Public health and life in deserts and drylands

Maya is a PhD student in the Environmental Studies track at the Blaustein Institutes for Desert Research. Her research focuses on environmental health and multiculturalism. She is currently developing a model for multicultural public participation in health impact assessment, in the case study of planning land use in the vicinity of Ramat Hovav, the national hazardous industry and hazardous waste site. Maya is a doctoral fellow of the Environment and Health Fund.

Nadav Davidovitch, MD, MPH, PhD, is a senior lecturer at the Department of Health Systems Management, Division of Public Health, Faculty of Health Sciences, Ben Gurion University, Israel and is Chair of the Center for Health Policy Research in the Negev. His current research deals with public health policy, health disparities, environmental health policy, vaccination policy, and the relation between conventional and unconventional medicine.

Jonathan Patz, MD, MPH, is a Professor and Director of Global Environmental Health at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. He Co-chaired the health expert panel of the US National Assessment on Climate Change and was a Convening Lead Author for the United Nations/World Bank Millennium Ecosystem Assessment. For the past 15 years, Dr. Patz has been a lead author for the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (or IPCC) - the organization that shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with Al Gore. He is President of the International Association for Ecology and Health and co-editor of the association's journal EcoHealth. He has written over 90 peer-reviewed papers and a textbook addressing the health effects of global environmental change. He has been invited to brief both houses of Congress, served on several scientific committees of the National Academy of Sciences, and currently serves on science advisory boards for both CDC and EPA. In addition to his sharing in the 2007 Nobel Prize, Dr. Patz received an Aldo Leopold Leadership Fellows Award in 2005, shared the Zayed International Prize for the Environment in 2006, and earned the distinction of becoming a UW-Madison Romnes Faculty Fellow in 2009. He has earned medical board certification in both Occupational/Environmental Medicine and Family Medicine and received his medical degree from Case Western Reserve University (1987) and his Master of Public Health degree (1992) from Johns Hopkins University.

Andrew completed his PhD at the University of Western Australia in 2007. This research collated, analyzed and interpreted a broad range epidemiological, entomological and environmental data and demonstrated that dryland salinity caused by the broad scale removal of native vegetation for agriculture was strongly associated with the presence of the main salt tolerant vector of Ross River virus in southern Australia, suggesting that this risk of disease emergence may be elevated in affected regions. He then completed a Master of Applied Epidemiology at the Australian National University in 2009 and is now an adjunct lecturer at the University of Queensland. His research interests include ecosystem health and mosquito-borne disease ecology.

Colin MacDougall is Associate Professor of Public Health in the School of Medicine at Flinders University and an Executive member of the Southgate Institute for Health, Society and Equity at Flinders University. From 2005 to 2008 he was Deputy Head (Research) in the Department of Public Health and an Executive member on the Health and Society Research Focus at Flinders. He coordinates the Doctor of Public Health, and the Theme of Doctor, the Profession and Society in all four years of the Graduate Entry Medical Program in SA and the Northern Territory. He is Principal Fellow (Honorary) at the McCaughey Centre in the Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health Sciences at the University of Melbourne, where he works mainly with the Jack Brockhoff Child Health and Wellbeing Program conducting participatory research with children. He holds a joint honors degree in psychology and sociology and a Master of Arts by research in child psychology. Before his appointment to Flinders in 1990 he worked as a psychologist, manager then tertiary lecturer focusing on children, adolescents and families in Adelaide and in rural and remote South Australia and in health planning and policy development as Chief Planning Officer in the then South Australian Health Commission. Colin has held extensive research grants and consultancies and published on policy, physical activity, qualitative research methodology, intersectoral action, community participation and the sociology of childhood. He has co-edited two books for Oxford University Press: one on health promotion and one on understanding the determinants of health, and has co-edited a special issue of an early childhood journal. Currently, he is involved in research on location and health; bushfires and community recovery; farmers, climate change and resilience and the relationship between child development, health and wellbeing and control over the environment.

Marianna Leite is an International Human Rights L.L.M. graduate from Cornell Law School and a fellow at the International Gender Studies at Oxford University. Her current research interest is the impact of Latin American policies on women's access to basic reproductive health services and women's reproductive rights. The project aims to raise awareness and promote government's accountability in order to advance sexual and reproductive health and human rights in Brazil. The research involves monitoring and analysing public health projects in terms of women's human rights, and takes into account access to basic recources such as water and trends in migration and religious beliefs.

Dawit Seyum Buda is a graduate of Development Studies (MA) from Addis Ababa University. He did his undergraduate studies in Sociology and Social Administration (BA) and Geography (Diploma) with distinction. Currently, he is a Senior Programs Development Coordinator of African Medical Research Foundation (AMREF) - Ethiopia Programme, a leading health development NGO in Africa. Dawit has extensive research experience in pastoralist researches including environment, resource management, health development and conflict management. He has published many articles on themes related to Malaria, role of Traditional Birth attendants in resource poor settings, Dynamics of Female Genital Cutting, water and sanitation and HIVAIDS care and support. He has published a book on pastoralist resource management and conflict transformation and contributed chapters for another book under publication on pastoralist land tenure and administration. His current research interest is explaining the underlying policy and practice issues contributing for production systems based health development disparities within rural societies.