Congratulations to the Winners of the 2025 Untold Global Health Stories Contest!

The Consortium of Universities for Global Health (CUGH) and Global Health NOW from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health are pleased to announce the winners of the 2025 Untold Stories of Global Health Contest, designed to give a platform to important but underreported global health stories. CUGH and GHN share the goal of raising awareness about health issues around the world, and we would like to thank the many global health scholars and advocates around the world who submitted thoughtful entries. This year's entries were particularly strong, and we had a difficult time narrowing it down to the winners listed below. 

We're working to send journalists to cover as many of these stories as possible. As the stories are published, we'll add links to the finished articles in Global Health NOW below.

Grand Prize Winners

The Hidden Crisis of Unsafe Abortions in Tanzania, nominated by Doreen Smart, University of Dar-es-Salaam, United Republic of Tanzania

Latinas Seeking Cancer Care in California’s Central Valley, nominated by Katherine Quibell, medical student, Western University of Health Sciences COMP, Pomona, California

Honorable Mentions

Hazards faced by firecracker workers in Sivakasi, India, nominated by Padmavathy Krishna Kumar, Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health, New York, New York, U.S. 

• Part I: ‘Invisible Suffering’: Deadly Risks in India’s Fireworks Factories, by Kamala Thiagarajan, a freelance journalist based in Madurai, Southern India

Pemba: Where oral health is silently ignored, nominated by Sante Leandro Baldi, research fellow, University of Milan, Milano, Italy

Child substance use among the Qom/Toba of northern Argentina, nominated by Christina Pantzer, RN, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut

Unmet Palliative Care: A Global Health Crisis in Compassion, nominated byChristian Ntizimira, executive director, African Center for Research on End of life Care, Kigali, Rwanda

Illegal alluvial gold mining in Ghana, nominated by Roselyn Davour, PhD student, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida, U.S.

Hikikomori in Japan, nominated by Nina Chereath, BA, Global Health Institute Fellow, Georgetown University Walsh School of Foreign Service, Washington, D.C., U.S

The mental health of LGBTQ+ individuals in Caribbean countries, nominated by Anuysha Maharaj, BSc, MD, MPH, St. George’s University, St. George, Grenada 

Victory in Zambia Making Dental Amalgam-Free Country, nominated by Michael Musenga, Environmental Health Practitioner Children's Environmental Health Foundation, Livingstone, Zambia 

Agism in Egypt, nominated by Tayser Fahmei, MD, director of University International Cooperation Office , Borg Al Arab Technological University, Alexandria, Egypt 

Infection Prevention and Control (IPC) practices in healthcare settings in Pakistan, nominated by Alice Baratelli, dott.ssa, research fellow, Dipartimento di Scienze Biomediche e Cliniche, University of Milan, Lombardia, Italy 

Previous Winners

GHN and CUGH began collaborating on the Untold Stories Contest in 2015; from 2016-2020, NPR’s Goats and Soda blog joined our effort to lift up underreported stories around the world. Here’s a snapshot of all of our winning nominees so far:

2024: 

Grand prize winners: Missing limbs, missing voices: The Forgotten Amputees of Solomon Islands, submitted by Dylan Bush and  The other mental hospital: experiences of people living with severe mental illness in drug rehabilitation ‘annexes’ in Chiapas, Mexico, submitted by Miguel Angel, Dominguez Hernandez General Practitioner, Compañeros en Salud - Partners in Health Mexico. 

Honorable mention winners: 

• Drowning Prevention in Uganda, Where Drowning Deaths Are Amongst the Highest in the World, nominated by Kyra Guy, PhD Candidate, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California 
  The Push to Prevent Drownings in Uganda, by Esther Nakkazi, a science journalist based in Uganda.

2023: Grand prize winners:  The devastating health effects of landmines in Zimbabwe, nominated by Misja Ilcisin and Chronic Mountain Sickness: A forgotten disease of the Andean Highlands, submitted by Dulce Alarcón-Yaquetto. 

Honorable mention winners: 

• Hospital Detention in Nigeria, nominated by Beverly Anaele, Thomas Jefferson University, Upper Marlboro, MD, U.S.
  In Nigeria, Hospitals Are Unlawfully Detaining Newborns to Force Payment of Medical Bills by Abiodun Jamiu

• Surgical Care in Western Tanzania Refugee Camps, nominated by Alexander Blum, MD, MPH, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, U.S.
  Socialized for Scarcity: Surgical Care in Tanzania’s Remote Refugee Camps (commentary) by Alexander Blum and Zachary Obinna Enumah

• Decolonize Global Health Fellowships, nominated by Rebecca Fujimura, MD, Contra Costa/ University of California San Francisco
  Fortify the Frontlines with Fellowships for LMIC Docs (commentary) by Rebecca Fujimura, Arlene Mugisha, and Joelle Bukeneza

• Most Neglected NTD: Cryptosporidium, nominated by Wes Van Voorhis, professor, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, U.S.
  The Most Neglected NTD: Cryptosporidiosis (commentary) by Timothy A. Rapuano, MS, Nede A. Ovbiebo, Allison M.L. Crawford, MSc, Beatrice Amadi, MD, and Wesley C. Van Voorhis, MD, PhD.

 2022: Grand prize winner:  The risks to adolescent girls in Kenya and the denial of rights-based, factual, and culturally appropriate information about their reproductive health, nominated by Roopal Thaker.

Honorable mention winners:  

• The Unfinished Story of Red Palm Oil as a Source of Vitamin A and Women’s Income in West Africa, nominated by Hélène Delisle, professor emeritus, a University of Montréal, Canada 
  Delicious and Nutritious: The Unrealized Potential of Red Palm Oil by Abiodun Jamiu

2020: The need for evidence-based protocols for the treatment of stroke in low- and middle-income countries, nominated by Mariet Benade (Global Health NOW’s winner) and Aging with HIV in Kenya, nominated by Eunice Kilonzo (NPR’s Goats and Soda’s winner)

2019: Improving autism diagnosis in Turkey, nominated by Hikmet Ceyhun Göcenoğlu (Global Health NOW’s winner) and the impact of light on the quality of care that health workers deliver, nominated by Beth Ann Eanelli (NPR’s Goats and Soda’s winner)

2018: Hemophilia in developing countries, nominated by Chris Bombardier (Global Health NOW’s winner) and the recruitment of children in Colombia for cocaine production, proposed by Athena Madan (NPR’s Goats and Soda’s winner)

2017: The hidden crisis of burns in Nepal, nominated by Emaline Laney, (Global Health NOW’s winner) and deafness in developing countries, proposed by Christi Batamula and Matthew Yau  (NPR’s Goats and Soda’s winner)

2016: The paralytic disease konzo, submitted by Desire Tshala-Katumbay (Global Health NOW’s winner), and infection-related cancers in the developing world, nominated by Susan Keown (NPR’s Goats and Soda’s winner)

2015: The chronic inflammatory disease mycetoma, nominated by University of Toronto students Annie Liang and Simran Dhunna (Global Health NOW winner)

About the Sponsors

The Consortium of Universities for Global Health (CUGH) builds interdisciplinary collaborations and facilitates the sharing of knowledge to address global health challenges. It assists members in sharing their expertise across education, research, and service. It is dedicated to creating equity and reducing health disparities everywhere. CUGH promotes mutually beneficial, long-term partnerships between universities in resource-rich and resource-poor countries, developing human capital and strengthening institutions' capabilities to address these challenges. It is committed to translating knowledge into action.

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