Speaker: Dr David Nabarro

Co-Director, Imperial College Institute of Global Health Innovation, Imperial College London
Senior Advisor, Food Systems Summit Dialogues, 4SD Switzerland; Special Envoy of WHO Director General for COVID19

David Nabarro is Co-Director, Imperial College London Institute of Global Health Innovation, and supports systems leadership for sustainable development through his Switzerland based social enterprise 4SD. From March 2020, David is appointed Special Envoy of WHO Director General on COVID-19. He is also Senior Advisor, Food Systems Summit Dialogues. David secured his medical qualification in 1974 and has worked in over 50 countries – in communities and hospitals, governments, civil society, universities, and in United Nations (UN) programs.

In the 1990s, David worked for the British government as Head of Health and Population and Director for Human Development in the UK Department for International Development. From 1999 to 2017, he held leadership roles in the UN system on disease outbreaks and health issues, food insecurity and nutrition, climate change and sustainable development. In October 2018, David received the World Food Prize together with Lawrence Haddad for leadership in raising the profile and building coalitions for action for better nutrition across the Sustainable Development Goals.

In his talk David will focus on the global COVID19 pandemic: what he has learnt and what he expects will be the learnings from the 12 months to come.<.p>

Watch a recording of the event here

Speaker: Prof Nadav Davidovitch

Director, School of Public Health; Vice Dean for Global Engagement and Research Collaboration, Faculty of Health Sciences, Ben-Gurion University

Health and Equity in all Policies: Local, Regional and Global Perspectives on COVID19 Challenges in Israel

Prof Nadav Davidovitch studied philosophy and then medicine at Tel Aviv and specialised in epidemiology and public health physician. Previously he chaired the Department of Health Systems Management at Ben-Gurion and the Centre for Health Policy Research in the Negev. His research interests are health policy, public health, vaccination policy, one health/ecohealth, comparative healthcare systems, public health ethics, and global health. He serves on national and international committees, among them: Governing Board, European Public Health Association; Association of Schools of Public Health in the European Region (ASPHER) COVID-19 Task Force; and the Israel advisory committee for COVID-19. He has published over 160 papers in leading journals and many book chapters, coedited six volumes and books and published his work in leading medical and health policy journals. Since the outbreak of COVID-19 in Israel, he has been involved in research and the formulation of health policy and has advised agencies in Israel and abroad on the need to make structural changes in the health system, with an emphasis on social issues and addressing health gaps.

Global health threats including, epidemics and climate change, know no political borders. In his talk Prof Davidovitch will analyze the development of the COVID-19 pandemic in Israel and its interaction with social, economic and political determinants of health, and the role played by different sectors within Israeli society within and outside the medical system. In addition, he will present the need to move from vaccine nationalism to vaccine internationalism and the need to rethink global health governance.

Speaker: Dr Tamar Ashkenazi

Director of the Israeli National Transplant Centre.

Dr Ashkenazi is a registered nurse, and undertook her doctoral research at Tel Aviv University, presenting a thesis about adaption to loss. She has held her current position for 23 years.

She established the network of national transplant coordinators and dedicated ICU physicians in all Israeli hospitals; the ongoing process of quality control for organ donation; and developed unique process dedicated to accompanying and supporting families of organ donors. She moderates grief support groups for bereaved organ donor families and published a book – “Mourning – the day after”, proposing a variety of practical ways to cope with various situations over time after donation – associated bereavement with combined input of parents, brothers and children who have experienced bereavement.

In her talk Dr Ashkenazi will introduce us to her remarkable work and also talk about how she has developed the Israeli live donation system which includes an international kidney pair programme between pairs who do not have a match.

You can watch a recording of the event here.

Speaker: Danny Morris, Senior Research and Policy Analyst, Research Division, Community Security Trust (CST)

Danny works at the CST, an organisation that is probably known in principle to most attendees. Likewise, we are probably all aware that the Jewish community in general has faced antisemitic challenges recently, and this has spilled over into medical circles – including workplaces and medical schools. Difficult aspects of this include the lack of recognition that antisemitism is a form of racism, and the use of social media as a vehicle for it.

Danny will discuss the latest spike in antisemitism, the work CST has been doing to tackle it and offering advice and guidance on what to do if you find yourself subject to antisemitism. Danny will also explore some of the antisemitic themes and narratives that have developed in relation to the Coronavirus pandemic, as well as the subsequent vaccination programme. There will be a chance for questions and discussion at the end of the presentation.

You can view a recording of the webinar here.

Professor of Paediatric Immunology and Infectious Diseases,University of Southampton; Director of the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Southampton Clinical Research Facility; Clinical Director of the Wessex Local Clinical Research Network and a NIHR Senior Investigator.

Saul leads the NIHR Wessex COVID-19 vaccine programme and is UK CI and local PI for multiple COVID-19 vaccine trials in adults and children. During the COVID-19 pandemic Saul has also chaired the RECOVERY trial paediatric working group and been a member of the NIHR Urgent Public Health Group and NIHR vaccine trial chief investigator group.

In his talk Saul will explain the UK COVID-19 vaccine trial programme so far, and discuss key research questions that will be addressed by trials in the spring and summer 2021.

You can view a recording of the event here.

Speaker: Prof Sherry Glied, Ph.D., (Dean and Professor of Public Service, Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service, New York University)

Sherry is an economist by training. Before she took up her current post she was professor of health policy and management at Columbia’s Mailman School of Public Health. She served as Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation at the Department of Health and Human Services during the Obama Administration. Earlier she was Senior Economist for health and labor market policy at the Council of Economic Advisers under Presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton. Prof Glied’s main areas of research are health policy reform and mental health care policy. She is co-editor (with Peter C. Smith) of The Oxford Handbook of Health Economics, (OUP, 2011).

This talk will review the status of the US healthcare system before COVID and discuss what we’ve learned about how that system works and doesn’t work through the pandemic experience.

You can watch a recording of the event here.

Speaker: Dr Beverley Jacobson (Chief Executive, Norwood)

Dr Jacobson is a medical doctor who became a management consultant before entering the world of charity and special needs. She graduated MB ChB from Witswatersrand University in 1990, and MBA from London Business School in 1994; worked for Monitor Company (1994- 1996); and was then CEO of Kisharon (2008-2018: , CEO Norwood 2018 to before took up her present position. In her talk she will tell us about her journey to Norwood and about the impact of Covid.

You can watch a recording of the event here.

Speaker: Prof Orly Manor, [Braun School of Public Health, Hebrew University (HU) and Hadassah; Chairwoman of the Israel National Institute for Health Policy Research (INIHPR)]

Prof Manor, former Director of the Braun School, studied statistics at the HU and did her PhD at Stockholm University. She developed the Israel National Program for Quality Indicators in Community Healthcare, and founded the Israel Longitudinal Mortality Studies. Her research interests include quality of care, health inequalities, the developmental origin of adult disease and methodological issues associated with longitudinal studies. She has received the HU Rector’s award for outstanding faculty member and has been visiting professor in many institutions including Stockholm University and Geneva University Hospital.

INIHPR is a framework for advancing health policy, promoting and funding research on health services, their quality, effectiveness and cost. It has created platforms for public discussion about decision-making processes in the health system encouraging interdisciplinary and international scientific cooperation. It is a distinctive neutral meeting ground where all actors – health management organizations (Kupot Cholim), hospitals, the Ministry of Health and academia – meet and discuss issues about health policy decisions and actions. Prof Manor will explain the role of INIHPR, and will illustrate some of its unique features using Covid19 challenges as examples.

You can view a recording of the event here.

Speaker: Jason Strelitz, Director of Public Health, London Borough of Newham

Jason has worked for Newham Council as Director of Public Health since April 2019. He has worked in public health since 2009, having worked previously in social policy on issues of poverty and social exclusion. His PhD is from the LSE, and he has worked in both government and campaigning organisations. Jason lives in Finchley with his wife Mandy and kids Matti and Tami

In his talk he will:
• tell the story of the Covid 19 pandemic through the lens of one particularly impacted place: the London Borough of Newham
• reflect why and in what ways Newham has been affected – in particular how Covid has shone a spotlight on longstanding social and health inequalities
• consider some of the immediate challenges and the lessons we are trying to learn for the future

You can watch a recording of the event here.