Wastewater and public health in the rural South

Hospitals across the United States are trying, in systematic ways, to reduce the risk of infection and other preventable dangers that can leave patients in worse shape after their stay. Some of the approaches include limiting entrances and exits during surgeries and administering antibiotics in a timely manner.

In many poor countries, counterfeit medicines are an enormous problem. A quarter-million malaria deaths each year might be prevented if the patients were treated with real drugs instead of fake ones.

Malaria vaccine distribution systems in Africa's Sahel region are facing bottleneck in their supply chains, but are working to get help from the government and to piggyback on other aid systems.

An app that uses A.I. to scans lung X-rays is helping two hospitals in rural and remote parts of India to identify cases of tuberculosis that they otherwise would have been likely to misdiagnose. Medical professionals caution that the app is not a replacement for a clinician's diagnosis but say when used in conjunction with a clinical assessment, the interpretation of a chest X-ray is likely to be more accurate.

The South African Centre for Infectious Disease Surveillance is piloting a program to use smartphone technology to report and respond to infectious disease outbreaks. The program trains community members to recognize signs of infectious diseases, such as vomiting and diarrhea, and report them through their smartphones. These reports are relayed to a team of specialists who track the location and frequency of these reports to determine if an outbreak of disease is occurring and respond accordingly.

On World Toilet Day in 2014, the Kenyan government promised to build 180 public toilets in an ambitious move to combat the issue of public sanitation. The program went well once the keys were handed off to the National Youth Service of Kenya as a means of income, but issues quickly arose that could not be resolved because of a lack of further funds. The youth has since transformed their toilets into a rental space for local churches, such as Christ Miracle Church for All Nations in Laini Saba.

Amager Bakke is a powerplant in Copenhagen that is designed to get residents of the city engaged in a conversation about where waste goes, all while burning up to 400,000 tons of waste a year, powering 60,000 homes, and heating 160,000 homes. In 2013 the local plant was redesigned to burn the city's waste and encourage interaction by building a ski slope atop the plant, a hiking trail, and an elevator that introduces education about waste management. Amager Bakke is still new and experimental, so its long-term success is still unclear, and it is not completely emission-free yet.

The coronavirus pandemic swept the nation at a time when many would be going to polling stations to cast their votes in primary elections, but vote-at-home practices are providing a solution for this civic inconvenience. Oregon, Washington, Colorado, and now Utah have all implemented statewide all-mail election campaigns that not only improve voter turnout, but also cost less to taxpayers than only relying on in-person polling booths.

In 2020, a devastating explosion in Beirut that came from a warehouse released 800,000 and one million tons of construction and demolition waste and 20,000 tons of shattered glass into the city. The waste was being thrown into landfills. However, landfills are notoriously bad for the environment. Out of that rubble an idea was created; disposing waste sustainably. Rubble Mountains was created specifically to do this. They've been able to restore four quarries, use materials to create public amenities, and diverting up to 50 tons of demolition waste from landfills.

Teams of Community Direct Distributors (CDD) are leading drug distribution campaigns to prevent and eliminate neglected tropical diseases in hard-to-reach, rural areas. These CDDs are members of the community they serve and are trained to educate the locals on disease prevention and administer the drugs themselves. With the CDDs’ help, several states have already eliminated some diseases and greatly reduced the spread of others.