Home
Two opinion editorials in the New York Times this month, The next contagion: Closer than you think and The next pandemic: Not if, but when, correctly warn us about the potential global spread of these killer diseases. They call for more awareness of the dangers of zoonotic (animal-to-people) diseases, faster identification of animal sources of the pathogens and better vaccines to protect us against them. All of those are indeed needed.
But like much of the mainstream press, neither article mentions the root cause of these emerging infectious diseases, that is, the conditions that make zoonoses likely to arise in the first place and then help turn them into lethal pandemics.
Burness Communications has helped created a new three-minute animated video with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) and RWJF grantee Extending the Cure which tells the story of how antibiotic-resistant “superbug” bacteria have become a serious public health threat that affects everyone.
The Early Detection and Intervention for the Prevention of Psychosis Program (EDIPPP) – a Burness project linked to the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Vulnerable Populations Portfolio – is a promising approach to treat mental illness at its earliest stages. Launched in 2006 with support from the Foundation, EDIPPP has been collecting evidence from six diverse sites around the country on the effects of its early identification and treatment model, which focuses heavily on proactive outreach from people in the community.
Starting this Thursday, the Nonprofit Technology Network’s (NTEN) annual conference kicks off in snowy Minneapolis. Leaving behind the cherry blossoms, Alex Field and Marianna Sachse from our BurnessDigital team will be on the ground with more than 1,500 fellow advocates to uncover the best ideas for using technology to advance the work of nonprofits.
Last month, a prominent annual assessment of health showed just how starkly different life can be county to county, state to state. It demonstrated that your ZIP code can dictate how long and how well you live. But it also shattered the argument that a dental shortage doesn’t exist.
