Global Health Matters
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Global Health Matters
Bridging the Knowledge Divide
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In partnership with the World Health Summit for an episode recorded live at this year’s meeting in Berlin, host Garry Aslanyan sat down with Monica Bharel, Clinical Lead of Public Sector at Google, and Joy Phumaphi, Executive Secretary of the Africa Leaders Malaria Alliance. Global health knowledge sharing is rapidly evolving due to advances in technologies, increased data availability, stronger community engagement and the rise of voices beyond traditional institutions. Joy and Monica shared insights into building a more inclusive global health knowledge ecosystem—one that ensures communities everywhere can benefit from credible information, contribute their perspectives and take informed action.
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Welcome to season 5 of Global Health Matters Podcast. I'm your host, Gary Asanian, and I'm delighted to share with you an episode that was recorded live at the recent World Health Summit in Berlin. In this episode, we explored how global health knowledge is shared and how to make that sharing more equitable. Advances in technology, new data, and stronger community voices have made knowledge more accessible and collaborative than ever. But not everyone is benefiting. Rural and remote populations remain disadvantaged and at the same time, misinformation spreads quickly when trusted sources are missing. To help me reflect on both the challenges and opportunities, I was joined by two outstanding guests. Joy Pumafi, the Executive Secretary of the African Leaders Malaria Alliance. Joyce has spent decades shaping health policy across Africa from malaria and neglected tropical diseases to strengthening systems and pandemic preparedness. And also Monica Barrell, Global Clinical Lead for Public Health and Public Sector Health at Google Health and formerly served as Massachusetts Commissioner for Public Health. Monica has led responses to opioid crisis and COVID-19. For this live recording, we were joined by an animated and curious audience. I trust you will find this episode as engaging as they did. So, Joy, let's get started with you. I introduced you by saying you have a long uh career and experience in global health and public health in various countries and your own country, obviously, originally. How would you compare if you were to compare the global health knowledge in the past and how it was, let's say, early in your career, and how you think it is now changed and what kind of things you've observed over time?
SPEAKER_05When I first started working in the health sector, I was working as an auditor for local authorities that is auditing the primary healthcare system doing both financial and management audits. And every everything was recorded by hand. All the health data was captured by hand. We had a huge folders where we had to record everything. We had efficient primary healthcare workers, that is community health workers, who used to have a file for every household, and they would have a section in the file for every member of the household. So everything was written by hand. And the the the global health, uh the World Health has said the World Health Organization guidelines, everything was printed. And it was very, very easy to know what you need to do because you only had one source of information. That was the World Health Organization. You didn't have to you didn't have to search to find out which source is right and which one is wrong. You just took the World Health Organization as a source, and that was it. So that is that was the situation when I started uh working in healthcare.
SPEAKER_02And what you've observed in the last few years.
SPEAKER_05In the last few years now, there are so many sources of information. Um and uh it's very, very confusing. And uh there are so many um uh centers of excellence around the world that share information and the and not um they are not aligned. So you you get different data from different sources, and then of course we have the rogue scientists and the rogue medical uh practitioners who spread disinformation, but there's also misinformation, which is a little bit more innocent but can do as much damage. But uh but right now the situation is very, very complicated. It's difficult to know where the right source of information is, and also the way we capture data, because we have uh we are mixing digitalization and manual data capturing, data gets lost.
SPEAKER_02Uh-huh.
SPEAKER_05So we we are now in a situation, I feel, that is much worse than when I first started working in healthcare.
SPEAKER_02Interesting. And Monica, from your experience, a lot of your career was to work with people who were homeless or unhoused in the city of Boston, for example, or other populations you worked with. What were the main barriers to information for it in the past and what was your experience?
SPEAKER_03Yes, thanks so much. Um, wonderful to be here with you today and talk about this really important topic with um Joy here. You know, Joy, you raised some of the issues that were really at the system and healthcare level. And I want to go down um to a patient level and just talk for a few minutes because we're here to talk about healthcare information, right, and how that directly rates to health outcomes and um, you know, in the system level. So I'm gonna go to um a couple of patients of mine to kind of illustrate a couple of points. So in my tenure as um chief medical officer at Boston Healthcare for the Homeless, um, I took care of patients who firsthand, you know, I became a firsthand witness to seeing how it was that they had trouble obtaining health information and how they had trouble turning that health information into a health outcome and how that led to health disparities. So I saw people I I took care of patients who lived under bridges with diabetes and um had to think about how to store their insulin without a refrigerator access and how to keep their sugars from fluctuating without having regular meals. I took care of individuals who couldn't wash their wounds, so then they had um limb loss due to preventable wound infections. Um I had one gentleman I took care of, um, a 72-year-old man who um to earn money would um shovel snow in the brutal winters of Boston. If you come visit us, please come during the summer months and the autumn months. Um he would shovel snow wearing um shoes that weren't waterproof. And um when I took care of him, he unfortunately had frostbite, which um, due to cold elements, you know, if you're staying outside and wet, is a common thing that we see, not not all too uncommon. And um he had multiple surgeries and in the end lost several of his um toes. And you know, when I was talking to him about this, he he he gave me this knowing smile um when he said um there really was no other way. There was no other way. And what that really highlights um for me is our basic hierarchy of needs. So as humans, um, we need to have these basic things filled, water, excuse me, water, safe water, safe food, a place to sleep, etc., in order to then address things like non-acute preventable health issues or chronic disease issues. And I raise that because as we think about health information and the massive amounts we have now and what we had then, for people to be able to obtain this information, it has to be easily accessible. So for that patient that I described to you, how can he find out easily where a health clinic is? How can a patient during a pandemic know where to get a vaccine or you know what the current social distancing guidelines are? And all of this raises this concept that we talk about, you know, I'm alluding to the social determinants of health, which these patients of mine had, um, and those impact health outcomes. And yet, information is also a determinant of health. So when we think about information as a determinant of health, then these factors come in of what kind of, you know, at the at the individual and the patient level, what is the infrastructure they have to get information? In the days that you're talking about when we were talking when we were on paper, right, it was teams going out, word of mouth. Now, do our individuals who need our services the most have the infrastructure they need? The phones, the internet access, the computer access, right? And is our system able to take these vast amounts of information that you're talking about in our current system to be able to help that individual? And you know, last thought on this is when you think about this patient that I'm describing, um, individuals who are in marginalized situations get care in multiple different places. Their records are part paper, they're part at one center, part at another. And so this disjointed system of care is um also contributing to the inability of us then to have the health information we need to help them.
SPEAKER_02Does that resonate with you, Joy, in terms of your experience in Botswana and uh some of the populations and on the continent, maybe?
SPEAKER_05Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Um because I think what what what what what what she's saying is that um I mean i in relation to us uh on the African continent, you know, the the continent is diverse, as you know. The urban, the rural, uh peri-urban, and um, you know, systems are different. But um one common factor is that now there is a lot of information available out there. And the question is which information should be used by the the communities? Uh if you go to the rural and even some of the peri-urban areas, you'll find that um people listen a lot to the traditional leaders, they listen to the religious leaders, and they have those are the sort of what we now call influencers, you know, who are who may not be medical experts.
SPEAKER_02Some of them might be right here with us.
SPEAKER_05Yes. They may not be medical experts, but they understand, um, I mean, they they understand how to communicate with their people and the people listen to them. So I think the challenge for us now as uh health people or health experts, health the health sector, is that we should impart the right information to these to these uh religious leaders, to these um to these um uh traditional traditional leaders, and even perhaps to the influencers, the social influencers, because uh sixty over sixty percent of our population court is young in Africa. And they are influenced not by WHO and you know us the old fogies, but they are influenced by So they see what they see and and and and and and that the influencers are the ones who influence them. So maybe these are the people whom we should bring on board and target with the right type of information so that they can they can impart the right information to the communities.
SPEAKER_02So if we were to unpack a little bit the misinformation part, um we uh had in season four uh physician scientist Peter Hotel's um dialogue where he really painted a picture how he was fighting misinformation about vaccinations in in US but also globally, and then he was really exposed and he's including like personal threats to him, trying to kind of provide the up-to-date information, et cetera. Um how do we um really uh fight uh with that? But also what has been, for example, Joey, from your experience, uh what has been the impact on health of the community? And how what does the community do to fight against that kind of misinformation?
SPEAKER_05You see the sad thing about both misinformation and disinformation is that it's always mixed with a little bit of truth. It's always mixed with a little bit of truth. So it misleads. So you and and and the little bit of truth that is always there is little bits of truth, particularly on nutrition. Like you remember during HIV AIDS, uh people were saying there are certain foods that you can eat that will combat HIV AIDS be truth, and you know, that has got you know multiple nutrients. And of course, if you eat those foods, you feel a little bit better. So you you you because it's it's because it's it's mixed with a little bit of truth, then you start believing that actually it is the real truth. But what it does is that it kills people. You know, people who were not vaccinated during COVID died. And we we we see children uh who who have not had their misses vaccines dying, children who are who are not sleeping uh under mosquito nets on the African continent die. So so it's it's it's that is the effect. But the because um because uh the the misinformers or the disinformation bearers always have uh uh an agenda of uh of uh demonizing you know the the the traditional healthcare system.
SPEAKER_02Uh-huh.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, so when they die, the traditional healthcare system will be blamed. A mother will go will take um a child, will will be under it will be experiencing labor, she'll go to somebody who does not understand that she's having obstructed labor, they'll try and push the baby out, do all kinds of weird things. Then when the baby is really in distress and the mother's in distress, that's when they go to the hospital and the baby dies, the hospital has killed the baby. It is not the person that they took to first, they took the the mother to first. So that is that is the problem with this misinformation and disinformation. Unfortunately, the way it is communicated, uh, it is reinforced by the way we by by the health sector.
SPEAKER_02I hear you. Monica, you brought all of that great experience you had before to Google, and now you're working, and what does Google do in this area uh to kind of fight the misinformation and what are the plans or what is happening right now?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, thank you. I want to pick up on this point that Joey raised because um whenever we hear at the community level, in a patient clinic, at uh at other levels, you know, these pieces of misinformation, right? What is the way to address those as a society? It's to flood the systems with high quality information, right? So as much high quality as information as we can get out there that's reachable by as many as possible is a real shared goal. And so I just want to take a few minutes to go through some of how that works. So, first of all, um just to think about the um uh the uh perspective, we're talking about health information here. So when you look at um YouTube as an example, um there are 200 billion searches um on YouTube that are health queries. So people are coming to YouTube, people are coming to search, um, to put in you know the search bar at Google search, they're asking health queries. So three out of four individuals in the US um start their journey, their health journey, with putting it into search. So this point that you're raising, Joy, about the high quality of the information is really important, and we're actively working to uphold this information quality. And I just want to explain that a little bit to you. Before that, you know, some of the ways when you think about people coming to these tools, right? You mentioned we have to have the tools and the places to come. When we think about people coming um to use these tools, um, there's there's misinformation, which is the pieces that you were um speaking about, Joy. Um I was just reading about uh miracle um mineral solution for malaria, um, as um and we're interested in your uh in your area of work. Um so there's things that are dangerous and can kill you if you lose them, and that essentially becomes bleach when you um take ingest it. That's misinformation. And then there is uh misinformed. So I could be misinformed if I'm trying to understand something about a um uh a diagnosis that I might have, and I don't have all of the information that I have in order to make informed decisions about myself. So I just want to make that distinction because both happen, and misinformed when you think about how people search for information versus misinformation, it has an impact. So let's talk about YouTube. I mentioned all these views on YouTube. So YouTube is a um um a tool where people are coming for the health information, and we want to make sure that we're amplifying trusted voices on YouTube. So if you go in, so let's be concrete, um if I put in um and I search for chest pain or diabetes, the first thing that um you know when I'll see is prominently displayed um health sources, right? And those health sources um are um are based on high quality information. So what I mean by that is those health sources are individuals who are either licensed healthcare professionals or um health information experts. And the process that they go through, there's a vetting process to be part of that health source information. And so the healthcare professionals, for example, um have to show proof of license. And what this does is it gives individuals a place to go to say, this is information that is high quality, that has been vetted, where I can go to hear about chest pain or whatever else it is that I need to learn about. So that's one thing to highlight. Um, and the second thing, by the way, we're we're talking about data and health sources. Another thing that you can find on um YouTube, which I find helpful, which gets at this question you're raising about or the issue that you brought up around trusted voices in communities, um, similar to the health sources, um, there is a place where you can go for personal um journeys. And if you go to that section, say I was just diagnosed with depression, um, you can go there and hear from others who are diagnosed with depression, who can give information on coping skills, makes people feel less alone, and that's another source for people to go for this high-quality information. A relatively new feature is AI overviews, right? So you were mentioning, Joy, about AI and generative AI and how this is all changing this. So the way I like to think about AI overviews is that you're going beyond getting these links and getting more of a direct answer. You know, it's interesting because I said people put in chest pain, but actually when people search, they usually put in a lot more information than that because we all feel very personal about our health and what exactly we're looking at. So, what AI overviews does is it gives you a summary with more of a direct answer, but the links are still there using that same ranking order. And um, just to give you an example, I talked about chest pain. Um, if I instead put in I am a 65-year-old male who ate a hamburger last night and I'm having chest pain. I'm not a 65-year-old male and I don't eat hamburgers. Um, but if I put that in, it's very interesting because first, just like when I put it in regular search in the AI overviews, it first appropriately says, you know, I do this in the US, go 911, so get emergency care. But then, in the reasoning behind why to go get emergency care, it gives all the reasons and links to those. So it's really helping me better make a decision based on this information. And if I put in I'm a 65-year-old male and I'm a medical doctor, then it gives me the same thing, go to the emergency room, but it changes the terminology and uses medical terminology and goes to my appropriate health literacy level. When you were introducing um the topic, you were talking about, you know, health literacy at different levels and different languages. So this makes it in a way that I can then grasp that information, right? This high-quality information in a um more appropriate personalized way.
SPEAKER_02One more question, and maybe our um audience is not aware, but this disinformation inoculation thing that you guys are doing, what is that?
SPEAKER_03Um, you know, again, when we talk about um information, right? So we really want to distinguish between high-quality information and low quality information. And um in by doing um this process where we go through and we really pay attention to is this authoritative information? Is it from a trusted source, right? And can we find um is it someone with experience? And by ranking those, that really then allows to put enough information out into the system. Again, it's flooding the system with um high quality information so that people have that and can make decisions based on that.
SPEAKER_05Did you wanna yeah, I just wanted to to uh I think that approach is the approach is very good. But I think uh in order for for us to actually um what can I say? Make it um more useful to our communities. Yes. I would like a system like that to be endorsed by WHO. Normally I would have said the USCDC. Now I'm beginning to get worried when children are told not to vaccinate for measles. But um but uh but you it to be endorsed by medical authorities, a group of medical authorities around the world, so that so that uh it can be a go-to uh place for information. I once suggested this actually when I was when I was at the World Bank, working at the World Bank, because we used to have finance data, which was just people, you know, ministers of finance were getting finance data, economy data from everywhere. And I had said that, okay, they should choose maybe uh one data source, like Wikipedia or something, and say this one has been endorsed by the World Bank. So, and then they make sure that they they have that vetting process that you talked about, they participate in that vetting process. But they they they they shut that down. I mean, but I think in the health sector, this needs to be done because you will still get some of these rogue scientists finding their way in there. And you know, I think uh what is happening with the USCDC, the US people who forgive me who are here, is a case in point. So they will always come find a way to come in. So I think you need to to to really uh authenticate, for lack of a better word, that vetting system in some way.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, and I wanted to say, I forgot to mention, so thank you for reminding me. When I was talking about the um high-quality information um and the information, um, the standards and guidelines that are used in order to say what is high information, that takes into account um the National Academy of Medicine, the World Health Organization, and other organizations. So this is done based on existing guidelines for what is high quality and also um, you know, who is providing high quality information. So I wanted to mention that. But I do think, you know, you're getting to a point of, you know, um, we have multiple levers that we can pull depending on where we are, and what are those, what are those that we can pull? And when we know that a source of information people are coming to is they're searching the internet, they're looking for answers. You know, this is one lever to say this is this is high quality information, and then there needs to be education saying, you know, how are you going to then engage um with this kind of health literacy? I which I think um to your points should start at a young age. How are you going to engage with this information? How are you looking up something? Are you asking the right questions? Are you getting back what you need? And how do you understand the sources that those come from? So I think it's an excellent point.
SPEAKER_02Monica, you already mentioned uh that um in sort of how generative AI is used and some of those summaries, etc. And you had a commentary in uh health affairs not that long ago about the promise of this generative generative AI and public health. So uh both uh in terms of making the information more equitable, more accessible, and culturally specific, all of that. And and of course, um uh Joy touched on that in terms of how that can be then used. And do you think um the governments see or governments are looking into the use of this potentially? And uh have they have they been kind of uh in touch with you or discussing how this can be used? Can you shed a bit of light into that?
SPEAKER_03First, it um talk about the health affairs framework. You know, as as um various industries move forward with, you know, we've all seen the rapid adoption of AI um and generative AI, right, in the last couple of years. And um one of the things that for me personally I want to make sure is as public health, we don't fall behind in that, right? So uh uh Joy, you were alluding to this too. We need to be able to use these tools in a safe and reliable um way in order to advance health. And if we don't do that, we're gonna have further widening of the health disparities. So hence the motivation to write this piece in health affairs that my colleagues and I wrote, and it's a framework for how public health can get started. Because part of it is getting started, getting comfortable, seeing what is produced that can actually improve health. And so we did that um in in three buckets. It's a framework that's in three buckets communication, um, organizational impact, and then um advanced data analytics, which is what you're asking about uh for it. So, first, of the the simplest one is to think about how we communicate and health information, right? We've talked about it at the individual level, at the healthcare level, at the systems level, but it's all about how we um, if we're going to try and flood the system, as we said, with high impact information, we have to have the trusted voices be able to have accurate, easy to understand, approachable information. So, right now, when when I was running the Department of Public Health in Massachusetts, we had a um uh a small communications group. They would take a white paper or scientific paper, they would take the time to turn it into a brief to give to the governor to make a decision about where resources to go, they would make something to go on social media, right? They would put something on our website, something would become a letter to a legislative partner, and so on. And that was lay very labor intensive. Now, with the tools that we have now, you can simply feed that into a tool like Notebook LM and ask the system to create the social media, create the letter to the governor, um, create the um web post. And it does that and produces it within minutes, what used to take myself and my staff, you know, sometimes weeks to get done. And then that is something that the communication staff can actually then put their own voice into it, and you that's really them working at the top of their license, so to speak, where they're there and then they're using their time and energy to think strategically about how to get these messages into the community. And I give you that as an example because there are these ways in which we can use these tools now to help what we're trying to do now with our public health messaging and our trust and um improving high-quality information. And the most important thing to mention that the what I keep in mind when I do that is that this is as if I had a, you know, a super uh excuse me, an intern with superpowers next to me, right? So it 10xs my capacity. But just like with an intern, I would never send something out that the intern wrote, right, without reviewing it and putting my own voice and expertise into it. It's the same thing, right? These are things that can help us as a tool with always having a human in the loop, as we say.
SPEAKER_02Mm-hmm. Joy, are um countries you work with, uh, you think ready to harness this kind of tools? And how are things uh going in that um in in the countries that you work with?
SPEAKER_05I think uh countries are ready. I think there is just uh hesitancy because people think that these things will be expensive and they'll be difficult to do.
SPEAKER_02Uh-huh.
SPEAKER_05And that is where the hesitancy is. We we have been working with Smart Africa. Smart Africa is the digitalization partnership on the African continent, um, and developed a partnership called the Partnership for Digital Access in Africa, PDAA. And uh with PDAA, what we are trying to do is harness what Smart Africa is doing and get the governments and the civil society, um, the private sector involved in actually digitalizing health. Um and uh and and I think we have invited you to the partnership as well. Um but but I think by doing that, you you you are turning uh digitalization into a friend of global health, not into an into into a tool, an effective tool. Sort of just like the way we are communicating it is that it's like medicine. If you have found a vaccine for for for a very communicable disease, um you you'll want to adopt to use that vaccine and to make sure that every single uh citizen in your country gets that vaccine. So this is exactly how we are selling digitalization and access to AI and the impact that it can have on global health, that it is just as effective as using a vaccine, but only if it is used in the right way, of course.
SPEAKER_03So just to um piggyback on that, you bring up this excellent point around public-private partnerships. So um, you know, my time as a public health professional, um, especially during the pandemic, we saw that healthcare systems, government systems alone didn't have the answer. So we have to get creative in our field about public-private partnerships. So one of the things I'm really excited about is our work that we're doing with global partners, um, got mostly governments actually, and the ministers of health, as well as NGOs, to look at how can we help that next step. And you talked about you know um resources, the notebook LM one I mentioned is a free resource to be used. Um there's um the open health stack is for developers to be able to advance their work within the country. And we're also um working with countries directly to say, you know, the point that you're raising, you want to be able to bring your information together in a powerful way that takes structured information, unstructured information, and starts to be able to use these advanced analytical tools to answer these questions. And one model I want to mention is the Population Dynamics Foundation model. And that's a model that um we've developed, excuse me, and it's a novel geospatial foundational model, and it's really designed to unlock complex relationships between um populations, um, their outcomes, and their environment, and it takes lots of different sources of information that otherwise would be really hard to bring together.
SPEAKER_05In fact, I'm very excited about that too, because I saw it and and because what I thought was missing in in health is sort of the link, you know, when now when you're talking about climate change, the linkage between um the climate change data that we are we are collecting and the health uh data that and the environment, it's yeah, it's it's it and and it will also be very useful for one health. Yes. Yeah, so I really I really found it extremely stimulating. And and I think it is one thing that you can easily sell as a tool for all of government, all of private sector, like you are saying. It is absolutely brilliant. And I think it's it's exactly.
SPEAKER_03It looks like Joy and I have to do some follow-up after. But the way I think about that model, by the way, in case it's helpful, is it's a it's it's like a fingerprint of a community, right? It has these environmental, population, facility information. You can take that, and if you have existing models and you're trying to, you know, pre um do forecasting or now casting, or you want to understand where to put the resources, where will they be most useful, how do you measure impact, it can add to that. And I must say, every day in um um global public health, we're doing that. We're making decisions about where to put the resources, and I wish that we had better information upon which to make those decisions.
SPEAKER_02Absolutely. In a way, uh the postcast Global Health Matters also was the idea was to break the silos and have different ways of uh communicating global health, uh, because it's really become very siloed in in the in the recent years, and that's what we hear from our audiences. They come and learn things that otherwise they will not learn in other places from people who are guests or who are trailblazers here and there, and really that's where they get that cross information, not just from one field or the other, but the cross-cutting kind of approach to things. Lastly, to wrap up uh to both of you, to kind of look into the future. And if you could write a message to um your grand-grandgrandchildren to our future um generations about the global health knowledge, uh, what would that message say? Whoever wants to go first.
SPEAKER_05We are writing a message to the future.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. We won't be there, but okay.
SPEAKER_05I I would start by saying we messed up. Uh but um but uh we we we we have actually developed uh tools that will be absolutely invaluable for you. And uh we hope that you have actually built upon these tools and used them to improve uh humanity. Because because uh I think digitalization and uh and and AI are a huge opportunity for us. We can reduce poverty, we can reduce ill health, we can reduce um uh you know poor education, we can improve the quality of our education. It is a huge opportunity. We can bring the disenfranchised into the fold. So but we have to harness this in the right way and make it available to everybody.
unknownOkay.
SPEAKER_05That is the challenge.
SPEAKER_02That's your message. And Monica, what's your message?
SPEAKER_03Beautiful. Um, you know, the world is changing so rapidly. Um, you asked for a message for the future. I'm actually gonna give a message for this crowd right here, for us here today. Um, so we can close the gap in health equity and bring in those disenfranchised individuals. We can do that by focusing on justice and fairness and health. We can employ data-driven, precision public health approaches with community-driven voice. Knowledge can flow freely, and people can knowledge can flow freely, focused on equity and integrity. We can get people the right information at the right time, at the right level that they can digest it. And we can do this now. It is achievable, and if we work together across sectors, um this is something that we can do. Thank you.
SPEAKER_02Great, thank you. So um now I'm gonna see if people are in the in the room have questions. So there are already a few. So when you well we'll start maybe this way, and every question gets a told back. So who wants to go first? Yeah, okay, go first. Um here, maybe yeah, and then you, and then we'll go around here.
SPEAKER_04Okay, thank you very much. Uh I am Margaret Mana from Sierra Leone. I work for the Ministry of Health. Uh, thank you very much for so much insightful information. Um thinking that paper-based is confusing. As a front line, we have so many paper-based that is so burdened to us, filling those paper-based and also providing services. Additionally, for AI and technology, we are living in a community where internet access is still impossible, making these things impossible to our rural communities. How can the two of you give me like a takeaway that can help me to provide services that you said are patient-centered, quality, integrity, you know, in a humane way that provides equity and equality. Thank you very much.
SPEAKER_05That is a very important question, which is the the it is in response to that question that uh we are forming this partnership, the partnership for digital access in Africa. Um, this is to try to accelerate the the you know access, like you are saying, to in to to the internet, but also access to the tools that you need as well. And we are trying to we are working with Google, we are working with uh with uh Skylink, we are working with all all the partners that are working in this particular space. But you are quite right, and we are working with the government. That is really, and the private sector, that is really what we need that that needs to be done. And that is why I'm saying um we have an opportunity, and people tend to think that it would be expensive to do. But in actual fact, the the benefit of doing this is much, much higher. Ten times, sometimes in some economies, even 20 times higher than the the the the cost of uh actually investing in digitalization.
SPEAKER_03And just to add one sentence to that, I would say that um you know at the individual level, there are solutions available, there's ways to use those tools offline now, where you don't have connectivity. And the other thing I want to um highlight that Joy is mentioning, you know, a lot of the issues you're raising are systemic barriers, right? And systemic issues. So we have to look at the system then and put in system solutions. So working at that government level, doing the public-private partnerships, and one of the reasons I mentioned this population dynamic foundation tool, one of the reasons it can be potentially helpful is it can fill in gaps of information where you don't have it in areas such as rural areas where there's less information. So that there's opportunity there. Thank you for your question.
SPEAKER_00Great. Next question, please. Um, yeah, so it's also a question for the lady from Google. Um so uh you you stressed a lot actually that that you flood the system with high quality information. Um but for the moment I think as most of us experience, we are being flooded with lots of different kinds of information on a number of platforms. And uh from from that angle, I'm uh that angle, I'm actually wondering how exactly do you approach, for example, the the MAGA fans. So I I assume that flooding this person or I mean with high quality information doesn't really work. So do you have data on this? Do you segment your approach? Um how how does this work? Because I can imagine that even if you call uh if you flood them with all kinds of CDC information from a few years ago, this is not gonna work for them.
SPEAKER_03Yes. Uh Christoph, is it? Yes. Yes, lady from Google's Monica.
SPEAKER_00Nice to meet you.
SPEAKER_03Um so um you bring up an excellent point, which is around, you know, and and and I I maybe I'll make sure I say this clearly enough. You know, the the high-quality information flooding the system is the system that we can. That's why I specifically spoke about search and YouTube. Um and the flooding of the system is also to work towards saying the information that is in the system can we rank so that the highest quality information that is from trusted sources are first. Um the point that you're raising is um uh as a bigger society, right, there's many different aspects of where people get their information, both from a technology point of view and from a systems level and from our community levels, where the work has to be done. You're right, putting in a search for something and getting an answer is not going to change any hearts and minds. And that's why the for me, the technology piece is a counterpart to a lot of other work that happens in this area.
SPEAKER_02Okay.
SPEAKER_01Next, you have a question. Yeah, go ahead. Thanks, Gary, and thanks, Monica from Google, and thanks, Joy, for this inspiring informative uh um session. Um, it's maybe a statement, Gary, just a closing statement. Okay. Not a question anymore, I think. So my name is Matthias Bonk. I'm the uh professor for global health at the Akon University here in Berlin and chairman of the Berlin Institute of Global Health of Small Think Tank. And we, or I'm getting approached by a lot of people from the general public as well asking me what is global health. So, and who are the global health actors? And my answer is always we all are global health actors. What we eat, what we drink, what we wear for clothes, and what mode of transport we use, everything has to do something with the health of another person. And we here in the rich north or richer countries, we build our wealth on the health of other people in poorer countries, to be honest. In the globalization, I mean I don't have to give more examples. So maybe we as the global health community need to address the general public a bit more about the connectivity between what they do in their daily lives and what impact it has on the health of others near and far. And that might be the inspiring uh hopefully uh statement at the end to say, you know, isn't that what we all could do a little bit more in our global health ivory tower to not only address patients and medicine and you know health information distribution, but also talk to everyone around us on what impact they have with their daily routines on the health of others somewhere else. Thank you.
SPEAKER_02Thank you for that. So, with this last statement and all the great questions, uh, I'm gonna thank Monica and Joy for being such a great live recording guests, and also for all of you who came to this experiment that we're having. So, thanks for coming. I found this live in-person conversation with Joy Pumaffi and Monica Burrell both inspiring and deeply thought-provoking. Three messages stand out for me as we reflect on how to advance equity in global health knowledge. First, access to trustworthy information remains essential for health. As Joy reminded us, misinformation often hides within partial truth, making investments in data quality and trusted local communication channels more critical than ever. Second, technology can be a bridge, but only if it's inclusive. As Monica shared, AI and digital tools can democratize access to knowledge, but their promise depends on ensuring no community is left behind by the digital divide. Thirdly, collaboration is the key to resilience. From public-private partnerships to regional collaboration, both Joy and Monica emphasize that equitable, evidence-based knowledge must flow freely across sectors and societies. I hope this conversation leaves you excited to participate in shaping a more connected and informed future for global health. If you haven't already, please subscribe to Global Health Matters to catch all our season 5 episodes. To learn more about the topic discussed in this episode, visit the episode's webpage where you will find additional readings, show notes, and translations. Don't forget to get in touch with us via social media, email, or by sharing a voice message. And be sure to subscribe or follow us wherever you get your podcasts. Global Health Matters is produced by TDR, a United Nations co sponsored research program based at the World Health Organization. Thank you for listening.
