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Headlines
Flora Family Foundation Supports Efforts to Improve Health Across the World.
Despite the remarkable advances in medicine during the last half century, more than 25,000 children die each day, many for want of medicine or treatment that costs pennies. A short list of infectious diseases treatable with inexpensive generic drugs accounts for 70 to 90 percent of all childhood illness and death in the developing world. Current distribution systems suffer from weak supply, a lack of rigorous quality control and unaffordable pricing. In many settings, 50 percent of drugs are substandard or counterfeit.
Those with the greatest need for basic health care often face the greatest barriers to access. In Malawi, for example, there is one doctor for every 50,000 people. In the United States, there is one doctor for every 390 people – yet over 45 million Americans are uninsured and even more are “under-insured”. Additional hardships surround the provision of mental health services. Mental health problems are often stigmatized in American culture, while psychosocial services scarcely exist for populations in post-conflict regions of the developing world or areas struck by natural catastrophes. This is a particularly underfunded area.
The grantees funded through this year’s Annual Theme grants program in health are diverse; they span six countries and approach health care delivery with distinctive lenses. They range from offering short-term care in a region facing an acute problem, to reforming entire systems for health care delivery. For example, Catholic Relief Services works to deliver services amidst acute trauma in the Middle East. VillageReach is working in Mozambique with the Ministry of Health over the next five years to supply vaccines throughout the nation. The South Sudan Psychosocial Program was established to become the long-term provider of mental health services to victims of the Sudanese civil war The HealthStore Foundation and Living Goods promote franchise models to standardize the delivery of high quality medicines at low cost in African countries. Finally, Remote Area Medical offers care to thousands of Americans who, despite living in one of the world’s richest countries, are chronically underserved by the nation’s health care system.
Annual Theme grants are dedicated each year to a single topic as determined by the Board. Annual Theme grants are by invitation. A list of the 2008 Annual Theme grants in health may be found here.
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