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More than just a footnote: ‘African authors are under-represented as first authors — positions...
The foreign gaze: Academics from the Global North are more likely to be cited as first authors on papers — and sit on the editorial boards that accept them.
If you were a girl: Men, this is what you need to understand about...
The body swap is an old Hollywood trope: Boy meets girl, boy swaps bodies with girl, boy has an epiphany about love, life and patriarchy. Too bad that in 2019, this kind of empathy is still just the stuff of movies.
Is one of Africa’s most important lakes really shrinking?
Our two-year study shows the lake has been stable since the 1990s. Costly ‘solutions’ shift focus from the complex causes of the region’s deadly crisis.
Bugs, borers & heatwaves: Life and mental health in a hotter Joburg
Joburg may have avoided a total “treepocolypse”, but the city is continuing to battle the invasive beetle killing off its trees. In the war against the shot hole borer, there may be more at stake than just the city’s iconic tree-lined avenues.
The health department responds to Bhekisisa’s HIV testing article: ‘Services are adequate’
Earlier this month we published some of the damning results from a leaked report on the state of HIV testing in South Africa. Here’s the health department's deputy director general for communicable and non-communicable diseases’ response.
Figures & feelings: How trust can help repair a broken health system
More than two decades ago, an unthinkable genocide rocked Rwanda. What happened next could be a study in how to remake a health system from its ashes and why metrics are a mix of evidence — and trust.
Have wheels, will travel: The all-male crews who are taking on sexual violence one...
Floods, fires and war — for decades, first responders have been using this mental health hack to help people after disasters hit. Could it work for survivors of sexual and gender-based violence too?
Global health still mimics colonial ways: here’s how to break the pattern
Why it's time we look within for expertise on how to fix Global South healthcare issues.
The price of aid: Who is watching whom?
When governments fail and health systems falter, aid agencies take over. But who holds them accountable?
‘Not every day is perfect, but it’s a bit better’
Humanitarian assistance doesn’t always work right away. That doesn’t mean we should stop trying.
The power, the purse strings and the National Health Insurance
The National Health Insurance (NHI) Bill proposes significant shifts in who controls our national and provincial health budgets. Will the draft legislation rob provinces of traditional control, or will it open up new, and more effective ways of making sure money goes where it’s needed most? Find out in the first in "Compass," our new series on South Africa's move to the NHI.
What did this former Sars official know about Big Tobacco’s dodgy dealings?
When state capture crippled Sars, Big tobacco made its move. A new book unearths never-before-details about the industry & its Take Back the Tax Campaign.
When violence begets violence: Men, trauma & HIV in South Africa
Young men living in urban informal settlements have experienced a huge amount of violence and trauma in their own lives. This may not come as a surprise to some, but within the HIV research world, it is rarely discussed.
Lead in the blood: The poisoning of a generation
By 1927, Anglo American had obtained a controlling interest in a decades’ old lead mine north of Lusaka. Today, the mine may be closed, but its legacy lives on in the tiny bodies of the children that grow up in its shadow and who carry traces of its ore in their blood. Their poisoning is just the latest in a cycle that will leave lasting intellectual and physical burdens on them and their children for generations to come.
Will the National Health Insurance Bill go far enough to prevent corruption?
The National Health Insurance Bill was released on 8 August but a look at how well our mothers – and our finances – do in the public health sector does not bode well. Uncover the figures and the power structures that will shape the future of healthcare in South Africa.
Pathologies of pleasure: What they don’t teach you in medical school
Tlaleng Mofokeng is a doctor, writer, radio and TV presenter as well as an internationally-renowned health activist. She’s made it her life work to educate people on sexual and reproductive health and rights and her first book is a primer on everything from anal sex to intersectionality.Read why medical school never prepared her for becoming ‘the sex doctor’ in this excerpt from her newly released first book, “Dr T: A Guide to Sexual Health and Pleasure.”