Mellissa Withers1, Jin Ye Yeo2
1University of Southern California, Keck School of Medicine, Los Angeles, CA, USA; 2JPHE Editorial Office, AME Publishing Company
Correspondence to: Jin Ye Yeo. JPHE Editorial Office, AME Publishing Company. Email: jphe@amegroups.com
Expert introduction
Prof. Mellissa Withers (Figure 1) is Associate Professor at the Keck School of Medicine in the Department of Population and Public Health Sciences. She is also Director of the Global Health Program of the Association of Pacific Rim Universities, a non-profit network of 60+ universities in the region. She received a PhD from the Department of Community Health Sciences at the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health with a minor in cultural anthropology. She also earned a Master’s in Health Sciences from the Department of International Health from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and a BA in international development from UC Berkeley. Her research interests include community-based participatory research methods, mental health, gender-based violence, and sexual and reproductive health. Dr Withers is the editor of two books: Global Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health Across the Lifecourse, and Global Health Leadership: Case Studies from the Asia-Pacific. She has published more than 80 scientific articles and serves on the editorial boards of six international global health journals. She also writes a blog on human trafficking titled Modern-Day Slavery for Psychology Today.
Figure 1 Prof. Mellissa Withers
Interview
JPHE: What drove you to pursue public and global health?
Dr. Withers: I was fortunate to be able to travel to low-income developing countries as a child with my family. I often saw women with their children begging in the streets. These travels really left an impression on me. I was saddened to see so much suffering in the world. I questioned why so many of the people living in poverty around the world are women. Is it because women have more children than they can afford because they lack access to birth control? Or, is it because few opportunities for education and a decent job are available to women?
I spent a couple of summers during high school in Guatemala volunteering at an orphanage. Pretty much every day at least one of the babies there died. They were mostly coming from indigenous communities in the highlands during the war and were often very malnourished. After spending time in Guatemala, I became more interested in learning about the long-term US’ involvement in Central America, and how my own country has contributed to the conflicts that have resulted in so much suffering. It inspired me to study global development in my undergraduate program at UC Berkeley, which provided me with more context on why women are disproportionately impacted by poverty. These experiences to witness first-hand what was happening to women around the world really had an impact on me and shaped my interest in a career in global health. Specifically, I knew that I wanted to work on issues relating to women’s empowerment.
JPHE: Having served a decade long as the Director of the Association of Pacific Rim Universities (APRU) Global Health Program and developed various initiatives in global health, could you share some of your proudest achievements or most memorable moments?
Dr. Withers: Leading the APRU Global Health Program over the past ten years has been one of the most rewarding parts about my job. I am truly inspired by the amazing work that is taking place in global health. I have been able to form so many strong connections with colleagues and communities all over the world. Whether it is Thailand, Indonesia, Hong Kong, Japan, Mexico, Ecuador, or other places, I feel like when I go there, I have a family, which is a really amazing feeling.
When I started, about 60 or 70 really committed global health faculty would get together once a year for an APRU Global Health conference and talk about all of the possibilities for collaboration within the network. But then nothing much else happened. I have been so happy to see the growth of the Program to what is now a very large and active network of thousands of people. Participation in our program continues to grow each year and we have developed so many exciting annual initiatives, especially for students. Some examples are our annual Student Global Climate Change Simulation, which brings together about 200 students from 20+ universities each year in a three-day event, and the APRU Mini Certificate in Health Research Ethics, which is a 12-hour training that includes live interactive sessions with students and about 40 volunteer facilitators to discuss real-life case studies in health research in small groups. Each year we have close to 2,000 students who participate in these initiatives — all for free! I am humbled and grateful to the large cohort of faculty in our network who continues to volunteer countless hours year after year to support our work.
JPHE: In this year’s APRU Global Health Conference, with a theme “Harmonizing Human and Planetary Health Through Innovation, AI, and Digital Transformation”, what are some topics of global health challenges and their solutions that we can expect to hear about?
Dr. Withers: I am really looking forward to this year’s conference. This is the first time in 17 years that we are holding this conference in Thailand, so that is exciting. I know that everyone always has a great time visiting Bangkok. The new School of Global Health in the Faculty of Medicine at Chulalongkorn University is hosting this year’s conference and they have put a lot of thought and effort into the conference.
Of course, we will be talking a lot about digital innovation, which is not really my area of expertise. But I am sure that I will learn a lot during those sessions. Through the planetary health angle, we will be hearing about One Health and climate change from a variety of disciplinary perspectives. We have lined up a lot of fantastic speakers from various academic institutions, as well as the Ministry of Health of Thailand, FHI360, UNESCO, the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP), the International Organization for Migration (IOM), the WHO South-East Asia Regional Office (SEARO), the World Bank, and the ASEAN International Commission of Human Rights. Other key themes for the concurrent panel sessions are health systems, mental health, communicable, and non-communicable diseases. I think we expect 300-400 participants this year.
JPHE: Since you also oversee the Annual APRU Global Health Virtual Case Competition, can you share how this case competition helps address global health problems? Have there been instances where solutions proposed by students helped to alleviate global health problems?
Dr. Withers: Our annual case competition is something that I look forward to every year. I think we do a good job in crafting the challenges around complex challenges facing our world today, whether it is emergency preparedness, tobacco use, care for older adults, or physical inactivity, which have all been topics of past competitions. Students form teams and spend about 10-12 weeks delving into the complexities of the issue in order to develop comprehensive solutions, taking into consideration the barriers, the context, and the resources available.
This year’s challenge relates to the use of technological innovations to improve adherence to treatment for type 2 diabetes. We partnered with the UNDP, Chulalongkorn University, and the Diabetes Association of Thailand to develop the challenge. We had a total of 108 teams participate from 31 universities in 14 economies. Our international panel of 33 judges is in the process of selecting the finalists now. I have heard from many of our judges that the quality of the submissions continues to increase each year. I have watched a lot of the videos and I agree that we have a lot of really excellent submissions.
One thing that I love about this competition is the insight that we can gain into young people’s perceptions of global health challenges and their ideas about the most effective ways to solve them. We have actually conducted and published content analyses of the video submissions in several previous competitions because the proposals were creative and well-designed. Our youth bring a lot of interesting perspective and ideas to the table. I think it is really valuable and important for us to include young people in conversations about topics such as mental health, tobacco use, and healthy aging.
JPHE: Moving forward, what goals do you hope to achieve with APRU in the next few years?
Dr. Withers: I would like to continue to expand our network and to bring together researchers, students, and leaders in the global health space to exchange ideas and develop meaningful long-term relationships and networks. I like that we create a forum for researchers from around the region to share their work each year. I would also like us to continue to focus on building capacity in global health research and education because this is one of our key strengths; we have the power to leverage our network of experts on many topics and from many disciplines and economies. And I know that everyone values the work that we are doing as a network because they continue to volunteer their time to help with these initiatives.
JPHE: How has your experience been as the Editor-in-Chief of JPHE?
Dr. Withers: I have been really happy to be involved in the JHPE over the past few years. It has been wonderful to see the development of JHPE from a brand-new journal to a larger, and more recognized journal. It is now officially indexed through several indexing organizations, including the Web of Science and Scopus. It is gaining more traction in the global health and emergency spaces, with high-quality manuscripts from around the world on topics relevant to what is happening around the world today. I am proud to be a part of it.
I very much appreciate the efficiency of the editorial staff, which allows for such a quick submission turnaround time. This allows the latest research to reach readers much faster, which makes the science more relevant and impactful.
As an academic, I also appreciate that the journal does more than most journals to recognize the contributions of our reviewers. I know that reviewers spend hours volunteering their time for this type of work but rarely get any recognition. So, acknowledgement like “reviewer of the month” is something special.
JPHE: As the Editor-in-Chief, what are your expectations for JPHE?
Dr. Withers: I would like to continue to see special editions with guest editors. I always enjoy reading these series. I think the guest editors contribute a lot, bringing in a different perspective and a different network of authors. In the future, I am looking forward to increased growth, more indexing, and even higher rankings at the global level.
Reference
- Samet J, Withers M. The APRU Global Health Program: Past and Future. J Epidemiol. 2016;26(4):166-170.