Our First 1000

In public health terms, 1000 isn’t a big number. There are 7.6 billion people in the world. $4.3 billion in the last WHO biennium budget. Some 37 trillion cells in your body...

So, 1000 may not seem that big, but it is to us. At least today.

If you read all the way to the end of the Global Health NOW email, you’ve noticed the tiny issue number we update with every issue. On January 2, 2014, that number was 1.

On January 4, 2018, we hit 1000.

Global Health NOW (originally called Global Health eNews) began as an email to the folks in the Office of External Affairs here at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. It caught on. We then offered it to faculty and students, and then alumni. And then we opened it up to everyone interested in US and global public health. We’re thrilled that tens of thousands of people have subscribed and make it a valued part of their daily commute, their morning coffee, their after-lunch read, etc.

Over our 1,000-issue history, we’ve included stories on Ebola, Zika, refugees, opioids, road traffic injuries, countless infectious and chronic diseases—an extended survey of the threats to human health and how humans fight back. And we’ve offered original articles that you’ll find nowhere else, including coverage from the UN General Assembly and the World Health Assembly. Our Untold Stories series has covered mycetoma, the paralytic disease konzo and the tragedy of burns in developing countries. Those stories and other exclusives we publish seek to bring attention and action to issues the world needs to care about.

We’ve also tried at least once a week to inject a smile or two into the most serious issues in the world. Our Friday Diversion (Fri-Div in our lingo) offers just that—a momentary diversion from the troubles that weigh on our minds.

Most important, of course, is you, our loyal readers. We keep you in mind every day as we try to deliver the essential news and views in US and global public health. To make sure we deliver on that promise, we’ve worked closely with friends at the Consortium of Universities for Global Health, the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, NPR’s Goats and Soda blog and many others.

None of this would be possible without the team members who make this happen, including Annalies Winny, Jackie Frank, Melissa Hartman, Nick Moran, Marisa Russell and Waruguru Wanjau. And, of course, Dayna Kerecman Myers, the real power behind Global Health NOW. She is the one who finds the critical stories and shapes GHN every day.

Through our first 1000 issues, we’ve grown from a plain email to a more visually striking enewsletter, a robust website and ventures into social media via Facebook and Twitter. We’ve also launched Global Health NOW live events. The first took place on Nov 30 in Washington D.C. We look forward to more of these (let us know if you’re interested in working with us on one in your city!) and what we might accomplish next.

That’s enough of my reflection on our first 1000 issues. I’m eager to see what’s in our next 1000. I hope you are, too.

See How Much We've Grown: GHN Timeline & Development 

Have you been with us since our very first newsletter? See how our look has evolved, from our very first enewsletter in January 2014, to our first website, to our current enewsletter and website.

Here are a few highlights:

Untold Stories of Global Health Contest

(In partnership with NPR's Goats and Soda and the Consortium of Universities for Global Health)

• Blazing Injustice: The Hidden Crisis of Burn Injuries (2017)
• Bitter Harvest: Cassava and Konzo, the Crippling Disease (2016)
• Mycetoma: The Most Neglected Disease (2015)

Global Health NOW's First Live Event 

• Adapt: The Climate Has Changed (November 30, 2017)

Global Health NOW's First Video Interview

• Reducing Gun Violence in the US (November 16, 2017)

Coverage of Major Global Health Fora:

• Global Health NOW at the World Health Assembly 2017
• Global Health NOW at the Bloomberg Global Business Forum 2017: Globalization's Challenges and Opportunities

• Help Us Expand GHN's International Reach

We still have more big plans ahead, but to keep providing and expanding this service, we need to ask you a favor. Do you know anyone who cares about global health in Papua New Guinea? Tajikstan? Paraguay? If all of our subscribers shared our subscribe page with at least one friend our colleague overseas, we'd be well on our way to reaching our goal of bringing the most important global health news to people across the globe. We'll be launching a special push this January to engage with new readers around the world. To thank you for your help, you could even win some special GHN swag. Stay tuned for details, coming soon!