Melissa Slogan – Duke Global Health Innovation Center

30Oct 2025 by Melissa Slogan

October 2025 Monthly Roundup

News

In This Edition: October 2025 Newsletter This month's newsletter highlights our work strengthening health systems across Latin America, introduces a major new consortium advancing country-led health innovation, and celebrates innovators driving healthcare access worldwide. Key highlights include: Strengthening Health Systems in Latin America – Our new report analyzes health budgeting practices across 8 countries with actionable recommendations for policymakers, plus insights from a recent roundtable with FIFARMA and the Atlantic Council Introducing The ALIGN Consortium – A groundbreaking partnership led by Duke GHIC with partners in Kenya, Senegal, and South Africa to strengthen the decision-making systems that determine how health innovations are prioritized and introduced in countries Events Spotlight – Upcoming appearances at Rice360's Innovation for Healthcare Access Conference and North Star Alliance's Regional Conference, plus recaps from recent discussions…

30Oct 2025 by Melissa Slogan

Analysis of Health Budget Practices in 8 Latin American countries: Current Practices, Systemic Challenges, and the Road Ahead for Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Mexico, and Peru

Our Reports

Our report, funded by FIFARMA, analyzes how health resources are planned, prioritized, allocated, and managed in eight Latin American countries: Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Mexico, and Peru. Its purpose is to understand the processes of health budget allocation and execution, identify the gaps between population health needs and available resources, and provide concrete recommendations for policymakers and health system stakeholders to strengthen efficiency and equity in health budget management. Read the full report.

29Oct 2025 by Melissa Slogan

Introducing The ALIGN Consortium

News

New Initiative Introducing The ALIGN Consortium Advancing Country-Led Innovation Introduction through Government Engagement and EvideNce [caption id="attachment_6422" align="aligncenter" width="640"] Members of the ALIGN Consortium Executive Committee strategize on effective, efficient innovation introduction. Photo taken on August 19th, 2025, Nairobi Kenya.[/caption] The ALIGN Consortium aims to improve health outcomes by strengthening the critical decision-making systems that determine how health product innovations are prioritized and introduced in countries, to make those systems more effective and efficient. Our goal is to create more accountable, resilient health systems that deliver better health outcomes faster for all, and to generate insights, tools, and resources that can be used by stakeholders around the world. The Challenge Despite robust innovation pipelines, promising health technologies often fail to reach low- and middle-income countries quickly, equitably, or sustainably. The median time from…

20Oct 2025 by Melissa Slogan

Food for Trust: What nutrition teaches us about building trust in health

Blog

Food and nutrition are among the most personal—and most public—parts of our lives. They connect us to family, culture, identity, and values as well as health. They also reveal how health advice travels: through science, through policy, and through the messengers and media to which we choose to listen and learn. At Food for Trust: Nutrition Guidance, Influence, and Lessons on Trust in Health, part of Duke Global Health Institute’s Think Global series, panelists explored how nutrition guidance is made, communicated, and followed. Organized by the Duke Global Health Innovation Center and moderated by the Center’s Heather Lanthorn, the event (you can watch the video here!) tied directly to Healthier Together—an initiative jointly incubated by Duke, Your Local Epidemiologist, and COVID Collaborative—building infrastructure for the next generation of grassroots, trustworthy…

25Aug 2025 by Melissa Slogan

Students Aid Rural Pamlico County in Improving Health Access

Blog

Now in its fourth year, DGHI’s summer student research project may offer a template for counties facing challenges in providing health services to rural residents. [caption id="attachment_6376" align="aligncenter" width="690"] From left: DGHI professor Diana Silimperi, Duke undergrads Tanya Sachdev and Sophie Li, and Yolanda Cristiani, executive director at Hope Clinic, which provides free care for uninsured people in Pamlico County.[/caption] By Mary-Russell Roberson; This post originally appeared on the Duke Global Health Institute’s website on August 25, 2025. View the original here: https://duke.is/r/8u2y. This summer, Duke sophomore Tanya Sachdev was paddling in a dragon boat in Oriental, North Carolina, when someone on the boat began to experience stroke symptoms. The group paddled to shore and waited for EMS, who took the patient to the nearest hospital – 45 minutes away…

30Jun 2025 by Melissa Slogan

June 2025 Monthly Roundup

News

The “Monthly Roundup” is a monthly newsletter dedicated to sharing the latest news from the Duke Global Health Innovation Center and Innovations in Healthcare. View the June 2025 newsletter. Subscribe to the monthly newsletter.

27Jun 2025 by Melissa Slogan

Mpox Transparency and Accountability for the Global Response

News

Welcome to the sixteenth issue of our report, “Mpox: Transparency and Accountability for the Global Response.”In the wake of the U.S. health agencies’ communications and foreign aid freezes, we hope to serve as a resource for transparency on emerging outbreaks globally while continuing to provide in-depth analysis of the mpox response. We will provide brief updates on emerging outbreaks with the state of available medical countermeasures and diagnostics needed to effectively respond. Highlights: Over 50% of pledged doses have been delivered to 11 countries, with reports of high vaccine acceptance in the 7 countries vaccinating: Nearly 3 million doses of mpox vaccines have been delivered across the DRC, Uganda, Sierra Leone, Angola, Rwanda, Nigeria, Cote d’Ivoire, the Central African Republic, Liberia, Kenya, and South Africa. Seven of these countries (DRC,…

30May 2025 by Melissa Slogan

Mpox Transparency and Accountability for the Global Response

Our Reports

Welcome to the fifteenth issue of our report, “Mpox: Transparency and Accountability for the Global Response.” In the wake of the U.S. health agencies’ communications and foreign aid freezes, we hope to serve as a resource for transparency on emerging outbreaks globally while continuing to provide in-depth analysis of the mpox response. We will provide brief updates on emerging outbreaks with the state of available medical countermeasures and diagnostics needed to effectively respond. Highlights: Clade II mpox continues to spread in West Africa challenging the response to adapt to different transmission dynamics: Sierra Leone continues to report a significant growth in the number of new cases over the last three weeks. In the last week, the number of newly notified cases increased 18% (723 vs. 611) and the number of newly…

19May 2025 by Melissa Slogan

Trust Matters Newsletter: May 2025 Edition

News

Welcome to May's edition of Trust Matters, your go-to resource for strengthening trust in health. This issue spotlights the publics’ trust in health information and vaccine safety, the ways in which the U.S. measles surge is a sign of public health’s trust issues, how ordinary citizens can shape health policy, and verified practices to counter disinformation. 🔹 Key Takeaways Trust Crisis in Public Health: Recent KFF polling shows less than half of the public express confidence in government health agencies Evidence Remains Clear: Johns Hopkins researchers reaffirm there is no scientific link between vaccines and autism, highlighting the persistence of this misinformation despite overwhelming scientific consensus Physician Communication Gap: Healthcare providers need new approaches as traditional medical authority no longer automatically translates to patient trust Global Disinformation Response: Several countries are developing specialized agencies and…

15May 2025 by Melissa Slogan

Mpox Transparency and Accountability for the Global Response

Our Reports

Welcome to the fourteenth issue of our report, “Mpox: Transparency and Accountability for the Global Response.” In the wake of the U.S. health agencies’ communications and foreign aid freezes, we hope to serve as a resource for transparency on emerging outbreaks globally while continuing to provide in-depth analysis of the mpox response. We will provide brief updates on emerging outbreaks with the state of available medical countermeasures and diagnostics needed to effectively respond. Sierra Leone experiences an exponential growth in new mpox cases; Steady decline in mpox cases in previously high-burden countries: Sierra Leone is reporting a surge in clade II mpox cases with over 100 new confirmed cases per day, with hot spots in the Western Area (urban and rural) including the capital of Freetown. There has been high severity…