Organ Trafficking & Transplant Tourism

A subset of human trafficking, organ trafficking and transplant tourism are significant concerns around the globe. And while they’re not discussed to the same extent as sexual exploitation and forced child labor, quite a bit’s available on the subject. It initially caught my eye when I noticed Harvard’s Initiative to Stop Human Trafficking had an archived webcast available on their site addressing the issue. You can link to it, along with podcasts, articles, and other resources after the jump.

Best Practices to Combat Human Trafficking

No wrap-up at the sustainability site today (the blog was quiet while I was on the road). Instead, a new offering from the Government Innovator’s Network and the Initiative to Stop Human Trafficking: Best Practices to Combat Human Trafficking–Forced Labor. It will be held November 16th from 10 AM-12 PM (bummer for any of you west of the Mountain time zone). This webinar will focus on the best practices to combat one of the most invisible forms of human trafficking. The discussion will be moderated by E. Benjamin Skinner, Fellow, Carr Center for Human Rights Policy, Harvard Kennedy School and author of A Crime So Monstrous: Face-to-Face with Modern-Day Slavery. If you can’t attend, these guys are usually pretty good about archiving their sessions, so it should be accessible after the fact.

I’m knocking off early and heading to Savannah, GA for some mandatory fun (family-style). Hope you have a good weekend in store, as well.

A Call to Men

Prevention Connection‘s latest newsletter is pretty fantastic. It includes audio recordings from the 4th Annual A Call to Men conference (PDF), held last spring in NYC. If you’re not familiar with the project, A Call to Men “challenges men to reconsider their long held beliefs about women, in an effort to create a more just society. We achieve this by encouraging change in the behaviors of men through a re-education and training process that challenges sexism.”

Human Trafficking

UPDATE: The Family Justice Center Alliance is hosting a webinar on human trafficking Thursday, November 5th, from 9-10am, Pacific. Participation is free, but registration is required. Kay Buck from CAST will be the featured speaker.

You can view content from previous FJCA webinars here.

Preventing Violence

The Prevention Institute has created a new resource on their website: Preventing Violence: Quick Links. It’s a “web-based compilation of practical, solution-oriented resources for communities working to prevent violence before it occurs“. You’ll find some great tools for community-wide planning and engagement. Best of all, if this is an area of interest for you, you can sign up for email alerts, so that you’re informed as additional resources are added to the page.

Digital Safety: Cyberstalking

I love when readers (especially readers abroad) send me links I never would have run across otherwise: this summer in London, the UK hosted their inaugural digital safety conference, which “brought together thought leaders, policy makers, legal professionals, law enforcement agencies, government representatives, educators, industry leaders and those committed to protecting civil liberties to consider the health, reputation and environment of the digital world”.

Engaging Men

An interesting coincidence (if you believe in those sorts of things) happened yesterday. I received an email from a reader asking about resources to engage men in ending violence against women; and I checked my Facebook page last night and saw that EVAW had posted some info about one of Canada’s latest campaigns to engage men in ending violence, It Starts With You. So I’ve taken that as a sign from the Internet gods, and am doing a post today on the topic. It’s in no means comprehensive (in fact, consider it more of a jumping off point)–if you have more to add, please do so in the comments section so readers around the globe can benefit from our collective knowledge. My resources are, for the most part, US and Canadian. I would love (love, love) to hear about campaigns in other countries, as well.

Disaster Medicine Series

ReachMD, available online and at XM Satellite Radio, has a huge feature this month on disaster medicine. There are more than 60 podcasts, all from within the past year (and many from this month) linked on their page right now. You can download several at a time and listen to them while you’re plodding through administrative tasks, or select one, like Ethical Issues Arising in Natural Disasters, and host a staff discussion around it. There’s a lot that’s conversation-worthy.

Trafficking in Persons

I don’t know how many of you read the Sunday NY Times, but this past weekend the Magazine ran a special series: Saving the World’s Women. There were a few articles that were particularly interesting, including The Women’s Crusade and an interview with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Not surprisingly, trafficking and gender-based violence were discussed repeatedly.

The (Economic) Cost of Violence

Everything can be looked at in economic terms, including violence. It’s important info to have at your disposal, because it can strengthen a grant proposal or negotiations with your healthcare system for an FTE or program. Enough’s been written on the subject that I figured it would be good to review the literature. I’ve chosen to focus mainly on the costs of violence against women. I’ll probably do a posting some day on youth violence, or gun violence, etc. Unless otherwise indicated, everything listed is full text (if it wasn’t available free online, you’ll have a link to free abstracts). I’m organizing these by pub date, with most recent at the beginning:

Cultural Competency & Disaster Response

The Department of Health & Human Services’ Office of Minority Health has a new curriculum available: Cultural Competency for Disaster Preparedness & Crisis Response. The curriculum consists of 4 courses that “are designed to equip disaster and crisis volunteers and personnel with the awareness, knowledge, and skills needed to provide culturally and linguistically appropriate services to diverse communities during all phases of disaster. The curriculum is grounded in the Office of Minority Health’s CLAS Standards, which are grouped into three themes: Culturally Competent Care, Language Access Services, and Organizational Supports.”

Articles of Note: July Edition

Time once again for a run down of some of the new and noteworthy articles in the current literature. Most of these are from the June/July/August issues. As always, please keep in mind this in no way a comprehensive list; simply items that have caught my attention from a selection of peer-reviewed journals. Most links lead to PubMed abstracts (except for one, which goes to Ingenta); from there you can choose what’s worth a.) paying for; b.) a pilgrimage to your nearest medical library;  or c.) downloading via the full-text access you possibly have at your disposal.

Just a warning: it’s a lengthy list this month. There’s all kinds of good stuff being published right now…

Sexual Assault on College Campuses

The Ash Institute at Harvard’s Kennedy School has an amazing series of “expert chats” with topics near and dear to my heart. One of the archived chats is Sexual Assault on College Campuses, and it features some incredibly knowledgeable speakers, including Dr. David Lisak and Marnie Shiels from the Office on Violence Against Women. You must register with the site to access the archived materials, which is free.

Bioterrorism & Emerging Disease Preparedness

Rutgers College of Nursing has 8 online courses on bioterrorism and emerging disease preparedness. They all carry contact hours and range from $10-$70 depending on the number of hours you earn (looks like it’s roughly $10 per CE, give or take a few bucks).

Children Exposed to Domestic Violence

The International Society for the Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect is hosting a Virtual Issues Discussion (VID), beginning June 15th through the 22nd. The discussion will specifically be on Approaches to Children Exposed to Domestic Violence. Advanced registration is required. You can see a list of presenters and access supplemental materials here.