot of town from the inside of a taco shop, in Hidalgo, Nuevo León, Mexico, on January 2, 2023.
A Look at Food Warning Labels in Mexico “The industry is the one that is aggressively marketing what we call predatory marketing, where they will go into poor neighborhoods, and there is disproportionate harm.”   “From the health disparity perspective, these [labeling] policies are geared toward not just helping public health, but they’re geared toward helping those that are the most harmed.”    Chen Chen writes on food labelling in Mexico.
A family member holds a photograph of Rosivel Elisabeth Grande in Quezaltepeque, Honduras, on July 2, 2013. Grande was killed by an unidentified man who shot her five times when she was going to work
When Love Becomes Violence Despite a slight drop in 2022, Honduras continues to be the country with the highest rate of femicides in the world.
Alzheimer’s patient Laetitia, thirty-nine, is reflected in a mirror as she walks with an umbrella at the Village Landais Alzheimer site in Dax, France, on September 24, 2020.
The Cost of Inaction “The coming wave of people suffering from Alzheimer’s will not simply bankrupt millions of individuals and families. It will also imperil government health-care budgets around the world.”

Thomas J. Bollyky is the inaugural Bloomberg Chair in Global Health at the Council on Foreign Relations, where he directs the global health program.

Caroline Kantis is associate editor for Think Global Health at the Council on Foreign Relations.

Alejandra Martinez is a research associate for global health at the Council on Foreign Relations.

Ted Alcorn is a journalist and educator with expertise in gun violence prevention policies and programs and a contributing editor to Think Global Health.

Nsikan Akpan is the managing editor for Think Global Health at the Council on Foreign Relations.

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